New Year's Resolution List: Top 10 resolution ideas for your home

Now that we're standing on the cusp of yet another new year, it's time for the annual resolutions. For many of us, this ranges from doing more exercise to spending more time with loved ones – but don't forget to invest in your living environment, too, as a form of self-care.

Take inspiration from these New Year's resolutions we're setting for our homes in 2023.

Content

• New Year's Resolutions For Tidier Homes
• Home Hacks to Help Realise Your Personal New Year's Resolutions

Here are some New Year’s resolutions for a tidier, more pleasant living space:

1. Set a schedule for daily cleaning

Instead of leaving everything to the weekend, set yourself a morning or evening routine so you can maintain an organised house all week long. This can be general tidying or doing one room at a time each day.

Plan everything out before starting your chores. This way you'll avoid wasting time looking for supplies and tools that are needed for each chore.

2. Tidy as you go

Make it a point to tidy up after yourself after every time you use something (this helps to train your kids to do the same, too). This applies to washing the dishes, putting away piles of laundry, and wiping down the hob after cooking – doing these small tasks as you come across them helps to prevent dirt buildup in the long run, making it easier to do deep cleaning next time.

An easy way to remind yourself to do this is to keep your cleaning materials close at hand. For instance, storing a lint roller in a dresser drawer keeps it within reach when you need to pick up hair, dust and powder. Alternatively, store your cleaning materials in a cart that's easy to move from room to room.

3. Make it a point to fall in love with your home again

Just like in any partnership or marriage, your relationship with your home needs work. After the last two years of spending so much time at home, it's easy to see the space as purely functional and forget why you fell in love with your home in the first place. Invest in the little things that engage the senses – whether it's a beautiful floral arrangement delivered weekly, home scents that relax you, or luxurious silk sheets that envelope you as you get into bed after a long day.

4. Reframe housework as a meditative activity

Too often, we see chores as something to be hurried through and done as quickly as possible so we can move on to the next task. This inevitably leads to frustration and resentment over time. Instead, look at cleaning as an act of love for your home, or use it as a meditative activity while listening to soothing soundscapes or an audiobook. We love watching cleaning and homemaking videos on YouTube for inspiration on days where we just don't feel like doing housework – Her86m2, Honeyjubu, and Hamimommy are some of our favourites.

5. Keep your clothes neatly folded with the KonMari method

Messy clothes drawers are a thing of the past. Fold your clothes neatly with the KonMari method (they should be able to stand on their own) and stack them in neat rectangles in your drawer, so that you’ll be able to see them all at a glance. It may be a chore to do at first, but keep practising and soon it’ll be a habit that you won’t think about twice.

6. Schedule a deep clean for every quarter

A home can start to show signs of neglect if you don’t keep it properly cleaned and care for. Set aside a weekend every three months to do chores like washing your curtains, cleaning the stove, and all the other little things that often get overlooked during regular housekeeping.

7. Sort mail as soon as it arrives

Hands up if you have unopened envelopes lurking in a corner of your house, or if your dining table is cluttered with flyers. Make it a point to sort mail as soon as it arrives – all junk mail like unwanted flyers go straight into the bin, and letters for each family member are handed out or go into a mail organiser. You can use a set of small drawers or hanging organiser (we like the NORDRANA organiser from Ikea), or even make your own with upcycled cereal boxes.

8. Stop the hoarding by keeping a list

It can be tempting to stock up on things, especially during a sale, but it can overwhelm your house, especially if you have very little space to begin with or forget that you’ve already bought something. To stop overbuying or hoarding, keep a list on your phone of all the things you’ve stocked up on – when you’re about to buy something, check the list first. You might be surprised that you already have six shampoo bottles, or two crates of canned drinks.

9. Recycle properly without ruining others' efforts

Although Singapore’s recycling plants don’t require us to sort our items beforehand like Japan, we should still make an effort to keep them clean. Oils and liquids from unwashed containers can seep out and soak into paper, cardboard, and fabric – contaminating them and rendering them unrecyclable. Wash and dry your food and drink containers thoroughly first before consigning them to the recycling bin.

10. Give yourself some grace

Finally, don't be too hard on yourself – a home's purpose is to be a place of comfort, so it should be clean, but it doesn't mean every single surface has to be sparkling all the time. If you have a tendency to stress out about housework (we're guilty of this sometimes), look into getting professional help on the weekends or talk to your family members about adjusting expectations. Ultimately, your home should be a source of comfort and happiness, not anxiety.

Personal New Year's Resolutions: 7 Home tips to help

The art of structuring one’s environment has long been proven to help us maintain good habits. Want to diet? Get a small plate so your portion looks bigger. Thinking of going for a jog every evening?

Leave your trainers by the door so you see them once you get home. Setting yourself up for success doesn’t have to be all grit and discipline – it just requires tweaking your environment a bit.

Since it’s that time of the year again to think of New Year’s resolutions, we’ve rounded up some life and home hacks to help you keep to them.

1. Better Sleep Schedule: Get better home lights

Going to bed and waking earlier probably appears in everyone’s New Year’s resolutions, but we all tend to stay up later than intended while browsing social media, replying texts, and watching cat videos.

Trick yourself into getting sleepy earlier by adjusting the lighting – use soft mood lighting and bedside lamps instead of bright overheard lights, and adjust your phone’s settings for a warmer hue, so as to reduce blue light.

In the morning, use gentle lighting to wake yourself up naturally – we like the Wake-Up Light Alarm by Philips, which mimics a sunrise by gradually brightening.

2. Better Health: Set up healthier workspace

Change up your workspace for better health. Swap out your regular desk for a standing one, or your chair for something else that gives you a workout, like an exercise ball that requires core muscle control to stay balanced on.

On top of that, you should be getting up every now and then to stretch and rest your eyes – set a Pomodoro timer on your desktop that reminds you to move every now and then.

3. Drink more water

Is staying hydrated one of your resolutions? Get a large, clear bottle and make markings it on it for every hour between 9am and 9pm, evenly spaced.

Every now and then throughout the day, check that you’re hitting your target level.

Better yet, have a large drink dispenser on or near your desk, so that a glass of water is always within reach even if you’re busy.

4. Lesser or zero waste

Even though most of us have several reusable shopping bags stashed away at home, we often forget them when we grab something from the supermarket.

Keep them within sight and easy reach by placing one near the doorway, one in your bag or car, and one at your workplace. That way, you’ll always have a reusable bag on hand when you pop out for errands.

5. Eat healthier diet

It might sound like a no-brainer, but surrounding ourselves with healthy food forces us to stop snacking on chips and reach for an apple instead when we’re feeling peckish.

Make it a rule to stop buying unhealthy food, and clear out your fridge of chocolates and fizzy drinks. Instead, stock up on healthy snacks like edamame, fruit, and nuts.

6. Save more money

Set a daily reminder to check your bank account and credit limit.

We often spend without a second thought if we only have a fuzzy idea of what our bank balance looks like. Set a daily morning reminder on your phone to check your bank accounts and credit limits, and that fresh memory of your finances will help you make better decisions when you’re about to buy something.