How to Live a Cleaner and More Organized Life This Year
Posted by Dave Jury at
The New Year’s holiday can be an exciting time. Aside from celebrating with loved ones, closing out one year is an opportunity to take a step back and appreciate everything you’ve accomplished.
It’s also a perfect time to reflect on areas of your life you might want to improve in the new year!
As you examine the areas of your life that may need revamping, home organization is a good one to include on your list. Aside from reducing stress, boosting productivity, and saving money, learning how to declutter your home can offer a plethora of mental health benefits, too!
Keeping a well-organized, clutter-free home can help alleviate stress, increase quality family time, and increase focus. Studies show a clean and organized home can help relieve symptoms of anxiety and depression, and can even save you money!
Here are some decluttering tips to help you achieve your home organization goals in 2023 and beyond.
Think Big, Start Small
Setting an ambitious goal — like learning how to declutter your home — is best achieved when you set little milestones along the way.
If you make your goal too big — like aiming to make your entire house spotless and every drawer organized in one day—you’ll likely feel overwhelmed and disappointed if you don’t make it happen.
By setting bite-sized, attainable goals, you’re more likely to maintain stamina and achieve a sustainable cleaning routine.
Create Systems that Make Sense
Aside from starting small, the key to preventing home organization burnout is to develop simple, workable, and sustainable systems that make sense in your space.
As you learn how to declutter your home, start by taking a mental inventory of things you misplace most often — like your keys or a pair of sunglasses. Give them a place to live in your house, and make putting those items back after you use them a habit.
From there, break your house into zones and declutter one part of one zone at a time. You may decide that a zone is a room, a part of a room, or an area of your house.
Consider everything you have in each zone, and determine how to organize it best.
Storing things with similar uses, organizing by shape, size, or function, and making use of baskets and bins around the house to keep things can help keep things orderly and free of clutter.
Nailing down a system of home organization can offer life-changing benefits. Giving frequently misplaced things their own home can eliminate the need to constantly search for them, which may save you time and stress.
And since you won’t need to replace lost things over and over again, learning how to declutter your home can also save you money!
Tackle Clutter with a Mindful Approach
It’s no secret that mindfulness can have a profound positive impact on overall health and wellbeing. Applying these practices as you declutter your house is no different!
Organizing your home requires you to intentionally home in on one task at a time, operating with laser focus as you complete each one. It also gives you a chance to do a check-in with yourself, and how your behaviors or schedule impact your home organization habits.
One way to conduct a successful home organization check-in? Ask yourself these questions about your clutter:
- Does this item support my current values and priorities?
- Does this item fit in with the vision I have for my ideal home?
- Could this item be useful/helpful for another person?
- Would I buy this item for full price today?
- Would it impact my daily life not to have this item?
- Is this item worth the space it's taking up in my home?
- Is this item adding value to my life right now?
Answers to these questions can help you address the root cause of clutter-creating behaviors and resolve them for the future.
Following a method or set of housekeeping rules is another way to outsmart your mess:
- The “one in, one out” rule means don’t buy something new until you get rid of the old.
- This can help you make more thoughtful purchases, and prevent you from accumulating even more clutter.
- There's also the 4 box method — things to “keep,” “donate,” “store,” and “trash” — which can help you get intentional about your goal, and determine what you want to keep, and what it’s time to part with.
Get Your Family Involved
Of course, there may be times when there’s a lot of life happening. From your kids’ after-school activities to work to working out, home organization may take a necessary backseat. Involving your kids in your home organization journey is a great way to get all hands on deck — especially if you turn it into a fun game or activity!
Set a timer and play “beat the timer” — make it a race to the finish as you work through different zones. Turn it into a game of friendly competition, and incentivize reaching decluttering checkpoints.
Offering a fun reward for each milestone will not only encourage your children to organize with you, but it can push them to keep going, too!
Recruiting members of your family to help with home organization may get the job done faster and can help keep everyone on the same page regarding the systems in place to prevent clutter from reappearing in the future.
Living Clutter-Free in 2023 with DrawerEssentials
Remember to revisit your end goal. Creating a clear mental picture of how you want your home to look and feel like once it’s successfully organized will help bring you back to why you set out on your decluttering endeavor in the first place!
And as you prepare your New Year’s resolutions for 2023, set yourself up for success with any one of these smart organizational products from DrawerEssentials!
From kitchen organizers, drawer dividers, and bathroom storage inserts, the experts at DrawerEssentials have everything you need to declutter your house in 2023 — and keep it that way!
Cooking Utensil Drawer Organizer
Say goodbye to digging around a messy drawer for your cooking tools — with these organizer inserts, keeping your essential kitchen utensils neat and orderly has never been easier.
Shop cooking utensil organizers >
Pots and Pans Peg Board
Your collection of pots and pans won’t stand a chance against clutter with this peg board system. Designed to keep all your cookware organized, you even have the option to add a peg as your culinary collection grows.
Shop pots and pans peg boards >
Adjustable Drawer Divider
Whether you use it for a drawer in your desk or for that chaotic junk drawer in your kitchen, these dividers have endless possibilities for storing just about anything. Choose from one of the 16 available options, or simply add an additional divider when you need it.
Shop adjustable drawer dividers >
Bathroom Drawer Organizer
Keeping all your bathroom essentials organized is easy with this drawer insert. With 4 sizing options available, each insert is made to order and offers a custom, handcrafted look.
Shop bathroom organizer inserts >
DrawerEssentials has everything you need for full-home organization. Give your loved ones (or yourself!) the gift of a more clutter-free and carefree home in 2023.
Shop home organization tools now and live clutter-free in 2023 >