Spring Cleaning Survival Guide

Spring Cleaning Survival Guide

Spring Cleaning Survival Guide

The days are getting longer. Clocks will be Spring-ing forward soon. Spring Cleaning is right around the corner! In our last post, we addressed what to clean and how to best use winter’s waning days to get ready. Here, we share ideas for how to get through your Spring Cleaning fast and with the least amount of pain:

Make a check list. Start here for ideas but recognize that each home is different. Grab a pad of paper or task app and walk through each room, noting what hasn’t been cleaned in a while and what you might do to lighten and freshen up each space.

Build a schedule. Take your list, sit down with a calendar and map out a specific schedule for when you will complete all the various tasks on your list. Try scheduling in half-day increments so you won’t overdo it physically and will still have plenty of free time to enjoy life.

Check the weather. What happens if you wake up to pouring rain on window-washing day? A few days in advance of each task on your schedule, check to ensure the weather will cooperate and reshuffle your schedule as needed so you don’t risk losing whole days with nothing accomplished.

Know yourself (and your team members). If you’re just not a morning person, scheduling a large cleaning job to start at 7am on Saturday is a recipe for procrastination and failure. Give yourself mornings off and plan to start just after lunchtime. Likewise, if your energy always crashes around 3pm, plan to be up working with the birds. Same goes for anyone you might be recruiting to help.

Remove distractions. When you’re up on a step ladder washing windows and walls, pushing furniture around and flipping mattresses, the last thing you’ll want to hear from your kids is: ‘We’re hungry’ or ‘We’re bored.’ Or, from your doggo: ‘Let’s play ball’ or ‘I need to be walked right now.’ Building a spring-cleaning schedule enables you to plan ahead and find others with whom you can barter child, pet, and other care duties so you’ll both have adequate time and attention for big spring-cleaning tasks. While you’re at it, turn off your phone or at least silence notifications. You’ll be more effective and finish faster.

Gather tools and supplies. Getting through big cleaning jobs is all about momentum. And you definitely don’t want to have to break momentum to run out for more supplies. Use your schedule to plan and gather tools and supplies accordingly.

Make a spring-cleaning playlist. Just about every task in the world feels easier and goes by faster when you’re blasting, singing along, and moving to the music you love most.

Take care of your body. Moving furniture. Reaching up. Bending down. Scrubbing vigorously. It’s all heavy exercise that uses muscles you might not even remember you have, especially if you spend most days sitting behind a desk. Just as you warm up and stretch before a run or workout, your body with thank you for doing the same both before and after each big spring-cleaning job.

Fuel and hydrate. You’ll also be burning plenty of calories and possibly working up a sweat. Once you get on a cleaning roll, you’ll want to finish fast, so it can be tough to take breaks. Stock up with healthy, easy-to-grab snacks to keep your blood sugar level throughout and remember to hydrate as well. Your muscles will thank you very much the next day.

Finally and—as always—if your list or schedule feels overwhelming or you are just not that into cleaning, consider calling in a PRO team to relieve some of that spring-cleaning burden for you!

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