Still Setting Myself Up For A Good Year (or Transitioning From One Monthly Challenge To Another)

My monthly challenge last month was to do what I needed to do in order to have a good 2023. This involved several different things, but the main ones I focused on were around setting up my living space for success. This included going through my clothes to see what I could get rid of and going through my kitchen to take an inventory and make sure I don’t have anything expired.

I know this wasn’t too crazy of a monthly challenge, but I’m glad I did it because sometimes the simplest things are the things you seem to put off the most. I really needed to do these things and I’m happy I had a push to do them. Even though I went through a lot of my clothes when I moved, there were still so many things I didn’t need and were taking up space. Since I want to redo my closet and I’m looking for a new dresser, getting rid of things I don’t need will help me figure out how to set up my clothing storage. And going through the stuff in my kitchen was very helpful too. Since I’m trying to cook more, I really don’t want to think I have a spice in my cabinet only to discover when I’m about to use it that it’s expired. I know that not all expired spices are bad, but I don’t want to use something that could make the food I make taste off. I still have more that I want to go through in my kitchen since I know that I have other things that may have gone bad, but at least I got through the things I’m expecting to use more frequently.

After getting some things set up for the new year, I wanted to continue that trend with my monthly challenge for January. This is a variation of something I’ve done before, but my challenge this month is to create a good weekly schedule for myself to get certain things done. What this means to me is to create a schedule that will help me figure out when I should do certain weekly errands, what days might be best for different cleaning tasks, and what days are best to try to cook. I know that doing this will help me not only stay on top of the regular things I need to get done, but it will make it easier for me to find where I do have free time to do other things.

The only regular task I’m good about doing on a schedule is doing laundry. I used to do laundry every Sunday, but now I do it every Saturday. I rarely have to do laundry other times, but now that I have my own washer and dryer I do sometimes do non-clothing laundry on other days. But having that routine makes things easy since I don’t have to think too much about when I can set aside time to make sure I have clean clothes each week. But I want to feel that way about other things that need to be done regularly like vacuuming and mopping. I know for some things like cleaning my bathroom and dusting, need to be done more frequently so it might not be as easy to schedule.

And in the same way, knowing what days I have free time after work to cook will help me plan what to make and what groceries to get each week. I also like knowing when I’ll have leftovers so I have easy things to make for lunch or get ready for dinner. I don’t always plan out leftovers well when I have them, but this will almost be a way to do some meal planning with less effort. If I know I’m cooking on a Monday and will have 3 meals of leftovers, I will know when I need to cook again or when I might have to have something easy to make. I also can use this planning to start stocking up my freezer with leftovers again, which I haven’t done much since I moved. All of this will help me not feel like ordering food because I should have options available for me.

I’m not sure if there are other things I want to figure out for a weekly schedule, but I feel like these are good things to start with. And as this month goes on, I guess I’ll see how it goes and if it works out to do this idea with more in my life. The more that I can get into a routine where I don’t need to think too much about it, the better.

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First Monthly Challenge Of The Year (or Setting Up For The Year And Self-Improvement) Almost Through A Year Of Monthly Challenges (or Picking A Good Challenge For November) A Failed Monthly Challenge (or I’m Possibly Going To Fail Again This Month) An Isolation Monthly Challenge (or Just Trying To Keep Things Going) December Monthly Challenge (or Wrapping Up For The Year) Taking A Month To Reset (or This Doesn’t Really Feel Like A Monthly Challenge)