Karen McCartney writes about new resolutions (and revisiting old ones) for the new year.

I know it is slightly ridiculous to try and re-invent a lifetime of habitual behaviour just because the clock has ticked onto a new year but I love the sense of a clean slate. I relish the promise of a better, and more organised me, and the harmonious home life that will result from my exemplary powers of organisation. I am not instinctively efficient and so any achievements are due to great effort over my natural tendency to have a cup of tea and a lie down.  On the plus side I do love a list.

Yesterday's list read:

Tidy Ava's room – 1 hour (it took 3 hours)
Go to gym (didn't happen -  ho hum)
Do GST return (didn't happen as couldn't locate all receipts)
Walk dog (tick)
Write chapter of book (didn't happen as spent so long on Ava's room)
Go to dry cleaner (tick)

A 50% success rate but you get the gist. But if you care to divide into  'easy'  and 'hard' it is the easy that gets done and the hard slides to the next day.


The 'before' situation on Karen's kitchen bench.

So why go changin'? My vision is for a home that feels lighter and more efficient with less stuff in our lives. I need a system for all bills and paperwork which at present sits reproachfully on the kitchen bench - a deep stack of bills and insurance dockets, not to mention tax receipts (and a system does not mean little envelopes tucked around the house that you find a year after the fact). I need to sort my wardrobe and be honest about which items will never see the light of day again. I need to purge the bathroom cupboards of out-of-date medications and dead lipsticks. Not to mention the linen cupboard.

So here is a combination of my resolutions and some of the things I have learnt along the way.



1. Create a room fit for a high school student
My daughter Ava starts high school and so I wanted to create a sense of a fresh chapter for her, starting with a makeover of her room. The satisfying thing about clearing kids' rooms is that they grow out of things literally, educationally and emotionally so clothes, books and toys have a natural eject button. I divide into piles for charity, for the children of friends and for the bin. Anything I give away I wash and iron and I never give toys to charity that aren't complete.

We agonise over presents given by extended family that she no longer wants but it seems too sad to give away so they go back on the shelf for another year.  The good art works are kept and the rest are photographed and binned,  half finished scrap books have the used pages ripped out so the rest can be saved . We recycle where we can, as otherwise the waste is too depressing. In the process I realise that we have too many useless games and toys at the $20 mark as the result of birthday parties and resolve to give gift cards in future so as not to add to the clutter of others.

We clear a space for her to work, put up a calendar so that she can take some charge of her own agenda and vacuum the floor. We haven't tackled the shelf over her bed which we agree is very dusty. Another day.



2. A system for paperwork
For this I looked up the responses of efficient types who have taken the trouble to reveal their systems in answer to the question 'how do I organise my paperwork'. It had a two-fold effect. I felt depressed by all these highly organised people who made it all sound so damn easy. I now know about colour-coded folders and the two-drawer system, about hanging folders named by bill type, monthly catch-all shoe boxes, files, and different cabinets for business and personal. But one thing struck home – whatever your system, you have to file it – so here is a plan which suits my level of commitment – which is low on effort and high on return.

1. Create space. Throw out anything older than 5 years from my last tax return. I know I have electricity bills from 2002.


2. Buy simple clear folders from Officeworks and name them – insurance, bank statements, credit cards, health receipts etc.


3. Put the latest bill at the top and the pay by date in my phone


4. Work in 3 month periods. Let things accumulate and then clear and file.

I realise this is far from sophisticated but I reckon I can do this and attainable goals are better than perfect systems that are never realised.



3. Clearing cupboards for a more streamlined life
Do you know that feeling of having pulled everything out of a cupboard and then not quite having the energy to deal with the mess you have made? Resist the desire to bundle it all in again. I tackled our bathroom cupboards starting with what was out of date, as the decision is out of your hands. It is hard to make a case for keeping a 2011 eye ointment.

Clothes are harder. I tend to try on things I haven't worn in years and go 'oh this isn't too bad" and put it back for another year. Really it should have one round of forgiveness and then be retired.  I tried selling through a 'second time around' designer shop once but found the experience rather bruising for very little return, so I just give items to charity. The linen cupboard is another challenge. After 20 years of wanting proper linen sheets I now have them courtesy of Bedouin Societe and I love to see them pleasingly stacked. I just need to cull and replace the sad, long-service towels to have a camera-ready cupboard.

Wish me luck.

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