Decluttering for the New Year & Staying Offline

Happy New Year!

Did you know? The second Friday of January is known as Quitters Day. Supposedly, many people would have abandoned their New Year’s resolutions by now. Hope you’re still going strong.

Enjoy today’s Simple & Healthy newsletter.

In our culture, we don’t just do Spring Cleaning, we do BIG Cleaning (the literal translation of 大扫除) before the New Year.

It goes deeper than cleaning for practical reasons. Chinese traditions believe cleaning before the Lunar New Year (17th of Feb this year) gets rid of bad luck and bad energy. In turn, that makes space to invite new wealth and luck in. Cleaning on Lunar New Year’s Day itself is a no-no though, as that would mean sweeping fortune away.

Other East Asian cultures also have their variations of ‘big’ cleaning. For example, Japanese have Ōsōji, cleaning in late December with a focus on purification and cleansing.

We’re Singaporean-Chinese. What do we do? Well, we kinda do whatever we want. To be honest, traditions haven’t exactly been handed down perfectly to us, so we don’t really stick to them. However, the annual routine of cleaning up around this time of the year has been loosely built into our mental calendar.

We actually did a light clean up last week. Not in time for the New Year, and too early for Lunar New Year. Oops!

Still, we really like the simple act and thought of cleaning up as a way to reset before the New Year, and we recommend you give it a try too. Tangibly, you get a more pleasant environment to be in. Intangibly, you get better vibes. Even if it’s just superstition and wishful thinking, feeling like your year will go smoother because your home is cleaner… that’s not a bad feeling to have at all!

You can basically do this whenever you want if you’re not superstitious. It’s still early in the year, so consider cleaning up and decluttering all that bad energy that has overstayed its welcome. Don’t bring them into the rest of your 2026!

Good vibes only.

We look to the left, we see our young nephews and nieces fixated on screens. We look to the right, we see their grandparents mindlessly scrolling on their phones. Sometimes, we’re not much better, and that’s quite a terrifying reflection to stare into.

That’s why, as mentioned on our socials, “Offline” has been our word of the year in 2025.

It’s not that being online is inherently bad. Unfortunately, the internet is filled with the online equivalent of junk food and slot machines — sensationalism, controversy, clickbait, drama — bad influences designed to get people addicted.

Of course, there are healthy corners on the internet, and we’ve always tried to make Thoughtworthy one of them. We want our content to be a good influence (even though sadly, algorithms don’t favor good influence).

Seeing the young children and the old children (i.e. our parents) around us constantly in a trance in front of their glass screens, we really hope to lead by example. That means less scrolling on our phones and more encouraging offline hobbies with our families, like trying to get our parents to work out with us or playing pickleball with our nephews. It’s been an uphill battle, though.

And as creators, it means less pandering to the algorithm, as much as is feasible. That’s why we haven’t been online much in 2025, and in 2026, one of our side quests is to encourage more people to put down their screens and pick up offline hobbies. (Btw, follow our tennis hobby account on YouTube and Instagram if you’re interested in the sport at all!)

We know it’s paradoxical you’re reading this on a screen, but once you’re done, consider putting it down or turning it off and going outside for a walk!

Here’s to a good balance between online and offline time in 2026.

Storytelling skills apply to all aspects of life; no matter if your goal is to better convey your company or personal brand’s message, or you just want to be the cool uncle/aunt and recount stories to family and friends in a more engaging way.

For those residing in Singapore, you may be interested to know we’re conducting a storytelling workshop in partnership with Sony on the 24th of January. We designed this workshop to share what we’ve learned over the years about telling stories more effectively and thoughtfully. After all, we managed to tell the stories of our boring life well enough that we have some people tuning in to our content. (Thanks, by the way!)

Date: Saturday, 24th January 2026
Time: 02:30 PM - 06:30 PM
Venue: My Sony Academy Classroom, 313@somerset
Limited seats.

If you have four hours to spare, come join us on a Saturday! The workshop is open to all, with a special price for Sony members (psst, it’s free to sign up for a membership). Hope to see you there!