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What were your New Year’s resolutions this year? Did a few of them involve getting organized around the home? If so, what have you actually done so far to tackle those resolutions? Don’t be too ashamed if your answer is, “Not a whole lot.” A lot of people make big plans in January, only to start lagging behind straight away. “I’ll start on this next month.”

The biggest mistake you can make however is not to get a late start, but simply not to have a plan. And by a plan, I mean a schedule, an actual set of concrete steps for getting organized and staying organized this year. If you don’t have one, your “goal” of getting organized for 2017 will never be more than a dream. You will only take sporadic, random steps in that direction, and things will quickly fall apart as they do every year.

That is why you are going to want to create a family organizing calendar for 2017. Actually, an organizing calendar can include a number of different components to help you stay on track:

• Time management calendar. This is just a question of figuring out how you will structure your time each week. This is a great place to jot down weekly organizing tasks you are going to do on an ongoing basis to keep things tidy.

• Declutter and organize calendar. This might include small organizing tasks like those mentioned above (i.e. 15 minutes a day to a clean house), or it could include big tasks like spring cleaning which you are going to do once for the whole year.

• Financial planning calendar. I highly recommend that while you are figuring out how to organize your home, you also sit down and organize your finances if you haven’t already. This is another huge aspect of getting your entire household in order.

You will probably have several big calendars for the year, as indicated above. These are your overarching plans for the entirety of 2017. But you may also end up making a number of smaller calendars as well which are specific to different tasks. For example, you might have a calendar which is dedicated entirely to spring cleaning. Another calendar might be used for planning for Christmas 2017 (you can never get too early a start on that).

Once you actually have a game plan plotted out with specific, achievable steps, you are far more likely to actually follow through on your New Year’s organization resolutions. Your plans will tell you what you need to organize, what you need to buy at the store to do it, and when you will be tackling each task. Over time you may notice that you excel at some approaches while others do not work; if so, you can make adjustments to your calendars and schedules as you go along. You can make this the year that you finally get organized. It’s just a matter of making a concrete plan and sticking to it!