9 Favorite Pieces of Advice From 2024
As one year ends and another begins, it’s a great time to review the past year for nuggets of good that we can take with us into the new year.
In 2024, we focused a lot on individuals' ability to take control of the stuff that fills their lives. We believe that no matter how bad clutter and disorganization are, people have the power to change.
With that in mind, here are some reminders of the strength and power you can choose to bring forward into 2025, so you’ll have a great year of clearing clutter and getting your stuff in order.
Top 9 Tips to Take Into 2025
Be courageous-feel the fear and do it anyway. Don't let guilt and shame cause you to continue a destructive path of decision avoidance.
Turn FOMO (fear of missing out) into JOMO (joy of missing out). Your frustrations with news, politics, etc. won't change the outcomes. Tuning in all the time and focusing on what you can't control will only increase your stress, which will lead to difficulty taking care of things in your own life and home. Focus on things you can change. Do something uplifting and accept that we can't and shouldn't know everything. (read more)
Delaying and putting off dealing with decisions can have a crippling effect. As unmade decisions pile up, they start to take over your mind and your space. Typically, the avoidance starts because of a strong emotion - usually sadness about a loss or fear of the unknown. After the avoidance has gone on for a while, guilt and shame get added to the list and dealing with the decisions seems impossible. You can disconnect your actions from your emotions and short circuit the slide into guilt and shame. As we pointed out above, you can feel the fear and do it anyway. (read more)
Don't start buying a bunch of stuff in an attempt to be a better version of yourself. As James Clear says in “Atomic Habits”, by doing the small things consistently you are casting votes for the identity you want: your aspirational self. Once you know you can be consistent (and that you actually like the thing you're doing), that's the time to invest in the gear. (read more)
Most of the time the first answer to an organizing problem is to get rid of things, but there are times when decluttering is not the best or most appropriate action. Your space and organizing needs are unique to you and whether you keep or discard will depend on your current life circumstances and goals. Sometimes that means letting go, and sometimes that means hanging on. (read more)
You have no control over what other people think. If you are truly doing the best you can, that's all that really matters.
Do you have a huge, overwhelming decluttering project? Are you convinced that you need to do it all yourself because you have to be the one who decides everything? It doesn't have to be that way! There are ways to involve family and/or friends so that they make the same decisions you would have made. The key is documenting some rules around decision-making before you get started and empowering others to use those rules to declutter on your behalf. (read more)
If you insist on keeping everything that you currently have, you will get the result you currently have. If you want something different, you must make different choices. (read more)
It's tempting to look for excuses for why we do the things that we do (or don't do). Those excuses can cripple us and prevent us from recognizing that every decision we make and action we take is fully within our current control. New opportunities for choices are presented to you hundreds of times a day. Did you make an unhelpful choice 10 minutes ago when you didn't pick up the candy wrapper you dropped by your chair? That's ok. You can make a different decision now and pick it up. All is not lost. You are not a lost cause. You can start making different decisions right now. You can change your life. No diagnosis, excuses, or explanations needed. (read more)
