Do you want to be better organized this year?

I know we are already halfway through January but it is never too late to do a New Year reset. I’ve shared with you many times on the podcast about my habit of doing a nightly reset in my home. My daily reset is really simple and it follows the natural flow of our evening routine as we progress through the different rooms in our home. 

After doing it for over a year, resetting the house in the evening has become second nature for me. It’s something that brings a lot of peace and closure to my day and I rarely go to bed a night without doing the reset.

If you’d like my daily reset checklist where I go into more detail, you can download it for free HERE. 

Once I learned the concept of resetting my home daily, I started applying resets to other times like on weekends and at the end of every month.

I even have a reset for the year and on today’s episode, I’m walking you through 5 different things for you to reset for a more organized and simplified new year. Grab a pen and a piece of paper because you will want to jot down some of these ideas.

Reset #1: Buy and set up new calendars

• Paper Planner
• Family wall calendar
• Shared virtual calendar (Google Calendar)

Reset your calendars. If you are a calendar person like me, you live by calendars. I don’t know how people know where you’re supposed to be if they don’t have calendars. 

There are three calendars that I reset at the beginning of every year. First, my paper planner where I keep all my time blocking, habit tracking, and appointments. I lay my planner out on my kitchen counter and refer to it throughout the day. 

The second is my family’s wall calendar. This easily visual calendar helps my kids keep up with dates and events as well as trains them how to use a calendar since they are homeschooled. 

The last calendar to reset is our virtual calendars on our phones. If you are not set up with your spouse and with your kids, who have phones, I highly recommend syncing your calendars. My husband and I started doing a shared virtual calendar a couple of years ago, and then when our kids got their own phones, we added them to the calendar. Everyone is able to see what’s going on at all times and where everyone is.

If you want to better manage your time productivity around your home, consider which of these calendars needs to be utilized or reset for this upcoming year.

Reset #2: Declutter and organize your phone photos

• Declutter phone photos
• Organize phone photos
• Set up systems & habits for managing photos
• Create a yearly photo book

Reset your cell phone photos. Last year, I did a Photo Reset Boot Camp to accomplish decluttering and organizing my phone’s photos. I am not doing it this year because I want to turn that boot camp into a course that you can take on your own. Stay tuned for that announcement. 

The first step of my photo reset is to declutter the photos from the year before. It will take some time and a strategic process but you need to declutter last year’s photos before they are lost or misplaced. 

Then you’re going to organize those photos in a neat filing system so those photos can be easily found.

Then, set up a system and habits for staying on top of those photos so that you don’t fall into the trap of having 20,000 photos again. Old habits die hard so if you find this to be a struggle you will want to grab my Photo Reset course to learn my system for resetting photos more often. 

The last step is to create a yearly photo book. This is something I did last year during our Photo Reset Boot Camp. I actually went back five years, and I have five cute little family albums that we all enjoy. I’m so glad that I went through that Boot Camp and I’m so glad that several of you went through it with me as well. If the Photo Reset course is something that you need to do, stay tuned because sometime soon I am going to release that course and it will walk you through all of the steps from decluttering to creating an easy-to-do family album.

Need help decluttering?

Reset #3: Discuss and revamp your family budget

Sit down with your spouse to discuss your family budget and the goals you have for the upcoming year.

Here are some simple questions for your family budget meeting:

• What are we proud of from 2022?
• What do we want to improve?
• What is our #1 financial goal?

If you keep your budget within an Excel spreadsheet, now is the time you will want to make any edits or updates to reflect your new year goals.

Keep it simple. Don’t overwhelm yourself and take the pressure off of yourself to make it perfect. Every year you will get better at budgeting.

Talk about it with your spouse and be intentional with your money. Tell your money where it needs to go.

Step 4: Get organized for filing income taxes

• Grab a file folder
• List all incoming W-2, 1099, or expected tax forms on the folder
• Place the folder in a designated location

Reset your taxes. Okay, this is actually a super simple step so don’t worry. It’s not overwhelming. This is something my husband and I have been doing for years and it’s really helpful in keeping us organized for tax season.

Because tax season is at the beginning of the year, all you’re gonna do to get organized for filing your taxes is to grab a file folder. It can be a manila or colored file folder, and on the front of the folder, I want to list all the incoming W-2 forms 1099, or expected tax forms. Just go ahead and list out everything you can think of. 

You will probably start by listing the jobs and the careers you have and all streams of income. If you belong to a church where you make donations or any other charitable donations, just list it all out on the front of the folder. 

As those documents come in the mail, you’re going to slide them into that folder to keep everything in one place. 

Once everything is checked off on the front of the folder, you know that you can turn in that folder with all those necessary tax documents to your CPA to file your taxes. 

This is a super simple reset you can do to get your income tax filing more organized.

Step 5: Set goals for the new year

• Personal goal
• Family goal
• Home goal
• Business/work goal

I think it’s a really good idea to reset your goals for the new year. I want you to break your goals down into three different areas. The first is your personal goal for the year. What is your personal goal as a person (you are a person, you’re not just a mom)? What is a word that represents your personal goal for the year? My personal goal and word for the year is freedom. Freedom of the mind. Freedom of stuff all around me. Freedom of things that hold me down. What is your word that represents your personal goal?

The next area to set a goal in is with your family. What is your family’s goal for the upcoming year? My word is play. All throughout this year, I am going to be thinking about how can I play more. How can I play more with my kids and how can I just be more playful?

Then the last goal is for your home. What is your home goal in the new year? Is it to declutter? Is it to systemize? Is it organized? Is it to simplify? Is it to renovate? My word for my home goal is complete. I want to complete all the projects that we have started in our home. And boy do we have a lot. 

And here’s a bonus goal to set if you are a small business owner, if you work from home or if you’re a working mom. Set a business goal and choose a word to help you remember what that goal is on a daily basis. Your goal will drive your actions if it is truly a goal you want to achieve. My business goal for this year is to simplify. I’m already canceling subscriptions and unnecessary software that doesn’t help my business operations.

Take some time to write down your goals in these different areas and choose a word to help you focus on achieving those goals. Write it down and look at your words often.

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I’d love to hear from you!

Have you been using the concept of resetting to help you easily manage your home and keep the clutter from piling up? What do you think about performing a yearly reset in your home? Which one of these are you going to take action on right now? Let me know in the comments below!

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