During a several month-long hiatus from my blog, I’ve been doing some thinking (shocker!) and some reading (gasp!) and I decided to pivot a bit from how I originally started my goals for this year.

Over the last few years, I keep returning to this desire to get my house in a state that feels less cluttered and chaotic. There’s a lot of other changes I want to make in my life, but whenever I try to, I always seem to come back to my house. When my home is a mess it seems like an endless distraction and source of stress.

I’ve started and stopped a home decluttering project quite a few times and I’ve come to accept the following things:

1. I need to start viewing this as a lifestyle change and not a one-time project
2. While I love how Marie Kondo organizes everything in a neat and aesthetic way even inside dresser drawers, it’s not a sustainable means of housekeeping for someone like me. I need to embrace ease and accessibility over perfection
3. I’m not messy. Keeping a home tidy is a skill I can hone with practice
4. I want to teach my children how to keep a home so that it’s not something they are either doing without or trying to learn on their own in their 30s
5. The only way to make progress is to get started. I’ve read books, (The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo, How to Manage Your Home Without Losing Your Mind by Dana K. White, and The Clutter Connection by Cassandra Aarssen), listened to podcasts, followed social media influencers, etc. I know numerous strategies, theories, and tools. There’s multiple methodologies because there is no perfect way… there are ways that work best for some and ways that work best for others. But the only way to learn what works for me is to dive in and do it. 10 minutes a day, 5 minutes a day, even 1 minute a day just as long as I’m getting up, showing up, and doing.