The New Year is almost upon us; this means it’s time to start out new and fresh and maybe make some changes and a New Years’ resolution or two.
One resolution that lots of people make is to get more organized and even if that is not your resolution this year, doing so will greatly improve how smooth-sailing your year could be in the months ahead. Here are several tips and ways to organize your life in the New Year that will calm some of the chaos.
6 Examples of Ways to Organize Your Life in the New Year
Be sure that you are putting God FIRST in whatever plans you make. Life goes a whole lot smoother when HE is in charge!!! <3
Start meal planning
If you don’t already, the new year is a great time to start. You will not only get benefits from being organized, but you will find that your grocery bill will be better under control and you probably won’t spend as much on eating out as you might spend now. Meal planning is as easy as 1, 2, 3…and just takes about a half hour or less each week.
Make a date with your papers
Most of us have a lot of paperwork (sigh) just sitting in various places around our home. Make a time to sit down and go through them and place them where they belong. Decide what is really important to keep and create a filing system for it. Make a plan for new papers that come into your home. Check out my post on organizing your paperwork for more details.
Related: Organizing your home can be so difficult. You have no idea where to begin or how to organize your home in a way that makes sense. This organizing essentials guide is the perfect solution. With real life advice, this go-to guide covers almost everything you own! Get started now and say goodbye to clutter forever!
Go spreadsheet happy
Spreadsheets can really help you stay organized from grocery lists, work-related tasks to important dates. When I first became a single mom, everything was so crazy and my life was a complete and utter disaster. I wasn’t organized in my life at all, trying to run everything by myself.
But I started creating binders for myself and this is the process that I personally took in order to get hyper-organized. Now if you look at my life, you’d think it’s boring (I do this purposely so I can have time to be used by God). <3 That’s how incredibly organized everything is! I have oodles and oodles of TIME to do whatever I want in it! It’s all because I started organizing every aspect of my life. Here’s where I started…
If you’re working, you’ll need a binder based on what you do:
The next thing I organized was all my holidays. I’d start with Christmas and Easter, as those usually are big family get-togethers and can become very stressful around those times of year. The Christmas Binder is here and the Easter Binder is here.
Also, a cheat…if you need to “buy” yourself some time as a stay at home mom, grab your kids some printable kids activities and they can play around with them while you get some things done to organize! 🙂 Check out my awesome Christian printables here!!
Make a budget
If you don’t have a budget, now is the perfect time to make one. A budget is not just about spending and saving. It is about figuring out your financial priorities and getting them in order. A budget can help you decide where you should be spending your money and where you should be saving it. Knowing where your money goes, helps you stay organized by allowing you to see the big picture before you take on more. To help you create a budget, I created an entire binder just for you! You can snag it here!!!
Make a promise to say “No”
Oh, this is a toughy for me and my personal New Years’ Resolution. I have such a hard time saying, “No.”
One way that most of our lives become disorganized and chaotic is by committing to too many obligations and events. This year, make a promise to yourself to not overbook your time. It is not only important because it keeps you more organized, but one key to staying organized is to keep your stress low and learning to say “no” will help you do that.
Pick a room to organize
While the idea of organizing your whole home may be too daunting, you can do it if you take your time. Start with one area that is really bothering you and spend just 10 minutes a day in that room organizing it. Pretty soon you will realize how far you’ve come and your whole house will be organized before you know it. If you really hate organizing, set a timer. It will really help.
