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End of year cleaning
Are you serious right now? Is it really the end of the year already?? I know time flies the older you get but I swear it was just 2015 two seconds ago!
I have a confession to make. I have a weird superstition about entering the New Year with a clean house. The weeks prior to the New Year I spend my days cleaning, organizing and sorting out my house.
By the time New Year rolls around I like to have my freezer, fridge and pantry stocked. I like to have all my laundry clean and ironed and stored.
Finally, I like to have the rest of my house, including my garage, clean and organized as well. This includes paperwork, digital and cloud documents and pictures and anything else I can organize.
If you have a similar itch to clean and organize but feel overwhelmed just thinking about it, here is how I do it.
Tip #1 Divide your home into sections and tackle 1 week at a time. Here is my breakdown.
Week 1 office and guest bathroom
Week 2 master bedroom & bathroom
Week 3 living room and garage
Week 3 kitchen and dining
Week 4 digital & cloud files
If you have a larger home, I would dedicate 1 full week per each area of the house.
You don’t have to be a perfectionist about cleaning and organizing your home during this time. Think, “Good enough is good enough”. If you strive for perfectionism, you will become overwhelmed and will never get this done.
Tip #2 Get help from your spouse, kids, friend or if you can afford it, hire someone to help!
Get your kids to help by making it a game. If your kids are older the game idea probably won’t work, however, if you give them incentives they are more likely to help. Depending on their age you can have them do certain tasks.
I know that I am not the only one who wants to start the new year with a clean and organized home so I will reach out to a friend or family member and see if we can team up. One week we can tackle my house and the next hers.
Tip #3 Good enough is good enough
So you didn’t get through the entire house by the time the New Year rolled around? It’s ok. Look around you, you got a lot more done in just a handful of weeks than you did throughout the entire year! You deserve a break!
So for now, grab a mug of hot cocoa (and spike it), your favorite book, light a fire and take a load off. We can start again tomorrow and finish before Valentine’s day.
I used to (and still do sometimes) beat myself up for not being perfect, but as my life coach once said, “you are not perfect and the sooner you acknowledge that, the sooner you’ll be happy”.
This is why I now try to prioritize being proud of ‘good enough’ rather than feeling disappointed for not being ‘perfect’.
Do you have any tips to add to this list? Let me know if you tried any of these and how they worked out.
I also want to know what the bf/husbs said when you asked for help 😉
Love. Cocoa. Coffee.
Nancy
