Take Charge of Spring Cleaning!
It’s the first weekend of spring! That means it’s time to get rid of all of the stuff you’ve been holding on to all winter and discover what exactly you’ve been avoiding in the back of the refrigerator. Click through for some simple tips to get your spring cleaning started right!
Select the right soundtrack
This might seem frivolous, but if you’re wandering around cleaning in silence and come across an old love letter or a video game you want to play, how likely are you to get distracted and start doing something else? If you have a work-out mix, that’s the best kind of music to keep you moving! If not, just pump some upbeat music into the room to keep your body going, or anything that you like that you won’t want to stop and turn off. You could even select an audio book or favorite podcast to keep you company.
Avoid being overwhelmed
Spring cleaning typically means you’re getting down and dirty in every corner, crevice, and months-old unopened pizza box in the house. If you thoroughly clean room-by-room, one at a time, you can focus on the task at hand and what you’re looking at in the hopes that you’ll forget about the rest of the house for a little while. When you start cleaning with the mindset that you’re going to have to vacuum the whole house or scrub every floor, you’re exhausted before you even start. Begin cleaning the room that’s already the cleanest, so you see progress right away and feel motivated to continue.
Start with the big stuff, then get to the details
Clear out the clutter and trash first. Soda cans, the pile of winter coats, and stack of junk mail should be high on your hit list. Gather up what’s sitting out and organize it, toss it, or put it back where it belongs. It doesn’t make sense to clean around the clutter, and you’ll immediately see results if you don’t start out by focusing on the small stuff. Once that’s done THEN you can remember to dust off that family of dust bunnies that has been growing on your ceiling fan all winter. Yikes!
Subscribe to the one year rule
It’s pretty simple. If you haven’t used it, worn it, or thought about it in a year, pitch it. It doesn’t matter if it was a gift or expensive or only expired by a month – the value of diminishing the chaos in your life far outweighs your subliminal need to keep that fancy face cream that you splurged on but never worked or a pair of baseball cleats even though they never fit you right. “I might use it one day!” is not an excuse, because someone else could use it RIGHT NOW if you donated it. The unused junk will be a distant memory when you’re relaxing in your fresh clean abode.
image courtesy of sunday morning/freedigitalphotos.net
