Long before Jordan Peterson was telling young men to “make their bed,” wise matriarchs were imposing this “rule for life” on their households for ages. It’s a good rule, but particularly this time of year, as we enter 2026 and start thinking about lofty goals and resolutions. I’d suggest — just as your mother might have — before deciding on any big changes, to start with your bedroom.
The New Year presents itself as a chance for us to turn the page, to change the things we don’t like about ourselves, and that can be overwhelming — to the point that many people don’t even make New Year’s resolutions for fear of failing at them or forgetting about them by MLK Day. Only 31 percent of American adults even planned to make a New Year’s resolution in 2025, according to a YouGov poll.
So before you pledge to run a marathon or make some other seismic change come January, the first thing you should do is make your bed. This is the best way to ward off the sense of being overwhelmed or fear of failure for two reasons. The first is the practical benefits.
Clean Sheets, Clear Mind
Leila Marie Lawler, the anti-feminist, mother of seven, describes this concept in practical terms. She writes clear and encouraging instructions for stay-at-home moms with lots of children on how to keep a “reasonably clean house” (a difficult task), but I think her counsel is helpful for anyone overwhelmed by all the things we need to do on a given day, not just housewives.
Lawler explains that some people think getting your life together should start in the kitchen. A sink full of dishes is quite paralyzing in itself after all, and the kitchen tends to collect more clutter due to more traffic, especially in big families. But Lawler is right to ask, “If you start in the kitchen, will you ever leave?” The answer is no. In a few hours, you’ll start making another meal in there, and you’ll be back at square one.
“What good does it do to have, as so many families do, a fancy living room, a gleaming kitchen, a curb with appeal, a wide-screen TV and wet bar — but chaos, piles of laundry, dust, and dreariness in the bedroom?” Lawler observes.
This dreariness was palpable to me just last weekend while I was hosting a baby shower for a friend at my house. My whole house was gleaming. And not to brag, but my Christmas decorations looked amazing. But as guests arrived and I ran to hide one more thing out of sight in my bedroom, I winced as I opened the door and faced the unmade bed and piles of laundry awaiting me for some unappointed time. Even though no one else in my house could see the squalor, it immediately sent my cortisol levels rising during what was otherwise a flawless celebration.
Decluttering what should be the most tranquil and intimate space in our home is key to achieving the mental clarity needed for all other tasks on our to-do lists. Making the bed — smoothing sheets and straightening pillows — in particular, is essential to reducing that visual noise that sends high-pitched frequencies to our mental state.
Small Wins Matter
Beyond the mental clarity a made bed and clean room brings, the second reason to start the New Year in your bedroom is more abstract and more life coach adjacent, and yet still valid: Small wins matter.
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth recently described a similar ethos when announcing his new standards for troops’ physical appearances. He has compared his strict dress code enforcement to the “broken windows theory in policing,” explaining that when you let the small stuff go, the big stuff follows.
“When you let the small things go inside your formations, you create a climate of a lack of discipline where standards cannot be enforced. And if you can’t enforce them on the small things, it gets far more difficult to enforce them on even more meaningful things,” Hegseth said.
Maybe you’re not looking for Navy SEAL-levels of discipline in your life, but if you are looking to make a change this year, some amount of discipline will be required. And if you can’t muster enough discipline to put your laundry away, then you probably won’t have enough discipline to stick with that new diet for very long.
Setting goals and making healthy changes are good things, but if you want to give yourself a fighting chance in 2026, first, go clean your room. At the very least, it would make your mother happy.
