Top Ten Most Popular Getting My Act Together Posts of 2023

Looking over a complete year is always one of my favorite things to do in January. Do you do that?

If you have a calendar or a journal where you write down notes about how you spent your time and record what happened, it is so fun to take a peek back at the year you finished.

It can be surprising to see just how much happens in a whole year.

So let’s take a look back at 2023 on this website, Getting My Act Together, and see what the most popular articles were.

I am not including anything I wrote for Stories of Our Boys, Newsbreak, or Medium. These are only for this website.

Also, I want to point out that this was a monumental year for me as a blogger. This was the first year since 2017 that I wrote for other publications besides my own. It was also the very first year of my entire eighteen years as a parent that I committed to working on the blog every single day with the goal of making money.

I viewed this as my year of returning to the world of work, and I wanted to do it on my own terms. After eighteen years at home, one does not simply waltz in to a corporation and start climbing the old ladder anywhere near the top.

Instead, I gradually gave work more and more hours, but I stayed consistent with it. Always in the past, I would go weeks without working on my websites at all. This year I knew I had to show up everyday, so I did that.

It took me a while to build up the routines and self-discipline to work writing into every day life. I find the invention of the iphone to be a major stumbling block and time suck. Self control and self discipline are a big deal when you are self employed, working at home. I have come so far though!!

I could write a whole post about returning to work after eighteen years off, but that will wait. For today, let’s see what was popular on this blog in 2023.

#1. How to Stop being a Clothes Hoarder

Y’all, this post was read 58,425 times in 2023.

Say what? That may not sound like an award winning idea, but that post is more popular than anything I have ever written in my life.

It was not just a blog article. There is a video on there that pulled in over 25,000 YouTube views. I also published this article on Newsbreak, where it was my most popular Newsbreak article ever.

Why was this one post such a hit? For one thing, every time I write about clothes, that does well. But the big deal here is my closet system. I’m telling you. I have this one genius idea, and I don’t think I have any other ideas this good.

There is this system I have for rotating my clothes. It keeps my closet decluttered without me ever having to “declutter my closet”. It also ensures that I space out when I wear each item. You will never see me wearing the same shirt two weeks in a row.

Want to know more? You will just have to read the article.

#2. My Honest Summer 2023 Stitch Fix Review with Pictures & a Video

If only I had more to say about clothes! Any time I write about clothes, it does well. This mystifies me because I am not an amazing dresser. Nor do I look particularly good in clothes these days. Ha! Maybe that’s the allure of it. I am so normal, what I have to say about fashion is relatable and makes sense to other people like me.

I genuinely enjoy getting Stitch Fix boxes in the mail and trying them on for y’all. You see, I have no females in my house. No one here cares if I go shopping. There’s no one here for me to come home to and say, “OOOO! Look what I got!” So you guys are my sisters/mom/daughters/etc. when it comes to shopping day excitement.

Thank you for playing along.

#3. Moving Checklist for the Perfect Move, 2 Months Out

As it turns out, I may need to print this checklist out for myself in a few months. We might be moving again! (But probably an in-town move, if we move at all.)

I wrote this post in 2022, and this is exactly how blogging done correctly should work. Over time, if an article is successfully programmed for search engine optimization, it should be read more the second year than it was the first year. So hurray for that!

And yes, it is a very thorough moving checklist. It still has my seal of approval.

#4. Deborah Smith was One of Our Greatest Answered Prayers

Deborah Smith was a powerhouse of a mentor who I knew from our time at Fellowship Baptist Church in Maryland. This post was read 535 times last year, which is a ton for an article written about a person.

It has this many page views because Deborah was a woman like no other, who had a humongous network of people to read her story. She was only in her fifties when she passed away from cancer. Her funeral was the most packed out funeral I have ever been too. It looked like there were about six hundred people there.

2023 was a year of significant loss. I lost three women who I greatly admired and looked up to last year. All three of these women helped make me who I am. First we lost Deborah, then Alan’s grandmother, and then my dear Aunt Ann. I have not been able to bring myself to write about Ann yet. The more a loss hurts and the more personal it is, the harder it is to write about it.

All three of these ladies had packed funerals. These women were all loved and admired by many. They each made a huge impact and left a gaping hole for the rest of us to fill.

#5. Fall 2023 Stitch Fix Review: Full Video

And back to the clothes posts! The fall box was a disappointment, but if you love clothes, check it out. What is more fun than a surprise box of new clothes in the mail?

#6. The Time Saving Mom Book is a Useful Resource

I feel like I need to go back and read that book again in 2024. Transitioning to working part-time in addition to keeping house and raising four kids requires excellent time management skills. It is an ongoing struggle.

The article was popular because Crystal Paine, who wrote the book, shared it with her readers. She has helped me several times over the years, and I am always grateful!

#7. Before & After Photos of My Storage Room Overhaul

Years ago, all of my blog readers came from Facebook. In recent times, I do not even bother putting my articles on Facebook most of the time. Facebook is stingy about showing what I post to my friends. Plus, I felt like maybe my Facebook friends were tired of all my blogging.

Enter Pinterest. Now almost all of my readers come from Pinterest, which is probably true of this post. People on Pinterest like before and after photos. There is something gratifying about watching a wreck turn into a pleasing place in a lovely before and after image.

#8. Real Housewife Outfits You Will Love and Relate to

I’m telling you, people like it when I talk about clothes.

This was a post I did for fun more than anything. I was laughing at myself wearing sweatshirts everyday, and I just wanted to write about it, with photos to show how basic I really am.

#9. 9 Easy Gluten Free Meals that are Delicious

I have to eat gluten free because my entire body turns against me if I eat gluten. It is both annoying and wonderful.

Obviously, not being able to eat yummy breads and cakes is awful. But on the flip side, it was the greatest blessing ever when I learned that I could fix all my health problems by simply not eating something. That’s a real win! No need to take medicine or go to physical therapy, just quit eating sandwiches and Little Debbie cakes.

My body fell apart that year, so I was nothing short of grateful for a fix. No, I do not think everyone should eat gluten free. Most people can probably handle gluten fine.

But if your body falls apart or turns against you, you might want to look into it. And if you do, here are nine meals that you can make that aren’t too complicated, but taste delicious.

And last, and also least, number ten……

#10. How to Minimize and Enjoy Memory & Photo Storage

I wish I could think of a better way to word this title because this is useful information I’m putting out in this post. It’s an article about how to store your memories, certificates, cards, and photos in a way that is easily accessible and doesn’t take up too much space.

If you have a better title suggestion for that one, feel free to drop it in the comments below. I find writing titles or headlines to be one of the hardest parts of my job.

And that’s a wrap folks!

I think the takeaway here is that y’all like it when I talk about clothes, so I need to do more of that. Obviously, I also write about storage, organizing, moving, and time management too. There will be plenty more of that.

The beauty of trying to be more of a minimalist is that you get to spend less time on organizing, storage, moving, and time management. That is why minimizing/decluttering is such a big deal to me. I would love to spend less time managing all our junk. With six people, you accumulate an awful lot of stuff, and that stuff has to be managed, but I’ll save my soap box on that for another day.

Thank you so much for supporting me by reading this year!

My big goal for 2023 was to make a profit writing online, and I did accomplish that goal. Most of what I made I reinvested back into my writing business. I will have to tell you more about that on a future post too.

I mostly made money through ads on this site, so just by visiting my website, you helped me. Thank you!

If you have anything in particular you’d like me to write about this year, I’d love to hear it. Tell me in the comments.

Happy New Year!