New Year's Cleaning

I know, I know…  We are technically already into the month of February and I'm just now talking about New Year's.  Well, there's a reason for that.  We all make New Year's resolutions that last for only a few weeks (if we are lucky) and then we kind of start to fall off.  I wanted to make sure that I was going to stick with this resolution before I mentioned it here.  But now that we are almost six weeks into the new year and I'm still going strong, I think it's time to confess what I've been up to.

One of my New Year's resolutions this year was to clean house.  And I'm not talking about dusting and vacuuming, although that wouldn't hurt either.  :)  I'm talking about decluttering, organizing, purging, and really deciding what things are useful and what things just need to be tossed for good. And when you're talking about doing this for your entire house, you're really talking about a big undertaking. But so far, what's really working for me is breaking things up into very small and manageable sections of the house to work on at a time.  

For example, instead of saying I'm going to organize my entire closet today, I have chosen to break things up by spending 20 minutes to go through all of my jeans.  Maybe the next day I'll spend 15 minutes going through my sock drawer.  And when I'm organizing and purging, I'm using these criteria to determine what to keep and what goes.  

• Is it useful?
• Is it beautiful?
• Do I love it?
• Is this a sentimental item?

And if it doesn't meet at least one of these criteria, then it goes in a pile to donate or toss, depending on what it is.  

Here's a little rundown of all the things that I've been able to organize just in the first six weeks of this year.

• Cleaned and organized under the kitchen sink; tossed old cleaners and ones that we don't use or don't work.  
• Organized all of my jewelry; consolidated everything into one armoire; tossed old, broken, or junk pieces I no longer wear.
• Cleaned and organized bathroom cabinets and drawers; purchased and installed drawer organizers that have literally changed my life.
• Sorted books and toys; began preparing items for children's consignment sale.
• Cleaned out the laundry room; tossed large hamper that we aren't using.  It was taking up precious real estate that I intend to use for a drying rack instead. 
• Organized office files; retaining only important receipts, documents, and files.
• Went through Lexi's clothes and shoes to weed out what no longer fits and needs to go into the upcoming consignment sale.
• Cleaned and organized guest bedroom/ closet/ gift wrap area (which was still a mess from Christmas)

Oh, there is still much to be done. But I am slowly chipping away at it and feeling really good about the progress I'm making so far.  Some of these tasks have taken me several days or more to complete. But as I mentioned I'm trying to do things a little bit at a time. I find if you take on too much at a time, you just get burnt out and overwhelmed. This way seems to be working really well for me.  And stuff is getting done.

There are also a few things that I am delegating to my husband for his help.  And when he has a few minutes to spare, I enlist his help for small projects to knock them off the list.  Things like:

• Changing light bulbs
• Taking tools and such back to the garage to put away
• Hanging pictures

So there you have it.  An organized and simplified home greatly contributes to my sanity.  That's the goal, and we are slowly but surely chipping away at it.  What resolutions did you make this year that you are still working toward?