5 Simple Steps to Declutter Your Home for the New Year

Homemaking

Dec 1

5 Steps to Declutter Your Home for the New Year

Each year I’m so excited to pull out the Christmas bins and decorate with the kids — I can’t wait to get those twinkling lights up and enjoy those cozy evenings. But right after Christmas ends (and especially during that weird week when none of us know what day it is), something in me shifts. I’m suddenly so ready to clear the surfaces, breathe again, and hit reset.

The New Year rushes in and everywhere you look people are setting goals, organizing their homes, and trying to step into a “new year, new me” energy. And honestly? I think most of us moms want that too — but we’re also exhausted. We’re coming off holiday chaos, Christmas planning, kids home on break, family gatherings, and trying to get everyone back into a routine.

So if you're nodding along, just know this:

✧ You don’t need a hardcore home overhaul.

You need a gentle home reset — one that gives you breathing room, mental clarity, and enough order to feel grounded again.

Because truly…
It’s *almost impossible* to think about your goals for the year when you’re staring at a pile of wrapping paper, half-unpacked suitcases, and a kitchen counter covered in old treat tins.

Below, I’m walking you through 5 simple steps to reset your home without spending hours scrubbing or falling into an all-or-nothing perfection spiral. These steps are designed for real moms, real life, and real exhaustion — but with real results.

01. Start With the “Stress Zones”

These are the spots you walk into a dozen times a day and immediately feel your shoulders tense.
Your entryway overflowing with winter jackets and gloves.
The kitchen counters are piled with random holiday odds and ends.
Living room floors sprinkled with pine needles and new toy packaging.

Clutter is overstimulation — and overstimulation is the modern mom’s kryptonite.

So instead of trying to “clean the whole house,” pick one stress zone at a time.

A few gentle ways to do this:

↠ Choose one zone per morning/afternoon/evening if you like routines.

↠ Or knock out the biggest visual clutter first for an instant mood shift.

↠ Or start with the space you stand in most (for most moms, that’s the kitchen).

The goal isn’t perfection — it’s relief.
↠ Choose the one area that, once cleared, will give you the most mental peace.

02. Remove the Holiday Excess First

Look, the post-Christmas explosion is universal.

Even the most organized moms end up with leftover wrapping paper, shipping boxes, extra kids craft supplies, gift and random treat tins piled everywhere!! (Don’t let what you see on social media fool you!)

This clutter isn’t “normal” clutter — it’s temporary clutter.
Which means clearing it gives BIG results quickly.

Start by removing anything that doesn’t belong in your everyday living space.
You’ll instantly free up breathing room.

Bonus step:

While packing away décor, take two minutes to do a super quick edit. Toss broken ornaments, donate unused décor, and make a note of anything you want to replace next year. Your future self will thank you.

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Declutter by Category, Not Room

Instead of organizing room by room (which can feel endless), try choosing one category and giving it 10–20 minutes:

✧ Kids’ toys → perfect time to rotate after that Santa visit!

✧ Pantry items → toss expired food + make space for healthier staples

✧ Bathroom products → half-used bottles and random samples can go

✧ Papers/mail → gather everything into one spot and sort quickly

✧ Cleaning supplies → consolidate, toss things you won’t use anymore, refill what you’re out of

Sometimes, a fast category refresh gives more satisfaction than cleaning a whole room. I know I am not the only mom out there who literally feels a mood lift when that pantry is totally organized!

Refresh Your Daily-Used Spaces

Once the clutter is gone, you can shift into the gentle rhythm-setting part of your reset.

This isn’t about a deep clean — it’s about small daily wins that support your routines.

✧ 5-Minute Bathroom Tidy

If you didn’t do a category clean up, take about 5-10 minutes to toss empty bottles, and group similar products first! Then do your refills of hand soap, wipe the counter and put out a fresh towel. It’s tiny, but after the intial cleanout, having this as daily rhythm makes things feel a bit more organized after the rush of school mornings.

✧ Reset the Sink at Night

Not a full kitchen clean — just clearing the sink gives a visual sense of order. And morning you will thank you for not having a pile of things in your way during the breakfast preparations!

✧ Refill Your “Daily Use” Items

Paper towels, cleaning sprays, toilet paper, kids’ snacks— the small things. When these items are stocked, your home feels calm and functional!

✧ Create a Drop Zone

A simple spot for keys, backpacks, library books, and mail so everything can be found easily! I love having a tray to drop the mail in, and one for the school papers that always come out of the folders after school. Not everything is urgent to go through immediately but knowing where it is so I can go back and look at it after things have calmed down helps, rather than looking all over for a random paper!

✧ Open a Window for 2 Minutes

Okay, I know it might be like 30 degrees outside during these winter months, but I am not saying to keep the window open all day! Opening the windows for just a couple of minutes changes everything. It resets the energy of the room, can clear out any of that stuffy (let’s face it, germ-infested) air, and can even give a little calm to that overstimulated nervous system.

These are all things you can build into routines you can actually maintain during the school year, not a perfection-based clean house fantasy. But things that keep you calm, organized, without adding more to your plate.

Create Simple Systems That Stick

Here’s the truth most organization articles skip when I have read them!

↠ Systems fail when they aren’t built for your actual life.

Moms don’t need color-coded labels (unless that sparks joy, I am not going to diss the label marker we do all love them, but that isn’t what we *need*).

We do, however, need (or maybe should say want..) homes where everything has a clear, obvious place — and not overloaded in more clutter and chaos. That way we can stay on top of daily life without thinking about it.

A few simple systems that truly stick:

✧ Give Every Item a “Home Base”

When you know where something belongs, putting it away becomes automatic. Your family starts doing it too — because the system makes sense.

✧ Use Open Bins for Kid Items

Kids most likely won’t sort Legos by color, but they will throw toys into a basket. Keep it simple — and simple = sustainable, especially with kids! I love having bins that are just for legos, cars, playdoh etc. This helps them know where they go, without ending up with 10 bins full of random items we then later have to sort through.

✧ Set Up a Weekly Reset Day

Sunday night or Monday morning — 20 minutes to reset the areas of your home that get used the most. You don’t need to make this a 4-hour reset, just the things that can get tidied and have you more organized for the week. They are most likey the areas you will want to refresh in your daily tidy, but maybe have a little more week ready… For example:

✧ Kitchen counters are clutter-free

✧ Bathrooms are wiped down

✧ School/Work laundry is put away

✧ Backpacks and drop zone areas are organized and ready to go

***remember this is your weekly reset, so make it work for you and your life, not what you read and people say you should.***

✧ Keep Routines Flexible (think in rhythms..)

Motherhood is seasonal. What works in January may not work in June.

Give yourself permission to reassess and adjust — not abandon everything when things shift (because they will). This gives you the ability to see what works best for you and what to incorporate at different times of the year or seasons of motherhood (like newborn vs. 3 toddlers…)

This is how your home begins to work with you, not against you.