New Year offers us all a chance to regroup and start fresh and reinvent ourselves for the better. We’ve just come through the sound and fury of the holidays – and our homes, studies, and general outlook on life reflect it. What better time to get a grip and try to do it right than this clean slate of a new year looming ahead?  In that spirit, here are 6 resolutions for an organized new year that can rejuvenate you, your home, and your family. And the best part? They all build on each other. If you accomplish No. 1, then-No. 2 is easier. If you nail No. 4, No. 5 is a clinch. So it’s like a building block but with your life.

1) Downsize!

     Consider instituting this post-holiday rule for getting organized at home: for every new item that arrives, three things have to say adios. Call it the stay organized, one-for-three rule. It’s an effective way to organize yourself and reduce the junk that is growing around your room. Now move on to your holiday stuff. Any decorations you didn’t use this year? Chances are you won’t need them next year, either. Donate them! Go through your drawers, your closets. Yes, you want to keep a few cozy T-shirts and jeans for Saturday sports or painting. But you don’t need two dozen, right?

 2) Divide, Conquer and Label

Getting organized at home was already on your list, anyway. But we all still need a friendly nudge to jumpstart organization. The perfect time is now – a new year ahead; and you’ve downsized. You’ve got a little room. Now you can finally put everything where it belongs. I suggest adding just one more activity to your repertoire that will simplify the process tremendously: Label them.

Neatly typed labels make all the difference when you’ve reorganized because you and the family have virtual directions for putting things back in their new places. Try to at least arrange everything in allotted places so that you don’t ‘lose’ anything in your own room!

3) A neater, cleaner room

     Now that you’ve decluttered, organized, and downsized, a New Year cleaning should be a breeze. Often, clutter is what really makes cleaning hard. Have you ever cleaned before someone arrives to clean up your mess? People laugh when they hear this, but they don’t understand that 80 percent of cleaning is picking up stuff and returning it to where it belongs so you actually have some surface area to clean. To make this process easier, divide your chores and break them down in order. Let’s say, if Monday is Laundry nights, then room cleaning can happen on a Wednesday. It won’t take more than a few minutes if you manage to do it regularly.

4) Simpler and Saner.

More often than not, we try to keep ourselves as productive as we can be. This may include cramming hobbies in between academic hours or trying to multitask through homework and an extra activity like baking a cake. The fact of the matter is that we end up failing miserably at both because, honestly, multitasking never works out well. So try to tone down your arduous schedule a little. Give yourself breaks, break down your schedule, and finish off what seems like the most important task first and then follow it with the rest in order. Why complicate things when you can simply breeze through it, one at a time, right?

5) Take care of yourself

All of the above resolutions are about helping you take care of yourself. If your home is clean, efficient, and organized, you are taking care of yourself. If your time is well-managed, you are taking care of yourself. How? Because when your life and home are in chaos, you’re stressed out, right? If your home is well organized, you should also have time to eat healthy, exercise, and get plenty of sleep. And remember those time slots to allow yourself? Don’t cut corners there. Your slot could be as extravagant as an occasional day at the sports ground or as simple as taking a long warm shower. You choose. But do it!

6) Be the best you can be

If you find time to be good to yourself, you will find the time, energy, and patience to be good to your loved ones. One just flows from the other. But you cannot go directly jump to organizing your room without cleaning it up first, right? These resolutions are like building blocks. If the bottom layer is unstable, you can’t build on top of it. So take a deep breath and start. Don’t expect to finish the resolutions in a day, week, or even a month. This is a continuous process, but one that will pay off for you in the year ahead.

Ready yourself for a positive and prosperous New Year. Start small today and by the time this year ends, you will see how far you have come.