There’s nothing like the start of a new day, new month, new year to help us get the urge to reset our lives and get organized. Sometimes organization practices equate to a lot of time spent and more often than not we just don’t have that kind of time to allocate to our organizational efforts and needs.
Here are some simple and effective ways to get your life organized at any time. Life organization is a form of self-care. It helps me be prepared and more centered to move forward throughout my day knowing that I am taking care of myself.
Go through your toiletries
I don’t know about you but I have a lot of different products stored in my bathroom – from lotions, to oils, to ointments, to makeup (from 5 years ago). It’s time to purge all of the unused or expired products and clean up your bathroom with just the basics that you use on a regular basis.
Clear out your pantry and refrigerator
Sometimes I find myself going to the store and buying a product only to come home, look in my pantry and realize I already have two cans of those chickpeas I just bought. What a waste! Before your next grocery excursion, clear out your pantry and refrigerator for anything that is expired, make note of what you have duplicates of, and write down what you find noticeably missing. Do an inventory so that you can save time, space, and money before the next time you go to the store.
Clear out your supplement drawer
Yes I have a whole drawer. I have so many unused vitamins and supplements and while yes I may consume some of them, others I most likely won’t. As time goes on, our bodies needs are different and we focus on different areas of health. I’ll always need probiotics, Vitamin D, and a handful of other vitamins and supplements but others may have been more of a “fad” supplement that I tried because I heard about it once, yet have no desire to consume it now. Take inventory of what you’ll actually take and toss (or donate if unused) the rest.
Organize the paperwork
The end of the year is a great time to start to file away important paperwork, receipts, and other documents that could be useful during tax season. I have a two storage case system: one accordion file is for the past year’s important documents and another box is to store previous years’ documents. A serious pet peeve of mine is when there are random, loose papers around. Find a place to store them all!
Schedule appointments
Take half an hour and jot down all of the appointments you need to make; then make them. Even if your schedule changes and you end up having to reschedule these appointments, at least you know they’re down in your calendar and you just need to do some rearranging when the time comes. If it’s not in your calendar, the chances of you actually making these appointments could become more slim as the year goes on. Here are some general appointment suggestions to make. Of course depending on your own personal health needs, you may want to schedule these more frequently:
- General Doctor: The Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion suggests seeing your Primary Care Physician (PCP) one time a year. This is the time of year when the doctor can check your blood pressure, blood sugar, cholesterol, and other general blood work. It’s also good to let your doctor know of any lifestyle changes, increases in stress, mental health, sleep patterns, dietary changes, and more.
- OB/Gyn: The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists state you should make a visit one time a year. This is the time of year when you can check for cancer screening, get your pap smear done and check for any STI’s.
- Dermatologist: There’s no recommended rule here but if you have a history of skin cancer or developing skin issues, it’s advised to check yourself regularly, at least once a year.
- Optometrist: The American Optometric Association recommends making a vision appointment every two years.
- Dentist: The American Dental Association suggests that it is relative on how often each individual needs to go to the dentist but once or twice a year is a good standard to work from.
Clean out your junk drawer and odds and ends home projects
You know you have a proper junk drawer when you can barely close it! I’ve got one in the kitchen. Now’s the time to take out all of the contents and throw away and organize. It’s also the time to clear up any unfinished business in your home. Do you have wires hanging out from your TV that don’t give you a sense of peace and calm? Maybe it’s time to call a tv wall mounting services. Do you keep stuffing away your clothes because you ran out of drawer space? Maybe it’s time to do an overhaul and reset to your closet to make space. Look around your home and see what’s been lingering and get it done.
Unsubscribe from promotional emails
I’ve had the same email address for years so it’s definitely collected a lot of promotional email junk. I rarely look at retailer marketing emails, so it’s best to just remove it. If you are like me, use a service like Unroll.me (it’s free) to bulk unsubscribe from emails.
Go through your recurring payments
Getting your finances in order is so important. Sometimes I forget I signed up for certain services, only to find months later that I have been paying a recurring fee of $9.99 each month. Take some time to look at your credit card statements and see if there’s anything you can cut out. Every little bit helps!
Auto-pay your bills and make sure you go paperless
Like mentioned above, random, loose papers is one of my pet peeves. I’ve made sure that I’m paperless on all the statements that I can, so that way I don’t get unnecessary paperwork to have to file away. Also make sure that you are on auto-payments for all of your bills. You can set it and forget it, so there is one less thing to worry about each month. If you organize it right once, then you don’t have to organize your bills again.
Simplify your social media follows
We are in an age of content overload. There’s enough of it everywhere. Make sure that what content you do consume, that it’s something of value to you – whether it’s inspirational, humorous, motivational, educational, etc. If it speaks to you keep that follow, if not, you know what to do!
I hope these simple life organization tips helped you! Let me know below if you have any others!
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