After the holidays are over, your home might look like a disaster zone, with packaging, tape, and new toys strewn about haphazardly. At times, it will feel like a hurricane came through and the mess is insurmountable, but you’re better off chipping away at the mess now, rather than waiting for it to get worse.
Do you want to swing into the New Year with a clean and organized home? Do you need some guidance in your efforts to cut clutter from your home so that you can start the New Year with a solid foundation?
If you are looking for some post-holiday clean up tips, these helpful hints are designed to make your home spotless once again:
Santa’s Rule
This simple rule operates under this principle: get one, toss two. When the holidays are over you’re going to find that you have a lot more stuff that needs a place to be in your home. In an effort to reduce clutter in your home going into the New Year, try this simple idea: for every new gift received, throw away or donate two similar counterparts.
As you store holiday gifts in different areas of your home, you can take time to make extra room in those areas. No matter whether you choose to recycle, donate, or sell your “trash pile” storing each new gift will help you reduce clutter in your home.
Holiday Mailing Box Challenge
If you have family all across the country, you most likely had gifts shipped to your doorstep in mailing boxes. For many families, these boxes pile up uselessly until they are discarded shortly after the holiday season. If you’ve got a pile of mailing boxes lying around your house, you should take the Holiday Mailing Box Challenge!
The goal of this challenge is to fill up every seasonal mailing box that you receive with items suitable for donation to Goodwill or a similar recycler of used household items. Then, you must deliver these boxes to charity before the end of the year.
The Practice of Observing Oosouji
The practice of Oosouji is common in Japan, and it refers to the act of clearing dirt, clutter, and the disorganization of the old year in order to move successfully into the New Year. To observe Oosouji, give you home a thorough, top-to-bottom cleaning. Removing dirt from the previous year will help you enter the New Year in a clean state of mind and it will invite prosperity into your life for the year to come.
Sort Before You Stow
After the holidays are over, it’s time to take down all of your decorations, but it can be easy to be enticed into the “sling it in there and worry about it later” mentality. You must store your decoration for the following year, but it can help to take some time to sort and organize decorations before you store them. This will make everything more accessible and more efficient when you take them out again next year.
