Spring cleaning plan
March 3, 2009 by Marci
It’s time to start spring cleaning! Stay with me here… It’s not as overwhelming as it seems. Lets break it down into bite sized pieces so that it doesn’t consume us and become busyness and stress. Spring cleaning is a good thing. You and your family with reap the rewards. A fresh, clean house is good on so many levels.
Spring cleaning will take different amounts of time for different people – and that’s just fine. That’s why there is no time limit on Spring Cleaning, as long as you start and keep going. Some of us might Spring Clean all year round, so this might just be icing on the cake. There are those who deep clean an area each month. There are those who haven’t even seen areas of our houses in years! I’ll try to include something for everyone!
First, let’s break the house into zones. Here are mine:
Kitchen
Master bedroom
Kid’s bedrooms
Bathrooms
Living room
Entries
Toy room
Make your own zones. They have to work for you and your home. Remember that each zone gets cleaned at a time, so you might want to group adjoining rooms into the same zone. For example, my kitchen and dining area run together, so I will treat them as one area. Don’t Spring Clean another area until the area you are working on is finished. I’m not saying skip your regular housekeeping routine during this time, just don’t worry about a deep clean until that area in being focused on.
Next, decide what area to start in and then….start! But where and how? Before you grab your feather duster and mop, take a look at your area. Can you find the surfaces that need to be cleaned? A good Spring Cleaning starts with a good de-cluttering. (I think I’ll post more on de-cluttering tomorrow!) After you get the junk that doesn’t need to be there out of the way, cleaning is a breeze.
Start with the highest parts first and work your way down. I usually start with knocking the cobwebs out of the corners and off the light fixtures and then clean the fixtures. As you work your way down, remember this is Spring Cleaning not just your weekly go-over. Think deep clean. There are lots of websites with Spring Cleaning checklists, if you are a checklist kind of girl. I was going to post some for you, but seriously…just google it…tons of lists.
The idea of Spring Cleaning is to make your home cleaner, healthier and more comfortable. Do not stress yourself out about it! Each time you start Spring Cleaning your area, decide how much time you want to devote to this right now – and set a timer! When the timer goes off, stop. If you have an hour, great! If you have 10 minutes, great! Just work fast, but don’t bite off more than you can chew in the time you’ve given yourself. And here’s a crazy thought…get your kids to help! I can hear the laughter… Seriously, I bought a timer and gave the kids jobs to do before the buzzer went off . My 7 year old daughter scrubs a mean toilet and is so proud that she can do 3 on 2 different floors in under 5 minutes! I have a 3 year old that can organize a toy room art shelf with meticulous precision, and if he doesn’t get it done before the buzzer he begs for more time! Just try it.
Hope that helps someone out there! It has certainly given me motivation. I am starting with the kitchen tomorrow. I’ll let you know how it goes. Let me know how your Spring Cleaning is going, too!
