Clearing out clutter for a fresh start to the New Year

The New Year is the perfect time to ‘declutter’ bad habits from your life.

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The positive effects of cleaning up and clearing out clutter

Last week at the NCPIC offices, we decided to have a clear out of our resources room. It was long overdue, as the resources room was full of loads of old materials that we no longer need or use. In fact, the room had become so cluttered with old junk that it was unpleasant to be in there, it was difficult to find what you needed, and there was little room to store any new resources.

The Big Clean Out of 2014 took about five of us, three hours (and we were pretty tired afterwards), but the positive effect of having a well organised, decluttered space will probably last for many months. It s now much more pleasant to be in there and we don t dread a lengthy experience of having to sift through loads of clutter to find what we need. And the old saying of Cleanliness begets cleanliness is certainly the case here, as when we now put things away in the resources room we take much more care to make sure they re in the right place in order to preserve the organisation and feeling of calm in the space.

Remove bad habits and declutter your life

What s interesting about decluttering, is that it doesn t have to just apply to physical possessions and spaces. It can apply to sticky habits, people and attitudes as well. As it gets towards the end of the year and we re looking forward to the New Year and all the promise it brings, we often feel the need to declutter bad habits we re not happy with so we re ready to start afresh on January 1.

For some people, smoking weed can be a sticky habit that s cluttering up your life. Perhaps you started smoking weed on the odd occasion a few years ago because your friends were doing it, you were curious about it, or you found it relaxing and social. But as the months went by, you started doing it more and more until it became a habit that is ever present in your life. It s a habit that really clutters things up in your life you find you are constantly having that discussion with yourself about quitting, thinking about it, feeling guilty about not doing, planning it, still not doing it buying weed, thinking about how much money you need to pay for your weed, or what you ll do while you ll smoke weed. All these thoughts, like our old resources, are things you don t really need that shouldn t be cluttering up and stressing out your mental space.

As 2015 approaches, maybe you ve come to the realisation that weed is sucking up a lot of your time and money, while leaving your health and maybe your relationships with some of your friends and family in tatters? Perhaps you re imagining that life without weed could actually be simpler, calmer and more clutter free ?

Getting rid of a bad habit in your life especially one that is weighing you down can be tricky, but the end result can be much the same as clearing out clutter in an unorganised room. You feel fresher, less claustrophobic and like you have more control over your life.

Make New Year s Day your personal bad habit declutter day

Many people choose to make a New Year s resolution such as January 1 is the day I finally quit weed! . If you feel weed is cluttering up your life this could be a great step to take. And the brilliant thing about making a New Year s resolution to quit weed is that we ve still got a couple of weeks to go before January 1, so you ve got some time to start cutting down between now and New Year s Day. Try cutting down a bit each day. This will make actually quitting on January 1 a lot easier.

If you re worried about all the temptations that the holiday season brings some people find resolutions that kick off in February a lot easier to stick to. Keep an eye for a blog coming soon on February resolutions.

If you re interested in accessing any of our resources to help you quit, check out our Get Help page, our Do-it-yourself guide to quitting or call our National Cannabis Helpline on 1800 30 40 50.