Getting Organized Isn’t A New Year’s Resolution

Happy New Year! It’s January, and you know what that means: a lot of people made a New Year’s resolution to get organized, so you’re already seeing a flood of organizing tips, tricks, and hacks all over your social media feeds and email subscriptions. There’s really nothing new under the sun in terms of how to get organized, so instead, I wanted to share something a bit different.

Getting organized is NOT a New Year’s resolution. However, an organized space can support the other New Year’s resolutions you’re making in really powerful ways! When you shape your space through organizing systems, you encourage yourself to adapt those new habits you want.

Let’s look at 3 of the most common New Year’s resolutions, and figure out how an organized space can support them.

1) I resolve to exercise more in 2025.

A great resolution! Exercise is so good for us. But now I’ve got some questions for you. What's your plan for working out? Where are you going to exercise? What equipment do you need? What clothes do you need to wear? What transportation do you need? There are actually a lot of considerations that go into creating an exercise routine.

When you answer these questions, you can create organizing systems that support your resolution to exercise more. If you’re going to exercise in your home, you’ll need a space with all the equipment neatly organized so you can grab it and put it away quickly. If you’re going to exercise outside the home, you need to factor your gym bag into your drop zone organizing system. And in both cases, it’s time to bring those workout clothes and shoes front and center in your closet so that you can get them quickly before your brain decides it’s going to be too much trouble to exercise!

2) I resolve to eat healthier in 2025.

Another great goal! Making sure we eat a wide variety of nutritious foods is so essential for our health. But once again, I’ve got some questions for you. What food is currently in your cabinets and fridge? What food is easiest to grab? What foods do you want to add to your diet? How do you know what to buy when you grocery shop?

Eating healthy is so much more than knowing which foods are more nutritious than others. The devil is truly in the details. Eating healthy means you have to buy, store, and prepare those nutritious foods so that you can eat them. For many people, this means menu planning, making grocery lists, and reorganizing their cabinets and fridge so that the healthiest food is the most accessible. This may even mean decluttering foods you no longer want to incorporate into your diet!

3) I resolve to get better sleep in 2025.

The importance of sleep has finally entered the zeitgeist, and I for one could not be happier about it. Getting good quality sleep and the right amount of it will literally change your life. Trust me, I know from experience: my husband got a CPAP machine at the end of 2021 and he is a different person in so many incredible ways (and that’s saying something, since he was pretty great before!).

It may not seem obvious at first, but getting good sleep is intimately related to the space you’re sleeping in. If your bed is covered in laundry and clutter, it’s pretty hard to get comfortable. If there are piles of clutter around the room, you’re likely to think about them instead of being able to drift off to sleep peacefully.

And of course, there’s the bugaboo of our modern age: our blue screen devices. I don’t have to be the one to tell you that using them before bed or during the night is terrible for sleep! But in order to get your phone out of your bedroom, you have to have a good alternative for it, which means setting up an organized charging station.

Bet you didn’t think a charging station for your devices would help you get better sleep!

Those are just three ways to achieve your New Year's resolutions by doing a little bit of organizing in your space. I’m sure there are many more! What are your resolutions and how are you shaping your space to help yourself succeed? Let me know!

Happy New Year to you all and good luck with those resolutions!

LMW