Driving back from our short holiday trip to visit PA with a car full of amazing presents from our generous family, Drew (my husband) and I started talking about ways to organize some areas in our house to make room for all of our new stuff. The conversation started out about the play area in our basement and snowballed into all of the places that needed some cleaning out and organizing: the linen closet, the boys’ bedroom closet, my desk, the living room bookcases, the shed… And finally, the Storage Room. Perhaps bolstered by the “new year, new <insert whatever needs improving here>” sentiment, we threw ourselves head first into cleaning out and organizing as soon as we arrived home.
Drew was particularly keen to get the Storage Room stored out. I think at one time in the past, this room had been used by previous tenants as a bedroom but it’s not really suited to be such a thing. It’s small, with a low ceiling, a narrow doorway and a high tiny basement window, tucked out of the way in a corner of the basement. It’s not really good for anything except storing stuff so that’s how it got it’s name. But as we started pulling out boxes and bins, we decided a more accurate name would be the Junk Room. It turned out to be a way bigger project than either of us expected. How in the world did we accumulate so much stuff?
By the end of the first day of our Operation Organize, our entire house looked far worse than when we started with boxes and bins and stuff in every room and in every corner. We went to bed feeling tired, cranky, and liked we had accomplished nothing at all.
By the next morning, I realized our mistake. We had this huge vision for our space but we didn’t really break it down into manageable parts.
I think this just might be the pitfall of every New Year’s resolution ever. Our giant visions for self-improvement are only as good as the parts. The good news is that I have some great opportunities this year for you to “break it down” and accomplish whatever it is you are setting out to do. Prioritizing self care? Get started by snagging the last room at my January Restorative Yoga Retreat. Do you have handstand on you list of to do’s for 2016? Join my 9-week “Get On Up in Handstand” series! Or just do a mountain pose while you wait in line at the store. Take 10 minutes for a living room floor savasana. Tackle your vision for yourself and your life this year one little piece at a time. One pose at a time. Or in the case of my “Storage” Room, one box of stuff at a time.
My yoga teacher friend Galen posted on Facebook yesterday that what he learned in 2015 is “the fewer things I try to do, the more I get done.” Today, we took a page from Galen’s book and started the day by saying we were just going to finish the shed. And you know what? It worked! The shed is done, the kids’ closets are done, and the Storage room has only three more boxes to sort through. Small goals, big progress. Let’s do this 2016!
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