My New Year's Resolution

I said earlier this week that I wasn't revealing my resolution until a little later.  I've been procrastinating a couple of days now, probably because if I post it, it means I will have to do it.  My resolution is not original, but I don't think I've ever made this one.

I want to de-clutter my house.

I think getting rid of so much stuff will help me start to see my home in a new light.  We've been in this house for 10 years and I still like it very much, but after a while it's hard to see through all the stuff and get back to the features I liked when we bought it.  That may sound strange, but I think it's that inability to see past things that have been sitting in the same place for years that keeps me from working on decorating changes.  After 10 years, it might be time to plan for a few changes.

There are so many resources out there, so if you are one of those people who can't imagine where to start, I'll be happy to share some of those resources now and through this year as I find them (I'm always happy to hear about others too).  Here's a few I've found.

Flylady

Marla Cilley (a.k.a. Flylady) is da bomb of de-cluttering, cleaning and organizing your home.  I first found Flylady over ten years ago when my kids were babies, and I became a "Flybaby" follower of Marla.  The best part of +Flylady is that you can take as much as you want.  She has a fun little program to de-clutter your house over time, one room at a time.  If you want more, you can go much much much deeper into cleaning (I mean cleaning), organizing and menu planning.  If you master the Flylady system, you can pretty much do anything!

If you have a profile on Google+ you can check out the new community +Keep It Clean.  It also covers everything from de-cluttering to cleaning to money management, time management and even weight loss.  I'm just there for the de-cluttering part (I can't even wrap my head around doing another one of those worthy goals), but so far there is a nice community going there.

I'm fascinated by how people have come up with so many methods to de-clutter!  They make it downright fun to say goodbye to those things that are taking up your space!  

Joshua Becker and Becoming Minimalist has some great tips and links in 10 Creative Ways to Declutter Your Home.  He also has a great little digital book called "Simplify" that you can find at Amazon for your Kindle.

If decluttering is your 2013 dream, now's the best time of the year to get started.  There are so many links and Facebook groups and articles about this topic.  This is one of the "hottest" resolutions every year, so early January again brings lots of advice.  I'll keep you up to date on how I'm doing.  It won't be fast, but hopefully it will be steady.

cindy