April 28, 2021

Spring Cleaning Tips for Your Home and Your Life

THE WORD COMBINATION “SPRING CLEANING” has already set the teeth on edge. And nevertheless, as soon as the weather gets better, many people immediately want to disassemble the accumulated rubble, get rid of dust, and put the room in order. And if you now, like many, have chosen the self-isolation mode, try to restrict movement, and stay at home more often, it’s time to take care of the surrounding space. We propose not to dwell only on cleaning the house, but to disassemble life as a whole – we tell you how and what to pay special attention to.

Spring Cleaning Your Home

We have already talked about why spring cleaning is not only about getting rid of unnecessary things and cleansing the space, but also it is a kind of psychological practice: order in the space around us helps to calm down.

There are few simple principles on how to tidy up an apartment. For example, it is better to start with a bedroom or other rooms, and end with a bathroom or toilet: most likely, in the process you will have to drain dirty water many times, and it is simply pointless to do this into a clean toilet. It is also worth moving from top to bottom – that is, first wipe the dust, and then vacuum. Yes, a vacuum cleaner will pick up dust, but when cleaning, you will still accidentally shake something on the floor – so it is better to collect everything with a vacuum cleaner at once, and not go through it twice.

Read also: How easy it is to keep your home clean and tidy

Here you can find a good cleaning checklist of things that we usually forget about when doing deep cleaning of the house – for example, turn over the mattress, clean curtains, baseboards, and shower curtains, and so on. Do not forget about door handles, switches, and buttons on household appliances, where dirt accumulates consistently.

Spring Cleaning the Kitchen

The kitchen is a special area for home cleaning: even if you are used to keeping your work surfaces clean and tidy, expired seasonings and excess contents of the freezer will probably accumulate in your house. If possible, make a deep cleaning and get to surfaces that usually are not reached by your hands. For example, clean the oven, wash potholders and aprons, wash the microwave, clean kitchen appliances from dust and grease, disassemble drawers with cutlery and other little things, thoroughly wash the doorknobs and kitchen cabinet knobs.

And of course, if you don’t want to spend your time on cleaning you always can hire White Glove Cleaner.

See if it’s time to change pots and pans (and at the same time wash them thoroughly, not only inside, but also outside). Look out for the fridge and freezer shelves and the trash can – they all tend to get dirty faster than you’d like. Honestly evaluate the expiration date of products – not only in the refrigerator but also in the freezer, as well as cereals and spices: not everything that is stored for a long time can be stored forever. To make it easier in the future, think about how to organize your storage system – we tend to forget about the products that lie in the depths.

Clothing Spring Cleaning

We have already described in detail how to prepare a wardrobe for the spring season – inspect shoes (and, if necessary, take them for repair), clean and remove winter clothes, think about how to organize a storage system (maybe it’s time to finally buy more reliable hangers and master more unusual ways to put things in closets).

Think about what clothes are missing (you can even make a shopping list), and what, on the contrary, it’s time to get rid of. For example, is it worth storing clothes that no longer fit? Or a favorite thing that has lost its look over the years? Are you happy with all the things that are kept at home – and if not, is it time to get rid of them? Spring cleaning is a great excuse to go through the closets and understand what you can sell, give out to friends on swaps, donate to charity, or recycling. Handing out things and throwing swap parties, however, we advise during the epidemic of the Covid-19 to be careful with that.

Spring Cleaning Cosmetics 

Usually, when talking about spring decluttering, it includes common advice on how to disassemble a wardrobe – but paying attention to the contents of a cosmetic bag is equally important. We urge you to take seriously the expiration date of cosmetics: no matter how much you love a certain product, if the expiration date has expired, it will do more harm than good. Remember that if you used the cream several times, and then it lay idle for a year, it is better to get rid of it – it can lead to unpredictable results. Soberly assess how often you use certain products: if pink eyeshadow or lipstick have not been used, it is better to give them to your friends who will need them more (not forgetting, of course, about hygiene). Pay attention to whether the storage of cosmetics is conveniently organized: if pencils or a small palette of eyeshadows lie at the bottom of the cosmetic bag, it is likely that sooner or later you will forget about their existence. 

First Aid Kit

First aid kit disassembling is a useful activity: we often do not notice how we accumulate expired or unnecessary medicines. We have already talked in detail about how to correctly approach the sorting and storage of medications. But there are still basic recommendations: for example, you should get rid of the pills that have fallen out of the blister or bottle and have erased the names on the blister pack. Even if you are sure that you know what kind of pill is hidden in the anonymous package, you should not risk taking it. Also, you should not store expired medications, as well as liquid products that have changed their appearance – for example, stratified or discolored. 

Spring Clean Your Career

In the current economic situation, not everyone can afford to think about changing jobs – but that’s not a reason not to look closely at what’s going on in your career. Do you like all the tasks that you do – and if not, is there any way you can influence the situation? Do you feel like you are fully realized? Are you interested in what you do? Do not forget about the Pareto principle: 20% of the efforts give 80% of the result, and the remaining 80% of the efforts give only 20% of the result. We do not urge you to give up 80% of the tasks that you do every day, but to see how you spend your efforts and whether it is worth worrying that you did not have time to complete the entire to-do list in a week will definitely come in handy. If everything is calm and you feel comfortable, you can just take a closer look at how you organized the work. Are you satisfied with your scheduling system (we recommend the bullet journal)? Is the current organization of tasks right for you? Isn’t it time to take apart your desktop and clean your email? How long have you updated your resume and portfolio? Even if you don’t need them right now, it’s always good to have a new version.

Spring Cleaning Your Environment

We’ve recently covered how to tell if you’re in a toxic environment. For example, if you are ashamed for not following the rules – but the rules themselves have not been voiced anywhere. Or if your needs (for example, you are vegan, don’t drink alcohol, or limit the amount of sugar you eat) are ridiculed or considered unimportant. The same is true in relationships with specific people: do you feel equal and equally important? Are you being manipulated, plagued with jealousy, and discussed with others? Spring is the perfect time to take a closer look at how comfortable you are with the relationship in your life. Even if this is a long relationship, which previously always brought only joy, this does not mean that it is worth clinging to them to the last. At the same time, we suggest that you think about how comfortable others are with you – and whether you are doing something for which you judge others.

Spring Cleaning Subscriptions

With ever-rising currencies, regular monthly subscriptions like Netflix run the risk of turning from a small waste into a more visible amount – it’s time to take a closer look. There are several basic rules. First, think about whether the services to which you are subscribed duplicate each other (you are unlikely to have time to watch both what is on HBO and Amazon content). Second, consider how often you use all the services you subscribed to. If in the last three months you have read only one book in a book service, it might be cheaper to buy just one book. Or, for example, in a meditation app, you have enough free features and there is no point in paying more. Thirdly, think about whether it is possible without loss to replace what you use with a free and legal analog (for example, a subscription to a fitness app with content from free services or YouTube lessons). Finally, does it make sense to immediately subscribe for a year – yes, they often allow you to save money, but this makes sense only if you use the app regularly.

Social Media Spring Cleaning

When was the last time you checked how many friends you have on social media – and how many of them are you interested in keeping in touch with (or at least watching their photos)? Colleagues from your past work, whom you have not seen for a couple of years, former partners of friends, classmates whom you last saw at a reunion – do you really need all these people on Facebook and Instagram? What about endless stores and other service accounts?

We advise you to approach subscriptions just as strictly and honestly. Are you watching all the stories that appear on your Instagram feed – or is it worth hiding some of them? Are you interested in all the Telegram channels that you subscribed to, or the only thing you open regularly are pet memes? There is already a lot of information noise around – it’s great if it becomes a little less.

Smart Phone Spring Cleaning

There are many analyzes in detail that describe why a lot of smartphones are built in such a way that they simply cannot be detached from them. First of all, we advise you to take a closer look at notifications: do you need daily reminders from Twitter, Pinterest, and fitness apps? Isn’t it time to cover up especially active, but not too important chats?

Think about whether you need all the apps so badly on your phone. Games downloaded for boring situations that you haven’t touched for months, media that you were going to read but never reached your hands-on, travel apps that you definitely won’t use until your next vacation, online stores that out of habit you prefer a regular site – you will surely find something superfluous. Don’t forget to browse your media: podcasts (iPhones, for example, often download new episodes of programs to which you subscribe automatically), downloaded music, and photos from past vacations. You will be pleasantly surprised by the amount of free memory on the phone.

Email Spring Cleaning

Emails, with the possible exception of workers, are increasingly replacing correspondence in instant messengers. Yet most of us inexplicably end up with a full mailbox. Much of this, of course, is due to email newsletters – those that you consciously subscribe to or, for example, to get a discount in an online store.

Unnecessary mailings can be cleaned manually – look for a button in each of them to unsubscribe. In Gmail, this can also be done through the mail client itself: next to the sender’s address there is a link “unsubscribe from the mailing list.” Besides, you can search for special services – however, for this, you have to give them access to mail. If you are worried about the confidentiality of information, it is better to act manually.

Spring Clean Your Life

We do not call for self-digging and self-flagellation – but from time to time it is useful to slow down and calmly think about what you want from life and whether you are comfortable with yourself in everything. You can, for example, purge goals – short and longer-term: to think about whether you still set the same career goals for yourself, whether you want to continue learning a foreign language and whether it’s time to quit watching a boring TV show. It’s also always helpful to consider whether you are taking care of yourself – and enough. For example, does alcohol help you relax – or should you take a bath with a good book instead.

Contact White Glove Cleaner today for more help with your Spring Cleaning activities, or contact us to schedule a home cleaning service in NYC.