Even if it's cold outside and there's snow on the ground, it may be time to start your spring cleaning. Set intentions for the new year, create new cleaning rituals, and declutter your home with a kick-start on not only cleaning your home but transforming it into a space for mindfulness and clarity.
It can sometimes feel overwhelming when thinking about cleaning your space because there are so many different areas of the home. By tackling each room one by one, moving through your space with intention, and prioritizing clean and natural ingredients, you’ll be sure to move through your spring cleaning with ease. Keep reading for some helpful ways to make cleaning a priority this year.
What Is Spring Cleaning?
Spring cleaning is an annual tradition in many households where families will get together and clean the home. This tradition spans all across the world and has different religious and cultural orientation, but one thing is certain: spring cleaning is a deep clean. This isn't a brief sweep of the kitchen and some counter wiping, this is a clean unlike any other of the year, that's why it's spring cleaning!
Some of the main components of spring cleaning include organizing and decluttering drawers and cabinets, donating or discarding unused goods throughout the home, and cleansing your space of unwanted toxins and air pollutants. If you haven’t developed effective cleaning habits or find yourself searching for the right cleaning product, then this guide is here to support you in turning over a newer – and cleaner – leaf.
Why Cleaning Your Space Is Important
Cleaning is important for a number of reasons. The first, and arguably most important reason why cleaning is a priority, is for your mental health! There is significant research supporting how a clean space actually supports your mental health because your brain has a harder time focusing when there’s a lot going on. Less stuff, less stress.
Imagine that your space is a reflection of who you are, and what you think you deserve! A clean space makes room for bigger ideas, brighter days, and space with the potential to be filled with memories.
Tips To Clean Your Space
So… where to begin? Sometimes, getting started is the hardest part. Before you begin, take a moment to reflect on how you feel about cleaning. What emotions come up? Do you find yourself avoiding putting away those clothes? Does wiping surfaces bring you satisfaction? By taking a quick inventory of how you feel about cleaning, it can help you bring clarity to how you want to approach your spring cleaning.
In general, cleaning brings about mental and spatial clarity as you energize and clear your space. Getting started can be difficult, so here are some tips to help you start making moves on your spring cleaning.
Move Room by Room
One of the biggest mistakes you can make while cleaning your home is trying to do everything at once. Looking around your home at all of the tasks in front of you can make the job feel overwhelming, so keep it simple, and go room by room.
Don't try to clean the whole house at once! Select a room, and work on it with intention until you finish. Set measurable goals such as, “I am going to remove 10 articles of clothing from the closet to donate,” or “I will organize and declutter the bathroom for 45 minutes.”
Making your cleaning routine measurable can also make it manageable. Working in increments and moving through your home’s rooms methodically is an effective way to break up the intimidating idea of a deep clean.
Clear That Clutter
It's called spring cleaning — not spring saving — for a reason! The purpose of doing a spring clean is to deeply move through your home, get rid of what you don't need, prioritize what you do and clean while you're doing that process.
Clearing clutter means taking an honest look at what you've used the past year, and what you might want to donate or give away. Clearing clutter is also a way of addressing each space in your house and giving every object a “home,” or a place for it to exist.
When you clear out clutter from your home it's a great opportunity to support others instead of producing unnecessary waste. Give your neighbors a call, see if local organizations are taking donations, or if there's anyone who might have used for the items that you no longer need. This can give a new life to your unwanted goods, and help others in the process.
Make It a Team Effort
The cleaning doesn't have to be just you. Maybe you just need to be the one to take charge! If you live in a home with roommates, family members, bring them into the spring cleaning by making it a fun activity for everyone to enjoy.
Turn on music, grab some snacks, and let everyone choose a cleaning role so that they can feel empowered and energized to clean right alongside you. When cleaning is thought of as a chore, oftentimes dread and avoidance come with it. But sometimes all it takes is a shift in mindset, some good music and motivation to transform cleaning into a family fun activity. Even better, once your space is cleared you can use it for a family game night, movie night, or a home cooked meal.
Prioritize Natural and Organic Ingredients
If you're cleaning, doesn't it make sense to clear the air too? Even though you can't actually clean the air, you can eliminate odors caused by mold, mildew, and fungus that might be making your home to smell less than pleasant.
Enter Azuna’s odor eliminator + air fresheners; they’re plant-based, long-lasting, and best of all, actually clear the air of unwanted odors.
But this isn't just about pleasing your olfactory senses, this is about ridding your home of air fresheners that pose potentially harmful consequences. In studies that examine the contents of air fresheners, several toxins known to have negative impacts on humans were found.
After cleaning your home, why would you want to release toxins into the air? The goal is to clarify, not pollute, the air quality in your home and Azuna makes that possible.
Make It a Ritual
Sometimes cleaning feels overwhelming and hard because it's not something that you look forward to doing. Cleaning often feels like a chore, but what if you could reframe it as an intentional exercise that helps ground you and your space? What might cleaning look like as a practice of mindfulness, a way to transform your space through careful action?
Cleaning isn't the kind of ritual that leaves you feeling empty. On the contrary, a cleaner home can help you breathe better, feel better, and be more motivated to clean in the future. Spring cleaning is a great way to mark the start of a new ritual, a house filled with cleaner air, sunnier days, and a healthier you.
Look Up and Down
Spring cleaning isn't just about organization, it's about cleansing your home of unwanted dust, mold, and bacteria. Dust hides in sneaky places, often too high or too low for those of us to see. Be sure to prioritize the areas of your home where dust might circulate most frequently, like overhead fans, air ducts and vents, and around your washer and dryer.
Mold and mildew, not unlike dust, also hide in hard-to-reach places like under the sink above vents in the bathroom, and sometimes on baseboards are floorboards in rooms that are particularly humid.
After cleaning your space of dust and intentionally de-cluttering areas, set the tone for your new space. Azuna's unique tea tree oil based odor eliminator + air fresheners are offered in a variety of subtle scents. There’s one thing better than a room that smells fresh, and that’s a room that smells fresh and is actively having bad odors eliminated.
The Bottom Line
Spring cleaning is more than just rearranging furniture, lightly sweeping, or organizing a kitchen drawer. It’s that time of year to embrace what’s ahead by setting the tone for your space.
Spring cleaning is about moving through your home with intention and care as you cleanse each room and prepare them for a new year ahead. Whether you decide to gather the family or embrace your solo cleaning moment, be sure to prioritize natural ingredients, measurable outcomes, and realistic cleaning goals
Sources:
Interactions of Top-Down and Bottom-Up Mechanisms in Human Visual Cortex | Journal of Neuroscience
Toxic Chemicals in Air Fresheners Lead to Indoor Air Pollution | Made Safe
