How Decluttering Can Support Your New Year’s Resolutions

Start the New Year Off Strong With a Full Declutter

Happy new year from Junk.com! The season of fresh new planners and reset calendars is the perfect time to align yourself with the person you want to be. This is why the new year is a popular season for creating annual goals and getting into constructive new habits.

Are you one of the roughly 30% of Americans making a 2026 new year’s resolution? Good for you, taking that first step toward the life you want. Your future self will thank you, if you can follow through. Only about 9% of Americans who make resolutions actually hold to the goal throughout the year. The second Friday of January, infamously dubbed “quitter’s day,” sees a 43% drop-off in Americans sticking to their resolutions.

One way you can improve your odds of making it to December is by setting yourself up for success at the starting line. This is why January 2026 should be the month you make your big annual declutter. You’ll roll into the new year so much lighter, and organizing your home will help support your new year’s resolutions.

What Resolutions are People Making in 2026?

Some of the most common goals for 2026 include:

Improving individual health: Many Americans resolve to eat healthier, exercise more, or lose excess weight.

Saving more money: With cost of living on the rise, 46% of Americans making a new year’s resolution are looking to slash spending and pocket more of their hard-earned money.

Spending more time with friends and family: These Americans are making time for what really matters in life by resolving to direct more attention toward their loved ones.

Doing more for the environment: Going green is the name of the game for 24% of Americans making a new year’s resolution. These people intend to recycle more, reduce their carbon footprint, and buy more sustainable products.

Improving work performance: Business-savvy goal setters want to find more fulfillment in their work lives by boosting their work performance and decreasing work-related stress.

Your goals could look similar to one or more of these, or maybe you’ve decided to enrich your life by learning a new skill, traveling more, or practicing gratitude. Whatever your new year’s resolution may be, chances are that making a big habit change will have an impact beyond the next 12 months.

So how can decluttering help you achieve these goals? Get ready to fine-tune your focus, because getting rid of junk you don’t need offers numerous benefits.

5 Ways Decluttering Can Support Your New Year’s Goals

No matter what your goals for 2026 may be, starting the year with decluttering can set you up for success.

Here are five major ways that decluttering supports your ability to go after your resolutions.

1. You’ll Know What You Need (And Don’t Need)

Decluttering is a great way to take inventory of all the items in your household. When you’re evaluating whether or not to keep items, you will consider how often you use items and what value they bring to your life. You can compare that value to your list of resolutions.

Going into 2026, you’ll have a clear picture in your mind of what you use and love on a regular basis and what might not be serving you anymore.

2. You’ll Reclaim Productive Spaces

Is there a junk room in your home? That room could be your home gym for daily exercise, your new sewing room to start focusing more on your hobbies, or it could be a guest room for friends and family that you currently never invite over. This room could be serving your 2026 goals, if you could just manage to clear it out.

Even if you don’t have an entire junk room, there’s probably junk lying around in your home that’s preventing you from utilizing your space well. Crowded kitchen counters make for difficult healthy meal prep and overflowing office inboxes might keep your from getting your best work done.

3. You’ll Improve Your Focus

Cluttered surfaces at your home or in your workspace could be forcing your brain to split its limited attention. Whenever you sit down to focus on a task, like working on a new hobby or crafting your new year’s budget, your brain is working overtime to ignore all the clutter in your visual field. Working around junk and clutter can therefore sabotage your efforts to create new habits and break bad ones.

Studies show that people focus better, complete more tasks, and even experience improved mood when in a decluttered, organized space. If you have intellectual goals on your new year’s resolution list like learning a new skill or improving your work performance then refined focus is vital.

4. You’ll Be Equipped to Defeat Procrastination

People with more clutter in their homes are also more prone to procrastination, according to one study. If you’re inclined to delay the laundry until it’s a mountain of smelly unwashed clothes or you resist sorting the mail until your countertops are covered in unopened bills, you might find yourself also putting off doing important work on yourself.

Part of crafting new habits is breaking bad ones, like procrastination. If you have a tendency to put tasks off, including your new year’s resolutions, then a good decluttering session just might help kickstart the engine.

5. You’ll Start the Year Mindful of What You Buy or Bring Home

Getting rid of the items that don’t serve you helps you set your intention for the year. From this point forward, when you consider buying or bringing an item home, you can be mindful of your goals and how the things you bring into your life support or sabotage those efforts.

If your goal is to save money and you just spent three weeks cleaning out your closet, you’ll probably think twice about impulse-buying a new outfit.

Convinced you should declutter? Get $26 off your first junk pickup of 2026.

Five Items to Declutter Before January Ends

Decluttering can feel like a big task, and part of the reason you might put it off is because you don’t know how to start. We advise you start small. Pick one category of item to sort through and be selective about what you choose to keep.

Here are six things you start your new year’s declutter with.

1. Holiday Decorations

The first few weeks of January, you will start taking down the holiday decorations. Items like your live Christmas tree will require responsible disposal, and anything you keep year after year will need to be stored. Declutter your décor as you pack it away.

Did any items in your holiday décor collection stay in the box for the 2025 holiday season? These items are big contenders for the giveaway pile. After all, if they only come out once a year and you didn’t even bother in 2025, what makes you think you’ll bother in 2026?

Whittle your decorations down to the items you love and enjoy displaying. Toss anything broken and donate items in good condition that just aren’t bringing you the same joy.

2. Old Furniture and Mattresses

Tripping over a broken chair or a ripped up couch? Those unsightly pieces of junk make a poor impression on anyone you invite over, not to mention the real estate they take up. You could use that space for so many other things that will make the new year more productive. Old mattresses wreak havoc on your joints and prevent you from getting good sleep. Throw those bulky old mattresses away and make room for restful nights.

Bulk items might pose a significant challenge to get rid of, but once they’re gone you’ll have more physical space and more mental clarity. You can get rid of large junk items as soon as today with responsible junk removal.

3. Old Clothes

Dig through your drawers and throw open the wardrobes. Try on items you love and see if they still fit. Offload items you don’t wear and don’t love without exception. Ill-fitting clothes in good condition are candidates for donation, and torn or ruined clothing items should be responsibly disposed of.

4. Outdated or Broken Electronics

Got a shiny new device under the Christmas tree last year? Now is the time to sell, recycle, or donate your outdated tech. Look through the back closets and the junk drawers for any devices you haven’t used in the past year. Broken electronics should be recycled or responsibly disposed of, and anything that’s functional can be resold, repurposed, or donated to your favorite charity thrift store.

5. Garage and Storage Unit Clutter

Garages and storage units can accumulate massive amounts of cast-off junk. If you have so much clutter in your garage that you can't move around in it, then it's time to re-evaluate what you're keeping in there. Responsibly discard items that are broken and donate any items in good condition to your favorite local charity. Be extremely picky about what you choose to keep. After all, if it's out of sight and mind in a garage or storage unit the majority of the time, how important could it really be to your day to day life?

6. Overflowing Household Waste

After the holidays, you might find yourself in maze of cardboard boxes, packaging, and wrapping paper, not to mention all the holiday leftovers in the fridge that will probably spoil or expire before you can consume them. Add this to your regular household garbage output, and you have a recipe for an overflowing bin. Some municipals will refuse pickup of household waste that is not in line with regulations.

If this is you, then Junk.com can help. You can start the new year off with a clean slate and call for a special trash pickup from Junk.com.

Happy New Year and Happy Decluttering

Junk.com would be delighted to help support your new year’s resolutions by kicking out the unwanted clutter. Make old furniture, broken appliances, and shoddy electronics disappear as soon as today. Junk.com prioritizes donation and recycling so you can feel good about letting the junk go, and keep your resolution to do more for the environment.

Get $26 off your first junk pickup of 2026 through the end of January. Kick that junk out of your space and prepare for a successful launch into the new year.