Do You Make These Mistakes With Spring Cleaning?

It’s that time of the year again. The time of year that kind of swoops in when no one is looking. Suddenly it’s March and spring, and then practically summer. It’s the time to dust away those winter cobwebs and go outside, feel the sun on your face. Time for picnics again. Perhaps a hike. Time to wear pastel colors. And time to do some serious spring cleaning. Yes, we know. That part doesn’t sound exactly appealing.

The truth is, nobody seriously likes spring cleaning. Spring cleaning essentially means you’ve left your “stuff” to gather in piles around the house, tossed away and out of sight in closets and drawers…maybe even entire rooms, while you hibernate through the cold winter, telling yourself you’ll take care of it all when the weather gets a little better. It all made sense at the time, didn’t it?

But let’s be honest, you’re not doing yourself any favors by taking this route. The mistake is waiting until spring to get organized. Sure, it’s human nature to procrastinate and yes, there are better things to do with your time. And the cold weather doesn’t exactly help with motivation, but what’s worse…cleaning intermittently throughout the year or taking a whole weekend to clean one room?

Um. That’s what we thought.

So here we are with spring right around the corner. You keep walking past that closet you know you need to organize. “You’ll get around to it” is what you tell yourself every single time you see it. Every. Single. Time. It can be exhausting and you haven’t even started cleaning yet.

But there’s hope.

Here’s four straight to the point rules to avoiding a colossal spring cleaning:

• If an item doesn’t have a set place (tossing in a closet or drawer doesn’t count), throw it out.
• If you haven’t used an item in 3-6 months, throw it out.
• Have a place for everything else to ensure things stay organized.
• Repeat throughout the year.

Hey, we never said it was easy, but it is worth it. When you get in the groove of cleaning throughout the year, it becomes a habit and thus, you don’t even think about it, you just do it. And most of the time thinking about all the cleaning you have to do is worse than the actual cleaning.

So in 2016, remember that initial torture of spring cleaning as just a distant memory, never to come to fruition again. Oh, and enjoy all that happy spring stuff too; flowers, soft furry bunnies, multi-colored balloons…