I really like the week between Christmas & New Year’s Eve. With all the official holiday hubbub behind us, it’s often when we truly relax, often when we really find that quality time with the family. It’s when we travel, read books, watch movies. This year may be a bit different and maybe you’ve had enough quality family time… So this year especially, the in-between week offers an opportunity to do a few things we rarely take the time for while life is still moving a bit slower. Things to help you get organized, simplify, and get more productive.
Here are some last week of the year suggestions for your physical world, your digital world and your inner world. They might just help you say goodbye to this year and be ready to face the new year with a clean slate.
Declutter & Refresh Your Physical Space
Create a Donate, Discard, Recycle Zone
Many of us experience a fierce desire to declutter, organize or reorganize, and refresh our spaces when January comes. In The Minimalist Home, Joshua Becker says “Never organize what you can discard” #minimalisthome. Even if you aren’t pursuing a life of minimalism, chances are you have things that are no longer meaningful or useful to you. A professional organizer will often set up a series of boxes for you labeled “donate, discard, or recycle”. These are the building blocks of a ‘purge zone” which will help you as you go about your own home edit. Make good use of all those shipping boxes by lining them up in a little used room or space (for me it’s the dining room). Start looking at your rooms with a critical eye. When you see something that’s broken or no longer of use to you, put it in one of those boxes. Have one (or more) for recycling, one for donation and one for giveaway. As they get full, make a plan to take them to their next destination -- out of your house. Create this space this week and you’re ready for your January project.
Review Your Work from Home Setup
It’s been over nine months now since many of us started working from home full time. Since this may continue for a while, maybe it’s finally time to perfect your setup. Take this week to take stock of that space and think of ways to make it work better for you. Is your chair comfortable? How’s your zoom background? What about a second monitor? You can find lots of work from home and school from home tips here. Improving your space can improve your productivity.
Be Your Own Real Estate Agent
Imagine you were putting your house on the market, what might you need to do to get it ready to sell? Walk from room to room with a pen and paper and write down what you might need or want to do in each room. Purge out the hall closet? Paint the bathroom? Fix a broken light fixture? This can be a roadmap to household projects for the new year and beyond, whether you are moving or not.
Declutter and Refresh Your Digital World
Inbox clean out
With all the online holiday shopping, you probably find yourself with increased inbox clutter. You may not make it to inbox zero, but you can get a little closer if you take a little time to delete & unsubscribe. If you are a Gmail user you can use their handy unsubscribe feature now built right into some messages. You can also use a service like Unroll.me*, which will suck up all that marketing email into one place for you to mass unsubscribe, or if you prefer, collect all of them into a single email you can look at when you are ready. For mass deleting, use the power of search. Type in those companies you hear from constantly in the search bar, (hello Amazon?) then select all and delete. Your productivity and focus can really be improved without all the distraction of junk mail.
*Beware - Unroll.me sometimes creates conflicts in gmail. If you notice important email going into the trash while using it, consider uninstalling it.)
Phone Cleanup
Clutter builds up on our cellphones too. Give yours a little clean-up by deleting apps you don’t use. Delete screenshots and other photos that you only needed once. Maybe change your background or lock screen photo to something new that makes you smile.
Password Management
If you use a password manager, this is a good time to download and print all those passwords on to a good old piece of paper and put it in a safe place. Most have this option. If you don’t use a password manager, maybe it’s time to try one. I can’t live without mine. Here’s a post I wrote about this recently.
Refresh Your Inner World
Do a Brain Dump
Get a legal pad, open a doc, or grab a stack of index cards and just empty out all the things rattling around in your brain. Projects, goals, big ideas, small ideas, unfinished business, 5 year plans, friends you’d like to reconnect with, incomplete projects, trips or outings you’d like take, changes to your home or yard you’d like to make, things for your kids, thoughts about your health, classes you’d like to take, things you should maybe let go. No dump item is too big or too small. Don’t judge yourself, or feel like you have to take immediate action on any of it. This is a powerful exercise that will not only clear your head, but open your eyes to things that are important to you and allow you to look ahead. You might be surprised at how relaxed and inspiring this activity might be.
Look Back and Then Look Ahead
Take a minute, what had you hoped to do this year that you didn’t? Whether you just didn’t get around to it, or Covid got in your way, forgive yourself and ask yourself is that something you still want to accomplish? If so, what’s the very first step you need to take?
Try one or two or all of these suggestions this week and maybe when life churns back into full steam next week, you will be ready.
January is Get Organized and Be Productive Month, aka GOMonth. What are your organizing and productivity goals for the coming year? Please share in the comments - would love to hear from you!