Clutter Video Tip: 5 Questions for Setting New Year's Resolutions

http://www.ClutterDiet.com Get organized with home organizing tips from professional organizers at The Clutter Diet. Should auld acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind? Well maybe if we're talking about last year's resolutions. It's easy to set a typical resolution- lose weight, work out, floss daily... But what about a resolution that has real meaning for your life. In today's video Lorie Marrero gives you five questions to ask yourself when you reflecting on the year past and planning for the year ahead. Following these tips will help you realize your intentions for the new year and set goals more effectively. So grab your journal and pour yourself a cup of kindness and ring in 2012 with productive purpose. These Clutter Video Tips are posted frequently here on our clutterdiet organizing channel. You can search Twitter for #ClutterVideoTip also to find comments on our organizing tips. Lorie Marrero is the creator of ClutterDiet.com and the author of The Clutter Diet: The Skinny on Organizing Your Home and Taking Control of Your Life. Lorie also serves as the national spokesperson for Goodwill Industries International and ambassador of the Donate Movement.

Five Questions:
1. What is my ideal day?
2. What is bothering me in my life right now?
3. What is my definition of being organized, and how am I not fitting into that definition right now?
4. If I picked a "theme" for this past year, what would it have been, and what will the theme be for this new year?
5. If I woke up tomorrow morning and magically found that I had everything I truly wanted, how would my life be different?

Wendy Lipton-Dibner, Shatter Your Speed Limits

Related Links:
http://donate.goodwill.org
http://locator.goodwill.org
www.clutterdiet.com/learnmore

Transcript:
Hi. I'm Lorie Marrero and today's Clutter Video Tip is about how to set goals for the New Year. Here we are in the holiday season, it's that perfect time between Christmas and the New Year, when you have a chance [POP] to reflect on what you want that New Year to be like. So I have five questions for you today that I use personally in my journal to help me reflect on the New Year and help me set my goals and my intentions.

The first one is what is my ideal day? I like to think about getting up at a certain time, what kind of exercise would I do, what kind of breakfast would I have, what kind of work would I do that day? And what kind of fun would I have that day?

Secondly, what is bothering me in my life right now? It might be spaces in your home, it might be certain objects or things that are broken that you need to get fixed, it could be projects you're working on, situations you're in, or it could be people or relationships in your life that are not working. What are those things and how can you fix them?

Thirdly, what is my definition of being organized and how am I not fitting into that definition right now? I like to encourage people to set that definition for themselves because otherwise I think we're tempted to compare ourselves to an unrealistic goal, like what we see on television [POP], what we see in magazines, or what celebrities are doing. Or what our next-door neighbor is doing. And instead of being in perfectionistic traps like that, let's set our own definition of what being organized means for us and figure out how we can meet that goal.

The fourth question is if I picked a theme for this past year what would that theme have been? And if I was going to pick a theme for the year to come, what would that year's theme be? So, for example, it's just like the senior prom. So you can pick a little phrase -- one year I picked the phrase "conquering fear," and I started that year out by skydiving. So that was a really exciting year.

And the last question is, if I woke up tomorrow morning and magically found that I had everything I truly wanted, how would my life be different? Now, this is very similar to the "what is my ideal day" question [POP], but on that question I tend to think on smaller scale, about the activities that I would do, and on this question I like to think about it on a bigger scale. How would my life be different? What would magically change if I had truly everything I wanted? And it really is a thought provoking thing to explore.

So I encourage you to get out your journal. I like to do mine on my laptop and just [POP] type out my answers and really think hard about what you want for the New Year.

If you need help setting goals for the New Year, especially about being organized, you know we have a team of professional organizers providing unlimited consultations in our Member Message Board area. And you can find out more about our program at www.clutterdiet.com/learnmore.

See you next time, and may you always be happy and grateful for having more than enough.

• Category

  Howto & Style

[clubmisteriogto]

Saludos from México :)

[Peripatetic45]

A refreshingly original take on the theme of New Years' Resolutions; thank you.

[clutterdiet]

Thank you! Well, if people are coming to me they usually have problems of excess, so I have that tagline that I say because of this very reason-- to keep this "problem" in perspective. Also, I want to say that my working with Goodwill as their spokesperson is a relationship of service.

[Daniula02]

Very interesting things to think about... I specially like these words: "be grateful to have more than enough". A simple truth that is so simple that most of us take it for granted.

[Janet Katz]

Great video, Lorie - as usual! It is an excellent list of questions to think about as we prepare for the new year.

[MyFunnyBrianShow]

Happy new Years!