Get Organized and Simplify Your Life – Making New Goals
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If you’ve been around the blog a while, you may know all about the Life: Simplified Project. If not, it’s a project I began with some other bloggers at the beginning of last year. The goal was to get organized and learn how to live simply. I made several goals…
Life has a tendency to throw curveballs. I accomplished several of my goals, but I still have so much I want to do. A new year is the perfect time to sit and reflect on what was accomplished and make new goals on what you still want to accomplish.
I cannot commit to accomplishing a new goal every week. I’m about to have another baby, and I know how life is. However, I still want to blog about the things that I am doing and offer tips and encouragement for others with the same goals. 🙂
Let’s take a look at some of my goals from last year: (Psst…there’s a free printable goal planning sheet in that post.)
Home Organization
Organize linen closet- Organize kitchen/pantry
- Organize laundry room
Organize kids’ rooms/toys– This is an on-going process.Organize homeschool roomOrganize living room/entertainment center –I didn’t blog about this, but my husband and I just completely rearranged our living room after Christmas.
We also re-did our master bedroom and organized it.
Overall, I did pretty well with most of these goals. I’m going to get to work on my kitchen soon, so all that’s left is the laundry room!
Time/Schedules
- Have some sort of “date” with husband once a week. Can be a movie after kids are asleep.
– We try. Not always every week. Re-vamp cleaning schedule– I found my old housekeeping routine works just fine as long as I stick to it!- Assign children chores – Kids do what they are told, but we do need to set some structured chores still.
- Establish a new homeschool routine – Work in progress. Pregnancy and new baby will throw this off for a while.
- Establish set quiet times for children – Work in progress. Quiet times go so much better when my husband is off work!
Set beginning of the month budget meetings with husband– Accomplished! Will be blogging this soon!- Establish my own quiet time – Failing miserably.
– We try. Not always every week.I didn’t do so well with these goals. This is where I will focus in 2015.
Food/Meals
- Plan monthly menus – Did this about half of the year.
Clip coupons weeklyHaven’t blogged this, but we do it.- Organize once-a-month shopping trips – We did this until I got pregnant. I will be finishing this series this month.
Plan more crockpot meals to save time and trouble –I use my crock pot at least once a week.- Start making green smoothies again – Eh, I have a Ninja, but I haven’t been making smoothies as often as I want to.
Make more baked goods/baking day– This will be on the blog soon!
Other things I accomplished this year:
Regularly make homemade laundry detergent again.
I want to get back into making more things homemade, so I’ve come up with some DIY goals for 2015:
- Make homemade yogurt – We eat a lot of yogurt.
- Try making milk kefir
- Continue cooking from scratch and work on improving my cooking skills.
- Try knitting again.
- Continue reading and learning.
- Grow more herbs this spring.
You can find all of my completed projects on my Life: Simplified page. I will continue to add to this list as I complete projects.
If you never want to miss a post, consider subscribing to my newsletter. I currently have some Proverbs 31 printables available only to subscribers, and I plan to add even more freebies in 2015!
So, what are your goals for 2015? Are you trying to simplify and organize your life? I’d love to hear what you want to accomplish in the comments. If you’re a blogger, leave me a link to a post you’ve written about your goals!
Linking to: Mom 2 Mom Mondays, The Clever Chick,
I want to do a lot more *making* this year as well. I knit regularly, but I haven’t taken my sewing machine out in over a year. I also love to make all of my own cleaning products. I would love to expand my garden this year as well – it was cut way back last year due to being pregnant 🙂 Cheers to 2015!
I love having a garden, but I’m not the best at maintaining it. Most of my pregnancies have fallen during garden time, too! My husband is a wonderful gardener, but he has a lot of work stuff going on this year, so we aren’t sure if we will try to garden or not (aside from my herbs). I think your goals are awesome, Heather!
I love how specific your goals are! I am working on creating actionable goals so I can cross things off my list as well. Before I used to make general goals or just not even bother.
Thank you for linking up to the New Year Resolutions & Goals #linkup. I shared your post on StumbleUpon and Pinterest!
Actionable goals really help you achieve your goals. They give you something specific to do, so you are more likely to do it!
Thank you for sharing my post, Michelle!
As a mom of 5, I highly encourage the date night goal, even like you said, if it’s at home! I’m hosting a new link up on Wednesdays at my blog that I’d love for you to link to!
We really need to get better at the date night goal. I’ve just been so exhausted with pregnancy that it’s been hard for me to stay up after my other kids go to bed. I know eventually we will get back into a routine where I’m not so dog tired!
I have given up on following a set of rules to get organized. I am doing my best to get organized on my own and that is the best I can do right now. I do love the feeling of something being organized, especially when a system is in place that I can work.
Slow and steady wins the race. Just do what you can when you can!
I am now a granma, an older mom. It is absolutely wonderful to see all you on here and how you are living your lives! whether you accomplish your own “lists” or not, you are all doing great at living a better lifestyle for yourself and family and home! I was a ’70’s mom all 3 children born in that decade. we were in the midst of women’s lib and there was much confliction on the choices we made. I am so very happy to see women having a choice and following their own dreams. Raising children is the very most important thing you will ever do. believe me. This is your legacy in life. Teach them responsibility, compassion, and love. Teach them about love of self also. And do teach them to respect mother earth. Nothing else you do in this life will leave such a mark. Enjoy every minute as yes, they are all grown up before you know it. Proud of you women!
Thank you so much, Katherine. Your comment made my day! I am so honored to raise my children and to have the choice to stay home with them.
Joanie…What an inspiring post! Yes, I am always organizing and re-organizing our home. I often go through and declutter so things don’t pile up. It was my goal to get my goals down this past week but instead we found our first week of the new year helping friends through a difficult time. SO, maybe this week I can work on that more. Thank you for sharing. Found you at Mom 2 Mom link up.
Thanks for stopping by, Naomi! I love when everything is organized. I feel like I can breathe!