Starting the New Year With a Clean Slate, Not a Long List

A quiet reflection on starting the new year — clearing space in our homes, routines, and lives for air and what really matters most.

A New Year has a way of arriving loudly — fireworks and all!

So often it’s bold resolutions.
Big declarations.
Long lists of everything we’re going to fix, chase, conquer, or finally get right.

But this year? This year, I’m feeling drawn to something quieter.

Last Sunday, our church began a new sermon series called Clean Slate. In the first message, our pastor said something that has stayed with me ever since:

Often we don’t need more goals. We need more air.

Real change, he suggested, doesn’t usually begin with adding more.
It begins with subtraction.

He illustrated this with the idea of a junk drawer.

You know the one. Every home has at least one — maybe three (guilty). It starts innocently enough. A loose screw. A mystery key. A whatcha-ma-call-it we might need someday. We tuck things away because we don’t want to deal with them right now.

And then one day, the drawer won’t open.

It’s jammed tight. Nothing works the way it should.

The solution isn’t to rearrange what’s inside or find better containers. It’s to open the drawer — sometimes with a little effort — and sort through each item, making a decision. Most of the time, the decision is to let it go.

That image has stayed with me.

Not as a call to overhaul everything all at once — just as a reminder of how easily things collect. How even useful things, kept too long, can start to crowd out what we actually need.

So I’ve been paying attention to the drawers that feel a little stuck.
In our home. In our routines. In our days. In ME!

Not to empty them completely.
Just to open them.
And make a little room.

If you’re feeling a similar pull, these are my starting points — not a prescription, just possibilities. Your home, your season, your life may look very different. You do you.

And this isn’t something I’m doing all at once.

For years now, I’ve chosen a Word of the Year. I usually narrow it down to three or four, try them on for a bit, talk them through with The Hubs, and only then commit.

Last year’s word was Balance. The year before that, I chose Creativity and Joy (which, honestly, was a bit of a cop-out since preaching the gospel of creativity and joy has always been my mission).

The point is: this kind of clearing takes time. It unfolds gradually. And I’m not quite ready to name my 2026 word just yet.

So for now, I’m starting here:

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

Not the whole house. Not a dramatic purge.

Just one drawer.
The literal junk drawer in the kitchen.
The shelf in the linen closet stacked with extra bedding you’re not even sure you like anymore.

I’m not rearranging. I’m deciding.

Asking:

• Do we actually use this?
• Does this serve our life right now?
• Or is it just taking up space?

Small clears add up — and they’re far more sustainable.

Our schedules can become junk drawers too.

I’m paying attention to commitments that once made sense but quietly don’t anymore. The urge to fill every open pocket of time. The pressure to keep doing things simply because we always have.

Just like a drawer that won’t open, a life packed too tightly eventually stops working well.

Not every tradition needs to stay exactly as it was.
Not every role needs to be carried by the same person forever.

Some things get refined. Some expectations get quietly released.

This isn’t about doing less for the sake of it — it’s about keeping what brings connection and peace, and letting go of what brings stress or resentment.

Sometimes subtraction is an act of care.

I’m learning that not every cleared space needs to be filled again.

Sometimes the gift is the space:

• A calmer morning
• A less cluttered surface
• A weekend with nowhere to be

More air. Less pressure.

Refresh looks different for everyone.

I have a friend who refreshes with a week or ten days alone at their getaway home, soaking up the quiet. Two others swear by short spiritual retreats. For me, creativity feeds my soul.

So I’m refreshing with a 30-day watercolor challenge at home — learning something new, stretching creatively, and letting that be enough.

I like to refresh our home in small ways too:

• New greenery (always a mood-lifter)
• New candles
• Restyling the artwork on our picture ledges
• Swapping out a pillow cover or two
• Giving the sofa some love with my Little Green Machine

Nothing dramatic — but it all makes my heart feel lighter.

Any time the sun peeks out, I bundle up and take a walk. It doesn’t have to be long. Just a little Vitamin D and a burst of brisk air does wonders.

I’ll admit, several bleak days in a row make this harder.

So I bring nature in:

• Branches from the yard
• Fresh fruit or flowers from the grocery store
• Wood accents, stone, moss — anything that adds warmth and grounding

Nature has a quiet way of restoring us, even in small doses.

When I step back, I notice how these small shifts change the feel of a space. and the weight of our lives.

A drawer opens more easily.
A room feels lighter.
A day has a bit more room to breathe.

Nothing dramatic — just the quiet relief that comes when things aren’t packed quite so tightly anymore.

Maybe that’s what a clean slate really looks like.

Not a blank page, but a home — and a life — with fewer jammed drawers. More light. More breathing room. More space for creativity, joy, and the people we love most.

That feels like a good place to begin.

I am looking so forward to our journey together through 2026!

I’m excited to see where it takes us, what we discover and who we become.