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

Blog Resolution

Yesterday I talked about how most New Year's resolutions die very quickly and I offered a SMART method for setting goals and sticking to them.  Now it's time to apply it to myself.  I have some blog resolutions.

Obviously, I have the same resolution of most bloggers - to get more traffic, write more interesting content, develop a following and maybe monetize.  Great resolutions, but are they SMART?  More traffic - is that attainable?  How do you gauge that and more importantly, how do you control it?  That's just an example of why these broad open ended resolutions won't work.

OK, let's turn to my resolutions.  Well, they are exactly SMART just yet.  In fact, I haven't passed the S yet.  So here are my non-specific blog resolutions:

1.  Get myself on a regular blogging schedule and plan ahead.
2.  Increase my traffic by 25% over the year.
3.  Get involved in a community - see this great article about that from the SITS Girls
4.  Improve my social media skills generally.

I will readily admit these are not yet SMART goals.  However, here's what I will do.  I will spend the month of January researching each of these general resolutions and come up with a SMART goal with a plan.  Hopefully, I can transform each of these into a SMART goal and blog about it once every week beginning next week.

Yikes - this is scary stuff.  Now that I've put it out there, I have to at least carry through to February - or maybe through next Tuesday.  Baby steps . . .

cindy

2013 - It's Here, Are You Resolved?

Congratulations - we made it another year.  2012 was good, but 2013 will be better, right?  January 1 - the day of resolutions and reality.  We're thinking of diets while indulging in junk, and making fitness goals while watching football.  I've been dreaming of self-improvement during my daytime nap.

Yeah, I have a resolution, and a magic word for the year, but I'm not telling until later this week.  It might just jinx me.  Instead, let's examine resolutions generally.

The top 3 resolutions for 2012:
1.  Lose weight
2.  Getting organized
3.  Spend less, save more (hey, that was MY resolution last year)

Sound familiar?  You probably also know that less than 8% of people keep their resolutions.  Here's a great blog post from Forbes with a break down of how that happens.  While the post was a little discouraging with the statistics, I really loved this illustration from a 1915 prayer card:

Want to be successful in keeping your resolutions?  Good news - it can be done!  First, stop telling yourself it's a resolution, especially a New Year's Resolution.  Calling it that is just an excuse for blowing it within the first month.  Instead, look at it like any other goal, and be SMART!

S      Specific (or significant)

M     Measurable

A     Attainable (or Action-Based)

R     Realistic (Relevant)

T     Trackable

If you want to "be a healthier person" this year, what does that mean?  How will you determine what "healthier" is?  While making your whole family lose weight is a great resolution, is it something YOU can do?  If you just had knee surgery and want to run a marathon, is that really something you can accomplish in a year?  How will you track improvements of your "fitness" during the year?  Use the SMART metric to see if your goal (resolution) is a good one.

While your goal is a yearlong effort, you need to have smaller bites to get that done.  Set milestones - maybe every two weeks, maybe every month.  Keep your goal in mind - write it on your refrigerator or bathroom mirror.  Better yet, put it on your Facebook page and update your progress regularly.  (Using a blog might not be as effective - it didn't really help me last year.)  

Finally, if the whole idea of a New Year's Resolution is just too daunting, just don't do it!  While people who make resolutions are 10 times more likely to make a change, that's only because they set a goal, not because they set the goal on January 1.  Wait a week or a month and then set a GOAL.

OK, maybe I inspired you a little (or myself a lot).  I'll reveal my goal (resolution) later this week, and maybe I'll be SMART about it.

Happy New Year!

cindy