New Years Resolutions for Renters

Although largely symbolic, the start of a new year offers you the chance to do things better.  While people usually look to themselves for self-improvement, it might be more productive to think about how things could be better managed in your apartment.  New Year’s Resolutions are difficult to maintain, but if you keep your apartment resolutions simple, realistic, and useful, then upholding them should be easy.

Out with the Old

Nothing allows you to free up, and change up, your apartment like purging the ghosts of yesteryear.  The New Year gives you a great opportunity to finally offload the things you have been holding on to.  A great rule of thumb is if you have not used an object in the past year, then pass it on, and make space for something else!  Haul those old clothes, coats, shoes, books, DVDs, and small pieces of furniture off to the thrift store, and make some room for yourself.  Also, New Year is a great time to finally commit to getting rid of the trickier items that have languished under your kitchen sink or in your closet for the past year.  Old paint cans, hardware, dead batteries, or old tech and wires can all be gotten rid of by simply looking up municipal guidelines on their safe disposal.

A Fresh Start

The New Year also allows you to finally tackle the little projects that have weighed you down throughout the year.  Now is your time to finally go through your digital pictures, select five or ten of them, and print and hang them on your wall.  Or, maybe this is your chance to go out and grab some frames for the posters or prints you have stacked under your bed, and have been dying to put up.  Additionally, the New Year lets you commit to some new systems to help you better streamline and manage your life.  Now is the time to take a look at your kitchen and rearrange cupboards, shelves, cooking implements, and ingredients to better sync with how you prepare food.  Or, maybe this is the time that you finally tackle your home entertainment system to de-clutter wires, or to purchase that one small device that makes your streaming or listening that much more strait-forward.

Be a Better Tenant

Finally, the New Year gives you a chance to start doing the things you wished you did in your house or building to improve your living space.  Whether it is introducing yourself, at long last, to your neighbours, or picking up flyers on the floor of your mailroom to throw in the recycling, the New Year is a great opportunity to start building a better community.  Remember, change starts with you, and sometimes the easiest way to make a change is by rearranging how you live.