What do you think of when you think about spring cleaning? Do you think about deep cleaning your house? Or do you think about going through all those piles of things you've put off for months and purging and organizing them? For us, it's a little bit of both so we thought we'd take some time this month to share our five spring cleaning tips from a professional organizer.
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Have a Plan
Having a plan may seem like an obvious tip, but it's probably the most crucial. We don't know about you but if we go to the store without a list, we can guarantee that we are going to forget something. We recommend treating spring cleaning to same way! Make a list, check it twice! Remember to include those not so common areas as well as the most common areas. Some examples can be seen below!
Find the Time
Finding the time to get spring cleaning or extra organizing done is a pain point for many people! It's hard to find the extra time to get the extra cleaning and organizing done when we all already have pretty full schedules. We have a couple of great solutions for this!
First thing we want to do with our list is estimate and write down how long you think it will take to do each task. This will help you better break tasks up and schedule time to do it.
One way to tackle this big task is to break it up into smaller tasks. If it's hard to dedicate an entire day to cleaning/organizing, break it down into a couple of hours. If a couple of hours is too much to commit to, break it down into an hour, 30 minutes, even 15 minutes. Find what fits into your schedule and pick the tasks that will fit into that length of time. Set a time and only work for that amount of time.
If you just absolutely have no time to get things organized, hire a professional organizer! Your time commitment is minimal throughout the process! Schedule a Free Consultation to find out more!
Make it Fun
Sometimes time isn't the issue, it's just that you don't have the interest or desire to spring clean or organize! We have a great solution for that as well! Make it Fun! Make cleaning/organizing a game! Pick tasks out of a hat, use dice, or try a randomizer on the internet! Got children? Get them involved too! Have a super large task that needs tackling? Invite friends and have a cleaning/organizing party! Provide music, refreshments, and send your friends home with some "new to them" stuff!
Don't get Confused
Spring cleaning can mean different things to different people. Sometimes it's deep cleaning your house (like washing walls, and power washing the outside), or it can be organizing (finally tackling that overfilled garage), and sometimes it's all of that! It's important though to remember that cleaning is different from organizing and is different from junk removal. Spring cleaning can often encompass all three of these very different things.
Transition to Zone Cleaning
If spring cleaning sounds like a huge task that you don't have time for once spring rolls around, we have a solution to lighten the load, Zone Cleaning. This a cleaning schedule that spreads out all of the deep cleaning tasks throughout the year. It also ensures that your entire house gets cleaning at least once a month! The basic idea is that you divide your house into zones and then each week of the month you clean one zone. For example: the kitchen is zone 1. The first week of the month you clean the kitchen, remembering to clean all the basics, but also to fit in maybe one or two "deeper cleaning" items, such as purging the junk drawer or scrubbing down the inside of the fridge. The great thing is that you can customize this to your house and your schedule. You can also work in a weekly refresh where you get your basic cleaning items done as well, vacuuming, mopping, cleaning the bathroom essentials.
Our main idea behind zone cleaning is that it lightens the cleaning load when spring cleaning comes around so you can focus on tackling the bigger organizing tasks that maybe get done only once a year, or once every five years.