The thought of spring cleaning normally brings one of two emotions to a person’s heart: excitement or fear. Some people love the thought of freshening up their house and getting all of those neglected nooks and crannies cleaned out. Others dread the thought of having to look at their home with such a critical eye. Cleaning energizes certain personalities and paralyzes others. If you are the type that dreads the thought of spring cleaning, read these five tips for ways to reduce your stress and enjoy the lovely weather instead of dreading it.
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1. Don’t Do a Big Spring Clean
Spring cleaning was a traditional part of housework when women stayed home while men worked. The landscape has changed since those days, and many women work outside of the home now. This means they don’t have an entire day to tear apart the house, clean it all, and put it all back together. While spring can be a good time to do some annual maintenance items around the home, a huge spring cleaning can be exhausting. Instead, it may work better for you and your schedule to do some of those extra tasks throughout the year instead of just once a year.
If you don’t have a master spring cleaning list, jot one down. Then decide how many of these tasks you can complete daily, weekly, or monthly. Now, you just complete the tasks when you are able to throughout the year, instead of doing it once a year. Some cleaning experts recommend that you separate your home into zones and focus on these areas throughout the month. This negates the necessity of doing a huge spring cleaning once a year.
If you still like the idea of doing a huge amount of cleaning at once, read on for tips on how to manage that.
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2. Spread It Out
Don’t think of spring cleaning as a one-weekend job. Instead, choose an entire month that you will dedicate to completing the extra tasks that you want to be done. Then break those tasks further into weekly tasks. This will help spread out the bulk of the work so you are doing smaller, more manageable tasks, instead of going crazy one weekend and burning yourself out. Simply jot down everything you hope to accomplish and figure out where you can add these tasks into your life.
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3. Don’t Get Distracted from Your Goal
The goal of spring cleaning is to have a freshened-up home so you can have more time to be outside and enjoy the nice weather. The goal here is not to declutter every space in your home and get everything perfectly organized. So, remember your goal as you begin each task. If dusting the bookshelf is on your list, don’t reorganize all your books. Simply take them off, dust the shelf, and put them back on. You can always re-organize later. Keep focused on your basic tasks and don’t let other projects distract you. Those are projects that you should save for a rainy day.
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4. Enlist Help
If there are others that live in your household, make sure they are helping you. Even though many women work outside the home, a lot of the housekeeping responsibilities end up falling on them as well. If you are a stay-at-home dad, you may feel that is your job to complete the spring cleaning. No matter the situation, ensure that the entire family pitches in so you can complete the job sooner.
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5. Cleaning Services Exist for a Reason
If you truly just don’t have time for a spring cleaning list or the thought just completely paralyzes you, hire some help. Cleaning services are busy this time of year because people want a clean house and don’t always have time to get it that way. Even if you don’t regularly pay someone to clean your house, it can be worth it to do this once a year to get everything clean and shiny before the nice weather hits.
If you don’t know where to start or what types of tasks to include in your spring cleaning, there are many online sources for this. Find a list that seems like it fits you and your family, print it out, and get started. Your home will thank you.
