Easy New Year’s Resolutions For Your Home
Resolutions suck. Right? I mean, we always say we’re going to exercise and then we don’t. Or we do for like a week and a half. So this year I wanted to focus on some really easy things we all can do to make our homes a little easier to live in, not anything that’s going to drastically change our lifestyle or take a ton of time out of our day. It’s more of a mindset… “I *will* say no to clutter this year!” So here’s five things around the house that I want to work on this year and that maybe will inspire you to make some small changes, as well.
1. Go to bed with clean sinks. I got this idea from The Inspired Room and I love it. I really want to start making this a habit, because it certainly isn’t now. There’s nothing grosser and more depressing than washing your teeth in the morning while trying not to make eye contact with an old glob of toothpaste stuck to the side of the sink, or waking up to a big pile of dirty dishes in the kitchen sink. If you make sure that the bathroom and kitchen sinks are clean every night before bed, you’re going to start the day feeling a little bit better about facing the world. Even if the rest of your house is a mess, at least you have clean sinks!
2. Stash receipts. My purse is always full of receipts. I shove them in there and they scrunch up at the bottom of my purse until there’s so many they start spilling out, at which point I dump them all out on the kitchen counter and vow to look at them later. Then of course when I need one, it’s a mad scramble to figure out where it is. Not anymore. I saw this idea from Homestead Revival on Pinterest and think it’s genius: put all your receipts for the month in a jar. I keep mine next to the back door. At the end of the month, you can either shred them, or start a second jar for the new month, depending on how long you want to keep your receipts. Easy peasy.
3. When in doubt, throw it out. Over the last year I worked really hard on being more ruthless when it comes to throwing out/donating/selling things that we don’t need. We sold a ton of old furniture last year, and it felt so great. My goal is to continue that trend in 2015, and to stop ever saying again, “but maybe I’ll need it someday.” I saw a great idea on TV to put all your hangers in the closet backwards. Then when you wear something, rehang it the right way. After six months, you’ll know that anything that’s still backwards can be gotten rid of! This will be great for me because I pretty much wear the same things over and over, ha!
4. Make a schedule. This is something I’ve been working on over the last year. While I loooove a good to-do list, I’m not a huge fan of giving myself a schedule. I feel like being home all day means I should have the freedom to do whatever I want whenever I want! Which, yes, I do, but I also know from experience that too much of that attitude means nothing gets done, or usually I try to do way too much all at the same time, which means nothing is really getting done well. So this year I really want to focus on setting a daily schedule. I already have my cleaning schedule, but I also want to work on saying, ok, from 10-11 I’ll be… whatever. Schedules are also very helpful for Ruby the puppy, to keep her on track with potty breaks, meals, and naps, so that will also help me to organize my day more efficiently.
5. Straighten the couch. Ok, this is a new one that I spontaneously started doing last week, and after I’d done it once I realized I liked it so much I’ve been trying to do it really consistently. Every time I get up from the couch, I make sure the pillows are straight and the blankets are folded, basically just very quickly making everything look nice. It only takes about 10 seconds but when I walk by the couch later and see it not covered in rumpled blankets and pillows strewn around, it makes me feel so much better about my house’s state of affairs in general.
So what are you resolutions this year? I’d love to hear what things you’re working on. Share in the comments!
— Kerry
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