Things can somehow seem messier, dirtier and less organised during the winter months.  But, now we are a few weeks into January, we can no longer use the phrases -‘It’s Christmas’, ‘it’s the school holidays’, ‘it’s the party season’ as excuses to have a messy and dirty home!

The time has come to get organised with a proper cleaning and de-cluttering schedule for 2017 underway.  Here we list a few suggestions to help you get going.

• Go through all of your wardrobes and divide clothes and shoes into keepers and giveaways. If you’re a seasoned hoarder and if you haven’t worn it for two years – then give it away!
• Go through your sock drawer, pair-up and stack socks, gloves and tights etc where they can be easily accessed. Throw out the singletons!!
• Clean your muddy boots and shoes and spray with protectant.  Take all that need repairing to the repair shop in one go and then you are most likely ‘done’ for the year or at least the next few months!.
• Tidy out your cupboards of all of those out-of-date spices and those that only have a little bit left in the bottom.  After six months – most spices loose their flavour and their oomph! Store remaining ones in alphabetical order to speed up your cooking and check your cans and jars while you are at it!
• Lots of us now work solely at home or some of the time.  If you do then the paperwork will inevitably pile up! Now is a good time to file away bits from the previous year and recycle what you will no longer need.  Do the same with your computer – delete old files, store files you want on disks or your hard drive and empty the trash bucket!

Start the year as you mean to go on for a cleaner and tidier home!