New Year, New Space, Day 1
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[00:00:00] Hello, hello and welcome to the new year, new space de cluttering challenge, day one. I am so excited to have you here. And I am so excited to kick off this de cluttering challenge at the first of the year, because clearing our clutter in the new year is so refreshing. It, it boosts productivity and it really helps you ground into a state of gratitude and abundance. And it really sets the tone for what you want to call in throughout the rest of the year. So let's get right into it. Now, these daily motivator lessons that we will have for each day of the seven day challenge are going to be quick and simple, and really designed to help you stay motivated and encouraged to take action in your home. However, for today for [00:01:00] day one, today's going to look a little bit different.
First and foremost, you want to set an intention. Intention is the name of the game during this declutter challenge, because intention serve as a roadmap to help you stay focused. When you set an intention, you will make better choices that are more aligned with your longterm goals.
So for each day of the challenge, set an intention before you get started. Set an intention for what you want to accomplish in that particular room. It may be to complete my suggested tasks that I've laid out for that day's challenge, or it may be to have that room feel a certain way. The beautiful thing about intentions is that they are highly specific to what you want.
No one else. Just, you. So I might have an intention to reset my house back to normal today. [00:02:00] Whereas your intention might be to just do the bare bones basics because you're kind of low on energy today. Whatever your intention is, it is perfect for you, your family and your circumstances. So don't second guess yourself.
Now, as I said, today's motivator lesson is going to be very different from the remaining challenge days because holiday trash looks very different for everyone. For those with young kids, there's a pretty good chance that your house is a disaster. As if a tornado blew through with all kinds of random things, strewn all over the place in almost every single room. Whereas, for those of you without young kids, you may have small amounts of holiday stuff lying around, or you may not need to do much cleanup at all.
So I figured for today, I would walk you through how to reset your entire house [00:03:00] when it looks like a bomb went off. And if your home does not really need to be reset after the holidays, I encourage you to instead choose a space in your home that does need to be reset. Or you could just focus on a good, deep clean today. Because for today, For new years, day, for day one of this challenge, we are focused on resetting our homes back to normal because for the remaining challenge days, We're going to be diving into clearing the true clutter and letting go of excess items. We're taking baby steps here and working our way up to the harder areas. And it's always easier to declutter when your house is clean first. So let's get into it.
So, if you have kids, I'm going to take a stab in the dark and assume that you still have loads of toys and presents strewn throughout your house. I have found that [00:04:00] most of these items, while they seem like clutter at first glance, these items are actually much harder to tackle because they're not in fact true clutter.
They are not things that you need or want to let go of. They're most likely a lot of everyday messes and more so, homeless clutter.
But this is good news because that means that it's very simple to tackle these areas and get them cleaned up. Now if you're new to the Maximizing Momma community, you may be wondering what the heck homeless clutter is. Well it's just like it sounds it's any item that does not have a permanent home where it belongs. And this could be any number of things.
It could be. Um, like a stack of mail that you keep piling up on your dining room table because you don't know where to put it. But in terms of cleaning up after the holidays, All those new gifts that your family received, [00:05:00] those are all going to be homeless clutter until you find a dedicated permanent home for them.
So, As an example from my own personal life, my daughter, my youngest daughter got a new Barbie house. From Santa's. Hers was covered in, in, so in smoke damage from our house fire last summer. And so that was what she wanted from Santa. So right now it's sitting in our living room and we need to make room for it in her bedroom.
So at the moment it's homeless clutter, because we don't have anywhere to put it. Now on a smaller scale, another example would be um, My eight year old, got a bunch of star wars toys. And again, because of our house fire, we lost all of our bins and containers and, and toy boxes and things like that.
So without anywhere to keep his toys, They're just piled up literally on the floor of his room, because we do not have a bin or a [00:06:00] basket or somewhere to put them in and therefore they are homeless clutter. So again, when you think about this on a larger scale for your entire house or for all of the presents that your kids received over the holidays, they might be piled up on your dining room table or sitting in a stack on your living room floor or left out on your kitchen counter, or any number of places.
So this homeless clutter is always a huge problem after the holidays, and it's definitely something that needs to be tackled immediately, especially if you have young kids who received a lot of gifts.
And another type of item that may be giving you trouble in your home after the craziness of the holidays would be everyday messes.
So everyday messes are the things that do have a permanent home, they are just not getting put back where they belong for one reason or another. This could be trash. It could be dirty or clean [00:07:00] laundry or dishes, or it could be random items and things that are left out like sitting right in front of me on my desk is a pair of fingernail Clippers. Well, those have a permanent home, they belong in our bathroom drawer. And so right now they're an everyday mess because they're left sitting out and they have somewhere they belong. I just need to go put them where they belong.
So where I'm going with this is. Most of the items that you'll be struggling with throughout the, the first couple of days after the holidays will likely consist of a lot of everyday messes and homeless clutter.
So for today, day one of the new year, new space challenge. We're going to be focused on resetting your house and tackling the everyday messes and the homeless clutter, because these are the types of things that accumulate on the surface level of your home. Like your flat surfaces, chairs, counters, floors, even your bed and areas like that.
And so we need to be [00:08:00] tackling these areas first that way we can have a clean slate. And then throughout the rest of the challenge, over the remaining challenge days, we can dive deeper into clearing the true clutter. We can get to the deeper layers of your home and start clearing away the clutter that is hidden away behind closed doors.
So are you ready? Let's get into how you can reset your house on new year's day.
First you want to start with the trash. If you have excess trash from last night, if you had a new year celebration, a small celebration with your family or any lingering boxes still left over from Christmas, extra recyclables or anything similar, any kind of trash, just gather it all up from all over your house and dispose of it properly. Then move on to food by quickly scanning through your kitchen and gathering up any excess food that may still be left over from the [00:09:00] holidays.
Anything in your fridge, any bakery items, pastries, breads, anything along those lines, gather up any extra food and throw it away. And then once you've done that, once you've tackled the trash and any excess food, then you'll be ready to start resetting your house.
To reset your house, you want to start by tidying up just the everyday messes from every space in your home. To do this, you can grab a plastic sack, like a Walmart sack, or even an empty laundry basket, or even an empty box. If you have a box that you just put out to the trash, you can go back out there and grab that, grab something empty, any kind of empty container. And what you want to do is walk around your house, gathering up all of the items that already have a dedicated spot, where they belong, all of the everyday messes that just need to be put away.
When I do this for my house, I will grab every [00:10:00] single item that I know where it goes, and I will throw it all into this empty laundry basket, like a sock that's sitting in our bathroom on our bathroom floor, or a brush that's on our dining room table. One by one, I will pick up every single item, and then I will walk around with a laundry basket and put every single item back where it belongs.
So I just carry this laundry basket around my house. And then I'll put the brush back in a drawer in the bathroom. Put the sock in the dirty laundry basket, take the clean sweater. That's sitting on the couch and go put it in my daughter's room, et cetera.
So once you've done that, once you have tackled all of the every day messes from your entire house, then you'll go back through and follow the same steps, only this time, gathering up the homeless clutter, the items that do not have a permanent home where they belong. So you will take your same container, walk around your house, and this time start filling it with items that you don't know [00:11:00] what to do with. All the things that are, that have been accumulating since the holidays, like the toys and the the charging cords and the batteries and the. All that random stuff that is just left sitting out, that you need to tackle, you need to find a home for. You're going to start filling up your empty container with all of those homeless items. And then again, you will wander around your house and you will find a permanent home for all of them.
And that's it. That's all the steps to reset your house after a crazy busy holiday season. This entire thing should take you maybe 30 to 45 minutes, max, depending on how many kids you have and how trashed your house is. But of course, if you don't have kids or your house is not really a mess, it could take you maybe only 15 minutes or so.
But like I said, today is very different from the remaining challenge days, because again, we're resetting [00:12:00] our house and getting it back to normal so we can start the new year off on a fresh, clean slate. So what I really want you to remember here is to not put too much thought into finding a home for your homeless clutter.
It doesn't have to be perfect. It just needs to be a place that works for you and your family. If there is an item that is a homeless item and you really, truly don't have anywhere to put it. You don't know where to put it. Don't worry about it. Just set it down and move on to the next item. We're not getting stuck here. We're we're moving quickly and getting our house back to normal.
NoW the whole point of these short and sweet declutter bursts is to really show you how simple de cluttering can be when you are highly focused and intentional.
So keep your intention top of mind, the intention that you set before you got started. Remember [00:13:00] your intention for today is to just clean up the holiday messes and reset your house. Do not let yourself go off on a deep dive into some 10-year old photo album or making a huge mess because you pulled everything off a shelf. Just stay focused and stay intentional. Because small bite-sized tasks will take you much, much farther than trying to do too much at one time. Doing just a little bit today I will keep you motivated and excited for tomorrow, and the next day and the day after.
When you can just reset your house today, you're accomplishing just a small, small win. And then, you'll be looking forward to doing more tomorrow. That's really what building anticipation is all about. You're building anticipation for what's to come. That anticipation builds [00:14:00] momentum, and momentum is the key to longterm motivation. So spend a little bit today cleaning up your holiday trashed and resetting your house.
And I will meet you back here tomorrow, much earlier for our day two task. I was running a little bit behind today because of it being new year's day.
So if you have any questions at all, Reach out to me, you can hit reply to my email, or you can send me a DM on Instagram. And remember when you send me your progress photos, your before and after photos, you'll be entered for a chance to win one of three prizes at the end of this challenge .
So good luck. Have fun.
Turn on some music and make it a fun event for you and your family. And I will chat with you soon. Bye.
