10 Feng Shui Tips For Having the Best Year Yet - Chinese New Year is Here January 26

January 26th marks the Chinese New Year -- which will be the year of the Ox. Those who follow Feng Shui are already probably preparing their homes and businesses for the upcoming New Year. So what do the rest of us do? Don't we want a really good new year? Of course we do!

Let me show you some tricks and tips that have been used for centuries and really help ensure a good year filled with health, luck, happiness and prosperity. They are easy to do and handle and take less time that you would initially think.

For starters, if you are interested in Feng Shui, I have written countless articles and even have a Feng Shui Shop where you can purchase love cures and all sorts of items to help balance your home. But one of the biggest tricks in encouraging only good to come into your life and to have your life go as it should, would be in how you handle clutter into your home. Is it really that simple? Yes, a resounding big YES!

For girls or guys, clutter seems to be the root of all evil. I myself must constantly be on board in watching how clutter simply accumulates into my household. I don't even know how it gets there at times. But how does one even approach clutter and frankly what is clutter anyway? And why does it effect and how can it effect the good (or lack of goodness) that comes into your life. These questions I will answer now for you.

Clutter can be compared to weeds in the garden, and as my Mother would often say, 'weeds are plants in the wrong place'. Clutter can be items that no longer serve you any good, such as 'old magazines, broken items, art work you don't like since it was given to you by your least favorite Aunt, clothes that do not fit you anymore and yet have been hanging in your closet for over 5 years, books you haven't touched or read in two or more years, etc.

You get the idea. Clutter is not just unwanted junk mail and misplaced items, but is all those items that no longer serve you. In turn, keeping these items in your home suppresses all areas of your life; it can be scary to even think about.

Clutter truly suppresses your energy that most people start to not even think about the clutter in their homes, and often wonder why they can't find a job or a new wonderful love in their life - or even questioning why they fight with their family so much.

Clutter should be handled quickly - and frankly the more you pay attention to de-cluttering, the easier it gets, really! Keeping these un-loved items in your home actually keeps you 'down' in not providing you the opportunities you may wish in your life to be in abundance. There is a huge connection here that most people miss.

When your home is only filled with items that are truly loved, you find beautiful and are extremely of good use to you, you are creating a home that supports the good in you and the good in others to share with you.

I am not at all talking or even suggesting you have your household so organized that it becomes sterile, in fact, just the opposite. A home should feel loved and lived in, should have a few live plants here and there and should be a place of comforted serenity for you.

I know firsthand how great the energy feels in my home since I did a major re-organizing of my art studio room recently. I have enjoyed being able to walk around in this room and even see the supplies I have and can now have easy access to.

People when they enter my home, always mention the energy in my home. They feel comfortable, warm and loved. I may take a little pride in this, but it is such a lovely thing to hear other people say about my home. And in turn, I am calm, at peace with myself and the choices I make in my life on a daily basis. And I tell you, I do not have a fancy decorated home filled with expensive furniture, in fact just the opposite. My place has a few battered antiques, some pieces from Ikea and several rooms have to serve more than one purpose. (Living in NY, you know that space is at a minimum.)

And speaking up of space, have you ever actually factored how much space is being taken up by your clutter and that you are paying a good portion of your mortgage or rent on this cluttered space which could be of actual use to you and your family?

Today I will be tackling moving around the furniture my living room that also serves as a music room so I can refresh the chi and energy in this main room of my home, but here are some tips to help ensure you have a great New Year utilizing Feng Shui approach. If you are smart, do what I did, and do a little each day. By the time the Chinese New Year rolls around, you will have prepared your home for the New Year.

The following tips and tasks should all be done before the Chinese New Year which falls on January 26th this year 2009 and are usually followed by people who believe and practice Feng Shui and prepare for the New Year.

1. Most who seriously follow Feng Shui and wish for a good Chinese New Year will clean their home from top to bottom. Seriously clean from top to bottom. This includes washing down their walls, baseboards, moving out their furniture from the walls to completely clean behind.
2. Clean all crystals with sea salt and have them soak in the sun in a window to clean their energies.
3. Replace any sea salt cures they may have placed around their house with new small bags filled with fresh sea salt. (The sea salt helps protect against negative energies and helps soak up negative vibrations)
4. Move around the furniture in their home. If a complete change around is impossible, even moving the hutch for example just a few inches to clean behind it, is enough to help move any stagnant Qi (chi = energy) out of its way and to refresh the overall energy.
5. As garbage collects while de-cluttering your home, remove it from your household immediately - don't let it sit in the hallway, "saying to yourself - oh, I will get to it tomorrow" - This is negative energy you are keeping in your home - out it goes!
6. Open windows - and even turn on a fan, should you have windows only on one side of your apartment for example, to literally move the air around.
7. Turn on all your lights, even if for 5 minutes when the windows are opened while you are cleaning to help bring in good happiness and high energy Qi (chi).
8. Give any plants in your home, a fresh 'shower' of water - throw them in your shower, or spritz them with fresh water to remove any dust that may have collected on their leaves.
9. Take a look at my other articles in following Feng Shui tips such as keeping a bowl of fresh fruit on your dining room table to encourage fresh food being constant in your home.
10. Clean out your refrigerator of any and all bad food. This should be done weekly in fact, but it is very auspicious to have it completely cleaned before the New Year.

Tricks to getting this done:

1. Start out small, and don't be discouraged. Put on your favorite music as you go around your home to clean and de-clutter.
2. Start in 10 minute increments - use a timer if you have to. Gather any old newspapers, old junk mail, etc. old magazines and remove from your premises. - Keeping 'old' information in your home inhibits new information and new energized Qi to enter your home.
3. Try with just clearing your desk. When was the last time you saw any desk surface? Don't answer that! - Instead, just get going with garbage back in hand and start removing any junk.
4. Touch any item just once, pick it up and make a decision. If you are to keep it, then go and put it where it should go - if it is to be tossed or donated, then off it goes into those appropriate boxes or bags.
5. Encourage family members to de-clutter by being the example of organizing your areas and space in the home. I would highly suggest not removing other people's clutter without their permission or assistance.
6. Create a system and stick with it in regards to how you handle your paper that comes into your home. Mail should be in one place only - not spread over several areas. Junk mail in my place never is allowed past my front door. I have a small trash bag that is emptied four times a week. I tend to open my mail by the front door, then place all extra envelopes, junk mail, flyers, etc. right into the trash bag I have set up. Then only the necessary mail is welcomed to come into my home and to a small basket in my office.
7. Stay focused - it can be very easy to bebop from one place to another and seemingly get nothing accomplished when you start to de-clutter. Instead, just concentrate on your desk top. Continue until it is clean and clutter free. You might just realize that you now are encouraged to tackle your kitchen counter tops.

Immediate Results You Will See and Feel:

1. If you simply just de-cluttered your desk top, you will have an immediate sense of accomplishment. This is why I suggest you start small.

2. Your energy will be heightened - even after working only 10 minutes, since seeing your accomplishments; you may just hit that timer for another 10 minutes to attack other table surfaces.

3. Reclaimed space is a blessing and can make everyone happy that lives in the home.

4. Removing said un-loved, broken, not used, and garbage from your home quite literally removes those issues within your life that are un-loved, broken, not used and 'garbaged'. Imagine that!

5. Be warned, that certain emotional issues you may not been facing may come to the surface - which is what un-expectantly happened to me once I started attacking my art room where I do my creative work. I was shocked for 15 minutes until I realized what was actually happening to me.

This art room falls in the relationship/love/marriage bagua section in my home (more on baguas in another article - or do a Google search, you will come up with plenty of information). And since this room was a mess, so was my love relationship - once I started to de-clutter it, all my emotions regarding a current relationship came to the surface out of seemingly nowhere! After 15 minutes, I realized my own negative, angry thoughts were reflecting those I had suppressed as a result and with the mess in my art room, I was able to re-center myself, become balanced once again, and have loving thoughts.

6. Rome was not built in a day, so accomplishing a full de-clutter may take a few weeks, but with a little being done over the course of a few days and even just a few hours, you will noticed a 'lighter' feel to your home and space.

7. You will gain a sense of accomplishment, gain valuable space you have been paying for but not using, gain self-esteem back that may have been lacking, be able to love and give more.

The real objective here is to have a wonderful home which in turns supports the way of life you wish to live. You will want any objects in your home to be loved, to be in perfect working order, not chipped in any way, and to give you 'good' energy when looking and/or using it. It is that simple. There are many other little tricks you can employ in your home to help enhance your good luck in all areas of your life.

When you have a home that supports the way you wish to live, wonderful things start happening in your life. I can attest to that. I had an art/office room just two weeks ago, that I really 'let go' - that one could barely walk into the room. How the heck was I able to even do any art or get organized with my business if I couldn't even walk into that room? Even looking into the room got me so down - so much so, I let it slide week after week.

I am sure to tell you, that even looking at the room became depressing and is one of the actual reasons for why it took me so long to actually start the project. But within a short period of three hours, I was able to transform the room. I must have gotten rid of at least 5 bags of stuff - and donated another 6 boxes worth of items that now can be loved and used by someone else.

And at that point, I got addicted to removing any items in my entire household that no longer served me. I was able to 'give away' using freecycle.org: cookbooks, art supplies, real estate books, clothes, CDs, and so much more. In turn, I now have space on my book shelves for new things to come into my life, new things like ideas, new books that can be utilized by me and new good people have room to come into my home and into my life.

One last trick I recently read that really aided me in my goals in de-cluttering my household was to ask myself, "If I had to move tomorrow, how many bags of garbage would I have to throw out?" By answering that question with an answer that reads more than one bag of garbage, it helps me go right to those areas in my home that might need to be cleaned out.

Well what else can I say? But, Good Luck! And let me know if you tried any of these rituals and their workings on your life and career. And certainly share with me your success stories!

All Rights Reserved Leah Quinn copyright 2009.

Leah Quinn, a multi-media artist and writer whose work specializes on food, health, feng shui, and self-improvement. http://leahquinn.com