Happy New Year! I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season 🙂
Here we are in January again. New year, new goals, both personal and professional. Isn’t it the goal to make life easier, more streamlined, and become more efficient to create more time for life? For the first blog in 2023, I am focusing on decluttering. Specifically, decluttering life in 5 key areas. Perhaps you will feel inclined to join me.
Relationships
Once upon a time I attended an event with a motivational speaker. A successful, professional, highly experienced individual who shared an interesting ritual. Every new decade, she would access her existing relationships and terminate any that were not contributing to a positive experience in her life. As a Septuagenarian, she had reduced her circle to only those that empowered, supported and provided happiness. Although this might seem extreme, there are a few steps you can take to reduce relationship clutter
- Spend time with people who give you energy
- Spend less time with people who take your energy
- If you thrive on alone time, or are introverted, block out time for yourself
Stuff
I know I could stand to pare down a little. Physical clutter creeps up on most of us and whether items hold some sentimental value, the tendency to collect and keep runs deep. Did you know that clutter can have negative mental health effects as well? Even more reason to take action. A few tips on how to declutter your home.
- Identify essential items
- Manage new items by removing (or donating) old items; follow the one in, one out rule.
- Prioritize quality over quantity
- Try the Maria Kondo method (hold an item, if it brings you joy, keep it, else it goes!)
Digital
How fast can you find that photo, pdf, word doc? Is your phone dinging when you should be resting? Your digital environment can become a huge stress factor if it’s not properly organized.
Things you can try to bring some clarity.
- Schedule your phone to silence notifications for certain period of time (i.e 8:00pm – 7:00am)
- Think of your computer desktop like a huge file folder. Create folders and organize your files for quick recovery and access.Â
- Use a password manager
- Schedule time to delete or offload email, files, and imagesÂ
Financial
The new year is a perfect time to do a financial review and create a budget. A few way to simplify include:
- Examine monthly subscriptions and cancel any that you don’t invest your time in.
- Automate your bills, investments and savings
- Access debt. Create a structured approach to pay it off
- Establish a 2023 budget; Use the 50/30/20 Rule (50% Needs, 30% Wants, 20% Savings)
Time
This one is a big one for me. Life is busy!! The effort to create unstructured, open space is important and necessary for a balanced life. Targets to hit:
- Schedule free time in your calendar.
- Take a break from social media + the news
- Learn to say ‘No’
Let me know if any of these hit home for you. Here’s to continued enlightenment!Â
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