5 Ways to Approach Spring Cleaning
If you know me, you also probably know I don’t like cleaning. I mean, I’ll shower and do all those things I need to do to maintain some level of social acceptability, but the papers start piling up in my room and, before I know it, I’m climbing over piles of things.
Here are five ways I go about cleaning as someone who’s not good at it. Hopefully, you see some strategies that you also use or maybe one you can try.
1) Don’t do “Spring Cleaning” － The idea of waiting for one season to clean up is like the idea of the New Year’s Resolution. Once you make it season dependent, you’re increasing the odds that if you do a bad job “Spring Cleaning” you won’t bother cleaning up in the summer. And after a couple years of crushed hopes, you’ll give up on the idea of “Spring Cleaning” altogether, and that’s when the clutter starts piling up. It doesn’t make sense. Clean when you need to clean. Don’t limit it to one time of year.
2) Start small － Starting with the attic that hasn’t been looked at for years is not the best strategy. You’re going to walk in, it’s going to look like a lot, you’re going to go downstairs and do something else and before you know it, you’ll be saying “I’ll do it tomorrow”. Whatever the size of space you’re looking at cleaning, choose a small, defined area and set your sights on it first. It needs to be defined or the job will just keep growing without there being any sense of achievement.
3) Set a time to do your cleaning － If you can regularly clean at the same time every week or every month or even every day, you’ll increase your odds of doing it. It’ll become just another thing that’s part of your routine. The less of a big deal cleaning is to you, the better it is because you’ll just get on with it rather than procrastinating. Heck, you might even start to enjoy it.
4) Wine helps － I’m sort of joking, sort of not. If you’re a wine person, enjoying a glass or two while you clean can be one way you make cleaning a fun pastime for you. Of course, wine isn’t the only thing you can have. You can have some of those chocolates you’ve been hoarding for a couple months or buy yourself a coffee from your favourite bistro. Something to make a possible chore into something pleasant.
5) Maintain what you do － This is the key point. Whether you’re starting in a mess or if your space is already spotless, the key is to clean the mess before it happens. If you eat something with a wrapper, put it in the rubbish bin as soon as you finish it! If you have a dirty cup, bring it downstairs and clean it immediately. That way, you’ll never have a big pile of anything to clean up. You’ll always be dealing with it as it happens. And you’ll feel better about yourself for dealing with it that way.
Cleaning is like any other skill - the more you do it, the better you get. Even if some of us will never be master cleaners, we need to have a couple go-to strategies to get us by. It improves our lives as well as the lives of those around us. And the most important decision you can make in regards to it is starting. The sooner the better.
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