My *52* Week Journey to an Organized/Decluttered/Minimalized Home...

If you know me, you know I LOVE organizing & decluttering, and am always going through something.  Actually, I usually start with one room in our house & work my way through.  Then I start over again, completing the cycle probably three or four times per year.

Well...now that I think about it, that seems a bit insane.   Seems like I should have better things to do with my time, and I do...  We are a homeschooling family of six.  We sort of operate a mini-homestead, complete with large garden, chickens, canning, cooking from scratch, etc.

The thing is, I always feel inspired @ the possibility that comes with the word *new*...a new week, a new month, a new year...what will it hold, only we can decide that!  I also think that no matter where we are, we can always do a little bit more, try a little harder...baby steps...and that is why this time of year, the new *YEAR*, always gets me really excited!  365 days of possibility lie before each of us...a blank slate so to speak, what will you do with yours??

For this year, 2015, I decided I wanted to focus on decluttering/minimalizing & really kick things up a notch from my usual routine.

I have heard that when you put things out to the "universe", doors open, almost like magic.  It appears to be true, as I have been finding inspiration everywhere!

It started, I think, with this  "52 Weeks to and Organized Home Challenge", put out each year by Taylor Flannery.  I printed out her list and tweaked it to fit our family & our needs.  For example, we have no shed, no attic, no crystal/silver to store, no cosmetics to organize, but we DO have homeschooling books, curriculum & supplies to sort & organize.  Also, I am an avid crafter (knitting, crocheting & sewing), and have a lot of supplies on hand to keep organized.  Anyway, I reworked the list to include all of these items and took out all the irrelevant ones.  I also consolidated some of them, again, because of the needs of our family & because I do A LOT of organizing/decluttering, so there are some tasks I will make quick work of.

I then broke each week's "mission" down into daily 'mini' tasks, one for each day, Monday through Friday because I think we *all* deserve weekends off.  Well, that & the fact that weekends are when we do spend time together as a family & work on a our projects around the house.

(I found out later that Taylor actually does this too, so there you go!  You can sign up for weekly missions sent to you inbox every Monday, as well as 15 min/day 'mini missions' that correspond to her "52 weeks list.  you can use her pre-planned, day to day, to-do list, , or use her model as a base & tweak it to fit your family.  I actually scanned through her monthly calenders & added a few  things to mine. :).

The long & short of this is that my goal this year is to go beyond where I have gone in the past, pace myself & hopefully really make a big difference in both the amount of free space in our home & in our heads...it is *all* connected, believe me!

So, that is where my big plans for 2015 began...the seed, so to speak.  Then a friend posted about a blog, "Tico & Tina", that really helped her purge when they moved recently.  One of their segments is "31 Days of exploring Minimalism".  I read a few of the articles last night and stumbled upon these two challenges: "3 Wardrobe Challenges to Help You Create a More Efficient Wardrobe".  LOVE!!

I think the "30 Day Shop Your Wardrobe Challenge" & the "Project 333" both sound really fun & & I think I could learn a few things from them as well.  I got out my handy, dandy "52 Weeks List" & backtracked to see where they would work best.  After reading through the "30 Day Shop Your Wardrobe Challenge", I think it can help each of us to try new things with what we have & look @ our wardrobes differently...mix it up a little & have some fun!  I think I'll end up wearing things I haven't worn & in new combinations that might not have other-wise come to be.  I plan to follow that up with the "Project 333 Challenge", making use of what I learned in the first challenge.   Added those two puppies onto both my "52 Week" list & onto the monthly calendars as well.

Side note:  I keep both the "52 Week" master list & the monthly breakdown in a page protector on a bookshelf in our dining room, with my homeschooling planner, our family calendar, etc.  The "52 weeks" list faces out on one side & the current month faces out on the other.  I think this may be a yearly thing...so I plan on saving, making notes, updating it throughout the year so that next December I can just modify the existing plans to fit where we are then...

That brings me to why I am dusting off this blog after an insanely long hiatus.  Two reasons, 1) I am super excited about all of this & thought others might be too...  2) I want to have a record of where we are now & where we end up come December 2015.  the unknown...LOVE it!!