We’re already over halfway through Month 1 of 2026 (shakes head in disbelief). Here we were ringing in the new year just a mere minute ago, and now the year is almost 5% over already.
There’s no time like the present then to share my goals from my 4th and final domain for 2026:
Household
Main Goals:
1. Get my photo project finally up to date + establish a consistent, monthly photo clean out ritual.
This has been floating around on my Goals lists since 2020. What is this long and sticky “photo project”? Well, it’s really a multi-part goal. It’s a bit hard to explain….
Backstory: We’ve had Amazon Photos as our cloud photo backup since 2016. It does automatic backups, so all photos are backed up from 2016- present. However, all older digital photos from ~2007 – 2016 are on an external hard drive, NOT in Amazon photos, and I only started paying for video storage more recently (i.e. the cloud back up is not “complete”). Also of note, Ethan was born in 2008 and Asher in 2009, so that date range includes some VERY important-to-me photos (which are currently not in the cloud!).
So what I have been trying to do (since 2020), is:
#1: Copy all pre-2016 photos + videos from the external hard drive –> Amazon Photos, creating a full online archive of my entire married life + the boys’ childhoods. (Also weeding out bloopers/ duplicates.)
#2: Review pics + videos already in Amazon Photos (2016- present) and weed those out, then copy them to the external hard drive (creating a 2nd backup).
*Basically what I want is ALL OF MY post-2007 photos + videos to be both on an external hard drive and in the cloud!*
#3: Finally, once this backlog is addressed, I want to stay on top of it, doing a monthly clean out (and backup to the external hard drive).
If you have not noticed, I take a ridiculous number of photos. I can’t help it- I love it, and I’m not planning to stop. So this is not a small feat!
On the plus side, I have made progress- it’s just been very slow going, and I often can go weeks or months without remembering to work on it. When I do work on it, it can take pretty long to review even one month’s worth of photos and videos (especially if that month contained a vacation, oh dear Lord 😬).
I have a note in Google Keep to remind myself where I’m at:
As you can see, I am complete from 2016- 2021! Yay. But then it got spotty (and remained spotty).
My main goals for 2026 are to: 1) stay on top of the current months!! At the very least, this will help. 2) Work through the backlog through 2022. This means then at least 2016- present would be all up to date. I’d love to say I’ll get all the way back through 2007, and maybe somehow I can! But that also may be is definitely too ambitious, so honestly I’d settle for this first part and maybe the rest can happen in 2027.
*One perk about the way less yucky phone scrolling I’ve been doing (thanks to Opal blocking my Facebook and other distracting apps most of the time), is that I can potentially replace some of that bad scrolling time with more “productive scrolling”, i.e. cleaning out my Amazon Photos app.
2. Work on decluttering 1 room per month.
We don’t really have a major clutter problem in our house, despite not having the largest house, thanks to a shed in the backyard, TONS of built in storage in our garage, 2 basement storage rooms (with shelving) and other great built in shelving and cabinets and closets throughout our home. I am very grateful for this (and to the previous owners who did a lot of this!).
However, we’ve been in this house since 2013 now, and there are definitely some smaller spots that can use attention. Think less-visited cabinets or drawers that just need everything pulled out, cleaned out and reorganized. Or certain trouble spots.
My goal with this:
- Pick one “focus area/ room” for each month.
- Set a timer at least 2 times per week for 26 minutes (get it, 26? 2026?) and work on decluttering something in that area.
I figure if I can do even the minimum 2x/ week, that’d only be 52 minutes/ week (not even an hour!), or ~3.5 hours in an average month. Even if I don’t FULLY clean out every last thing, I feel like I could make a very good dent in a room in 3.5 hours!
Behold, some newly cleaned out desk drawers in my office….
*So far I’ve been trying to schedule these 26 min blocks on my calendar. It can be a good task to schedule when I need to just listen to something for work, like a Grand Rounds presentation. I can quietly declutter something while listening to the talk! I’ve also spent 26 minutes during a couple of lunch breaks doing this.
So far, January= laundry room/ office. I need to decide what February’s focus area will be. I want to prioritize bigger trouble areas during months we have no travel or other big events, and be mindful/realistic of the busy fall/holiday season!
3. Complete several lingering household tasks:
We have a good list of things that have been nagging at us for a while now and I’d really like to just TACKLE THEM for once and for all this year. These include:
- Replace our sunroom glider (we actually already shopped for this last summer and found one we like at a furniture store!) We just have to pull the trigger on wanting to spend the money on it, basically….and go order it….
- Our kitchen bar stools need replacing.
- We need to get cabinet and drawer pulls installed in the boys’ bathroom! (which was remodeled over a year ago now…). This is one of those tasks it’s easy to procrastinate on because technically you can open the drawers/cabinets without them… it’s just a little awkward.
- Submit photos to the garage floor company who did epoxy on our floor a few years back now to have some cracks repaired. (Lifetime warranty, and I already called- I just need to submit the photos! And schedule the visit.)
- Plant grass/tree where the the boys’ old swingset/ treehouse/sandbox was. This was a goal from last year (“dismantle and dispose of old swingset + plant grass and a new tree there”). Fortunately, the swingset is gone! We did accomplish that in 2025. But now there’s just a bare spot in the yard with no grass. At the very least, we need to plant grass there. Ideally, I’d like to plant a tree!
- Get a hot tub height end table (or bar stool even could work?) for next to the hot tub. This has also been on the list a long time. I just want somewhere to set my phone or a Kindle or a book if I’m in the hot tub (not the patio chair we keep next to the hot tub, which is too low and then water runs down my arm when I reach down to grab anything and I hate that. #firstworldproblemsomg 😳).
- Get a new desk for the living room. We have a little desk in the corner of the living room that has seen better days. Need a new one!
Bonus Household Goals:
1. Make a master household task list with Ivan for recurring tasks. I don’t think this needs to be a major endeavor – I’d just like to spend 20 minutes with Ivan going through the calendar and thinking through what quarterly/ seasonal tasks need to happen, when, and then ADD THEM TO THE FAMILY CALENDAR. Frankly I’m just tired of mentally managing a lot of this. I’d like to feel less behind the 8-ball on some of these things and more proactive AND have these tasks more visible.
2. Continue using Monarch and stay up to date with our monthly financial audits.
3. Make a curated “family favorite” recipe or meal list. I have several lists of “meal ideas” in Google Docs, by category, but I’d like a more narrowed down (yet still robust?) list of true FAN FAVORITES that we can reference when we’re trying to plan meals for the week.
4. Get my 2nd monitor set up for work! I have been using my laptop as my “second screen” for years now and let me just say, it basically sucks. ha. I have a 2nd monitor, but there is some weird issue with the cable set up. I know I need to request a specific cable (but I need to take the time to move all my stuff and figure out what exactly I need, again, because I can’t remember now….) and I also need to get a webcam (currently just use my laptop camera). I NEED 2 FULL SIZED SCREENS TO FUNCTION and I am committed to making this happen like, this month.
5. Make a new recipe each quintile. I have saved dozens of recipes be it on Pinterest or Facebook or other places, but I just want to make a point of actually making more of them.
6. Get the boys’ passports renewed. One that truly HAS TO HAPPEN this year (well, by December 2026 when they expire). I guess technically we don’t have any specific international plans for 2027 yet, but Ethan is currently mulling over a few ideas for a Graduation Trip, and anyway, we seem to need the passports frequently between our family vacations and family that lives in 2 different countries.
7. Get Asher’s Mexican citizenship. When Ethan was little, we took him to the Mexican consulate in Chicago and processed his Mexican citizenship. Since Ivan is a Mexican citizen (well, he’s a dual American/Mexican citizen, now), the boys have the right to Mexican citizenship as well.
Later, when we took Asher to get his, we somehow screwed up and had the wrong version of his birth certificate along (needed the “long version” which you have to specially request and we didn’t have that). So we couldn’t do it then. We intended to request the correct birth certificate and go back soon after and….. well, yeah. Asher is now 16 and we still haven’t done it!!! I don’t actually know if it “has” to be done before he’s 18, but we don’t want to risk somehow missing out on the chance to do this.
It’s one of those things it’s been easy to ignore because it’s not like he really “needs” it, currently. But the world is tumultuous and who knows what the future holds. It’s good to have options! 😉 Maybe he’ll want to move to Mexico someday! Maybe WE’LL want to move to Mexico! Maybe he wants to travel to Cuba! lol. It can also provide certain legal benefits, like social security type things in Mexico, should he ever need that. And finally, it’s just cool to be a dual citizen and “officially” be both Mexican and American, like his parents. 🙂
Whew, yeah, there’s a lot in this Household domain. We’ll see how it goes. 🙂 Again, my main focus is on those “Main” goals. (Although, reviewing this list, there are quite a few on the Bonus list I feel pretty strongly about wanting to get done, too…).
And that’s a wrap on all my 2026 goals! For reference, you can find the first 3 domains here: Health, Self-Care, and Fun/Family.
Daily Gratitude:
I am grateful for a looooong 3 day weekend! I LOVE these 3 day weekend holidays when unlike the larger holidays, we don’t actually have big celebration/family plans for the time off (MLK Jr. Day, Memorial Day, Labor Day). They are truly just bonus days for us and they are the best!! They always make me wish I could always just work 4 days/ week… 😩
Bonus Pic:
Yep, it is STILL CHRISTMAS TIME at our house. I was planning to take everything down this weekend (over the long weekend) but it turns out our belated Christmas (hosted at our house) with Ivan’s siblings got pushed to next Saturday instead of yesterday. So…. we decided to just leave everything up until next Sunday! I guess we are those “weird people” in the neighborhood, haha. (Ivan says in Mexico it’s common to leave the decorations up until some date in early February, I guess? So he’s okay with this plan. Besides, it’s been SUPER SNOWY this weekend and I do love the twinkle lights…).
GRATEFUL KAE 
We are moving house (and downsizing) so basically the whole year is decluttering. We’ve just done an open house and I’m quite chuffed with how it’s looking now, but know there is extra clutter lurking behind closed doors. I think the best thing with decluttering is have a destination for your stuff – a friend with younger kids, the library booksale, etc. Or a good freecycle habit – I’ve gotten good at posting a bunch of stuff and saying DM for address and collect what you want.
I’d also like to get photo albums done. I’m pretty good at keeping up with photo sorting – just need to print and stick. Your list inspired me to order the last 2 albums – this is the year my wedding photos (11 years married) get put in an album. I use Slidebox which makes the photo sorting much, much easier.
I’d also like to get a better sense of household tasks and recipes. I’m definitely the task assigner and it’s a really annoying task to have. I bought a recipe book you fill in – and am adding my favourites as I wait for something to come out of the oven. It feels like a useful thing to have and such a potentially lovely heirloom for my kid – a cookbook in his mum’s handwriting.
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Moving is such a natural- and challenging- time to do a major declutter! Honestly I feel like that is THE time to do it. I have joked that if only we moved every 5 years or so everything would be great. Haha.
I LOVE the idea of a handwritten cookbook. I have a notebook like this of my grandma’s recipes and it is so special. (It’s crazy- when I was in Ireland recently, my sister pulled out a recipe of my grandma’s, too, and we all marveled how the paper still SMELLED LIKE MY GRANDMA’S house! And she passed away in… 2013? It’s incredible.) I love that you’re doing that!
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I love that you have all this written down! I was thinking of doing a “punch list” like they do in construction management with household projects on it and actually, physically punching a hole in the project when it is done. 🙂 I need that satisfaction. I got an Aura frame two Christmases ago and it has been my favorite item! I have gone back and added some early photos to it and try to add to it and clean out old ones once a month and I get to see them all the time! It is such a fun item. But, I do want to start scrapbooking again (I have so much stuff from before my daughter was born but just haven’t done much since then), so I need to organize back photos more. She is graduating from high school next year and I would love to do her a “Life of” book for graduation. I know it will take a lot to do it, but it would be a great way of using up old stuff and having a really thoughtful gift for her graduation. Hmmmmmm… Anyways – love you throwing this out as inspiration!
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YES, I actually wanted to add in on the photo section part how part of the motivation is that Ethan is graduating next year, too, and at the very least I know I will need baby pictures for various things, or will want the full set of his childhood photos easily accessible and in one place! But I had already written a crazy amount about the photo project, LOL, so I ended up leaving that out. A Life Of book would be amazing as a gift! I love that idea… you’ll have to let me know how you do that. As in, a traditional scrapbook? Or like a digital photobook type thing you’ll have printed..? If there were an EASY way to do that’d be awesome. I take soooo many pictures though that sorting through them is such a challenge!
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I have a declutter-one-room-per-month goal this year too. This year marks ten years since we moved here so it seems like it’s time. I decided to take July/August off (in the spirit of deciding our summer weekends will be all about FUN). I like your 26 minutes timer idea though–maybe that would help me actually implement it when I get to the more challenging cluttered spaces. Last weekend I started the first room–my older kid’s bedroom–which is kind of an easy one because he is not very prone to clutter; it’s mainly just switching out clothes that are too small and working with him to decide books he wants to keep or give away. That one is almost done so I’ll probably finish it today or tomorrow. I probably need more of a system in place when I get to harder ones. My 10 rooms will be kid rooms x2, our bedroom, our bathroom, guest room/office, living room, kitchen, basement, garage, and laundry room (which has lots of storage too). My husband did a big cleanout/tossout of lots of the basement last year, which was mostly old kid toys, and he keeps the garage pretty clutter free (high motivation due to making sure he has room for his garage gym in addition to our cars!) so we already have a good start there or I would NOT try to tackle the basement/garage in one month each.
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Good idea to plan some off time in! I have been thinking a lot about annual goals and things I want to do “monthly” etc and have realized I often really underestimate how many “Extras” come with the fall/holiday season. I mean, I know it, but I often somehow think I’ll still be able to work + exercise + do all of our usual things, PLUS these “extras” I want to do PLUS all the holiday stuff and gifts and events and all the rest. Winter (Jan/Feb) IS a good time to tackle projects and extras, because there usually is less other stuff going on for us in this season. (Plus- no yard work in the winter!) I think being mindful of the rhythms is really important and something I was lacking! SHU’s planning systems help with this, I think!
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Oh I like your goals! The photo project is huge. I basically don’t have photos pre 2020… or maybe I do on a hard drive, or maybe that hard drive doesn’t work… anyways I am very impressed by your actual saving of photos in an organized way.
Are you a dual citizen? I need to get the kids their US citizenship sometime but we have to go to London and I just haven’t had the energy to take 4 kids to london. Also, one they have US passports they have to enter the US on their US passports so then I’m having to renew two sets of passports… so maybe waiting until they’re 16 is a good idea. But good luck getting it done this year – it will be a good one to cross off the list!
I love the 26 minute timer – would like some before and after photos of decluttered spaces 🙂
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Rachel, it might be easier to get an appointment if you did a mini break in Edinburgh or Belfast. The consulate in both is much easier to get in and out of and book an appointment. I had let my son’s US passport lapse and renewed it in the autumn, and it was much less stressful than I had anticipated – despite being really bad at paperwork details. We are headed to the US in April, so wanted to be up to date as everything is so bananas right now.
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I’m not a dual citizen. In Mexico, you don’t get automatic citizenship just by marrying a citizen- they have a residency requirement where you have to actually live there at least 2 years and become a legal resident (via marriage) and then eventually become a citizen. I don’t know ALL the details, but without us living there for at least 2 years, unfortunately, I don’t think I can become a resident! (and eventual citizen). Maybe someday if we ever move there or retire there (or winter there- maybe we could do partial year residence and still get credit? I’m not sure!). The boys as children of a citizen don’t have the same residency requirement- they automatically get it by having a parent who is Mexican.
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Whoa, it’s wild to think we’re already 5% into the year. Motion to pause the calendar until the Christmas tree comes down? Ours is also still out to twinkle another day lol. These are great goals and I’m so impressed how you’ve done the legwork on many of them already (e.g., picking the chair; checking the terms of the warranty). Go, you!
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Thanks! I’m glad I’m not the only one still with Christmas up in the house, haha. I HAVE ceased listening to Christmas music, lol. I love that but after Christmas, it just feels wrong! The lights…. still ok. 🙂
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lots of great goals!
photos: all of our photos are in iCloud and I love it. It’s so easy to search by year, month, even objects, say “cats” or “car” and it pulls it for you.
citizenship: there is no way in hell that I will file for Russian citizenship for my kids. Yes, it’s easier to travel there if you are a citizen but you are also treated as a citizen meaning the responsibility to that country. Say, Rainn is 16 and travels to Russia, they could draft him into the military service. Hell to the no. Russia is too obsessed with military action and I just don’t trust it.
decluttering… Maybe?.. we don’t really have a clutter problem and for me it’s a continuous process, like brushing my teeth and flossing…
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Eeks, yes, totally get why you don’t want Russian citizenship for them! Makes sense!
I also love the online clouds… I just want ALL my pics in there! I maybe could just skip the whole “weeding out process” and just dump everything in and call it good enough. My main concern is the video storage. I know when the boys were younger we would sometimes take a lot of videos like at soccer games, hoping to catch a goal, but lots of them are not even good… This is the type of thing it would have been way better to just deal with in the moment! sigh. But I didn’t, and I don’t want to pay to store a bunch of garbage videos…
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I did a little decluttering this week when I had a day off for a string of doctor appts. I dropped books and puzzles at the library and then did a goodwill drop. Plus we passed on bags of clothes to our neighbors. That felt so good! Next I need to list our stroller on Craigslist and see if I can sell it there. Otherwise Phil will have to list it on Facebook market place but selling stuff is more so in my domain.
I purchased a white board for our kitchen today at target. We have a wall calendar but the boys are in more activities now so I would like to update it weekly with meal plans so everyone is on the same page! I’ve had a goal to do something with the wall space in our kitchen but hemmed and hawed over it and finally decided to just get something!
I think our biggest project this year will be potentially replacing our retaining wall and fence. It’s something we need to do eventually but is the least fun project to spend money on…
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Ha, yes, a new retaining wall…. SO FUN! lol. Unfortunately, those things are necessary… boo.
A white board sounds good! We don’t have a good space anymore in our kitchen for anything like that- we used to have a big bulletin board on the side of a pantry cabinet but when we remodeled the layout changed and we don’t have the same space there anymore. Anyway, I don’t want to hang anything on our new cabinets -or our more newly painted walls. That’s part of the reason we went with that digital screen on our fridge! I definitely think it’s necessary with more activities to have everything visible somewhere.
Yay for clearing some stuff out! That is the BEST.
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The household task list is so helpful. We did it once few years ago and didn’t feel the need to do it again as it made it more visible all the work required to maintain a household.
New recipes is fun! I have the goal of making all recipes from a recipe food. let’s see how much we get to make.
oh thanks for reminding to update the favorite meal list! I had it one set up in 2025 journal, need to migrate and add more.
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check out Miss Freddy on Instagram and her “backup bootcamp” digital course. It’s a step by step to get all your photos in 1 cloud and 1 EHD! I did it and recommend! May help you get it done and know they are all accounted for, dedupped and organized.
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Ooh, interesting! I hadn’t heard of this.. thanks for the recommendation! Will check this out! Sounds like basically exactly what I’m wanting to do! 🙂 🙂
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Love this! I should make a list of things we need to do in the house. There’s ALWAYS something, and if you slack off it seems like the whole house falls apart, or you become overwhelmed with clutter. We’re also not really that bad with clutter, but things have a way of piling up if you don’t keep on top of it.
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YES, why does clutter attract clutter so badly!! I do think making a punch list of sorts is really helpful. At least for us, I think it helps to get it out of my head and onto somewhere where my husband can see it, too. (And to talk through the list!)
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Ugh. The photo wrangling is real… but its good to get this done and then hopefully keep up.
I love your list of household goals I hope you’ll share some of your favorite family approved recipes sometime.I have bookmarked recipes all over the place and it would really be good to have ONE master list to refer to!
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I went through this photo organizing project a year or so ago. It was so much work! (But probably less work than you with all of your travels and kid photos!) Good luck.
I really want to get my screened-in patio in great shape this year. At my old apartment, my patio wasn’t screened in so I rarely used it (I was too afraid my small cat would fall through the slats, ha). I’m hoping to set up a cute spot for myself AND the cats!
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