The Ultimate Spring Cleaning Guide
“Clutter is nothing more than postponed decisions. ”
The second the weather turns warm, I look around my house and think… euch. Windows seem a lot cleaner when the light isn’t quite as strong. With the weather warming up and the days growing long, spring is the perfect time to do a deep clean.
While spring cleaning can be a daunting task, it has many benefits! A clean and organized home can help reduce stress, improve productivity, and even boost mood and well-being. You can breathe easier (literally) knowing your home is clean.
Below I’ve outlined my tips for a successful spring clean, but I’ve also put together a detailed list of room cleaning tasks! If you’re as task-oriented as I am, check out the full checklist at the link below.
Get the Spring Cleaning Checklist
Preparing for Spring Cleaning
To set any project up for success, setting goals is key. Cleaning is no exception! Break up your cleaning into manageable chunks with specific goals for each. Goals can be as simple as decluttering a specific room or as complex as a deep clean of the entire house.
Once you’ve established your goals, gather your supplies. This may include cleaning products, tools, and equipment such as a vacuum cleaner, microfiber cloths, and a mop. (Hint: I’ve included all basic supplies in my checklist!) It's also important to have trash bags, donation bags, and storage bins on hand. Spring is the perfect time for decluttering, too!
Top Tips for Effective Spring Cleaning
Like most labor traditionally put on women, cleaning seems like a no-brainer. If you have spent 0.01 seconds watching cleaning TikToks, however, you know that the amount of work involved in cleaning is enormous. After a decade and some change of taking care of my own personal domicile full-time, I have established a few overall tips that help my big cleaning projects immensely.
Tip 1: Focus on One Room at a Time
This one is for my fellow neurodivergent girlies: ONE. ROOM. AT. A TIME. This goes for packing to move, too. It is so easy to ping pong around your home when cleaning. You start in the mudroom and put some shoes away in the bedroom. That makes you notice your nightstands are disgusting. You take skincare products from your nightstand to the bathroom and notice your shower would make Norman Bates shiver with pleasure. 4 hours later you are back at the mudroom, exhausted and confused.
The best way to combat this: deposits. Instead of fully putting things away, simply deposit them in the appropriate room, then get right back to where you were. If I’m worried even that will make me too off-task, I’ll grab a reusable grocery bag or assemble items in piles according to the room where it will live. You can get to the items later when you get to a level 2 clean. What is level 2, you ask?
Tip 2: Think of Cleaning in Layers
My house becomes dirtier in direct proportion to how busy I am. During the pandemic, my house was quite clean. Now that I’m performing again…let’s just say the Grinch would be very comfortable in my house during tech week. That level of mess is incredibly overwhelming and makes cleaning harder. That’s why I’ve started thinking about cleaning in the following layers. Not only does it break cleaning down into chunks, it also empowers me to make the largest impact I can in the shortest time.
Level 1: Trash
First: throw out all the trash. It’s really simple, but a lot of people tend to keep trash and debris scattered about. This includes dirty dishes and laundry. Put the dishes near the sink, put the laundry in the hamper. If you only have a short period of time, dealing with discarded items takes your home from “pigsty” to “messy, but not barfably so.”
Level 2: Tidy
Next, tidy and put away non-trash objects. Put away clean clothes, stash random countertop objects, put away clean dishes. This level is the easiest on which to get distracted. For example, as you’re putting away books, you may notice how dusty your bookshelves are. Resist the temptation. Tidying is the biggest step to eliminating visual clutter (thereby reducing stress), and leaves surfaces free for deeper cleaning.
Level 3: Common Surfaces
“Common surfaces” applies to surfaces you interact with often in your day to day life. They’re the things you’re most likely to notice are dirty as you bop around your house. Countertops, interior windows, appliance handles, floors. When I am cleaning for guests, this is usually where I stop. How I typically work is using one type of cleaning project (i.e. furniture polish) on every relevant surface in the room, setting aside that tool when I'm done as a tracking method.
Level 4: Uncommon Surfaces
I think of the surfaces tucked away and most ignorable as “uncommon surfaces.” As any homeowner can tell you, some people literally never clean these things. Making sure they’re in good condition not only keeps your home cleaner, it also extends the life of these objects and your home. Uncommon surfaces include:
Baseboards
Blinds and ceiling fans
Under furniture
Inside large appliances (yes, you should clean your cleaning appliances).
Outdoor areas (such as gutters)
Level 5: Batch Cleaning
Some types of cleaning are best done in the background while other things are happening. I wouldn’t consider laundry or dishes the last thing you should do, per se. These tasks simply don’t fit the typical methodical outline I would recommend. Batch cleaning tasks should be started as you clean and checked on periodically. Timing the end of your dishwasher cycle to your kitchen tidying is ideal, but don’t waste so much energy on figuring out the timing that you can’t get your cleaning done.
Tip 3: Keep Relevant Supplies in that Room
Once upon a time, I lived in a 3 floor townhouse. It had a large utility room in the basement that I thought would be perfect for cleaning products, right?
WRONG.
Turns out, trudging up and down 2 sets of stairs every time you want to clean your bathroom is an exercise in madness. In my 380 square foot one-room cabin, I could keep everything under the kitchen sink and let that be that. But if your home is larger than 1500 square feet and/or has multiple levels, keeping supplies in relevant rooms is a huge game changer. If you have the space and the resources, keep multiple sets of supplies per room!
Tip 4: Do the Floors Last
Much like painting yourself into a corner, this is one of those tips that seem obvious but actually is not so obvious. As you clean, you often knock small pieces of debris to the floor. Cleaning the floors last means that A) you can scoop up all those little crumbs and B) it signals that room is finished and you can move on.
Tip 5: Think Outside the Home
Most cleaning content focuses on interiors - and for good reason! We spend most of our time at home indoors (unless you live in like, Bali, in which case why are you reading this and not inviting me to your house?!). But sprucing up outdoor areas makes a mental health impact, too! You don’t have to spend $20k on landscaping to achieve this. Throw away trash, sweep away dirt and debris, water plants, and straighten furniture. Doesn’t that feel better already?
Tip 6: Don’t Try It All in One Day
Living by myself in the aforementioned 380 cabin is the only time I’ve successfully cleaned my entire home in one day. Cleaning is labor-intensive and can be mentally draining if you sort and organize a lot of objects. Professional cleaners can do quite a bit in one day because they often have full teams of people - and they charge accordingly.
For a full spring reset, break your tasks into categories and divide those categories into days. Perhaps you start with bathrooms, then bedrooms, then your kitchen, then living areas. Maybe you do a level per day. Maybe you work from one end of your home to another. Whatever you do, scheduling manageable chunks a time will help ensure you don’t drop out early from overwhelm.
Get the Spring Cleaning Checklist
Spring cleaning doesn’t have to be a drag! With a little elbow grease and a detailed checklist, it can be a manageable and even enjoyable process. A clean and organized home can reduce stress, improve productivity, and boost your mood and well-being. I’ve found cleaning my home reduces symptoms of anxiety and depression (disclaimer: I am not a doctor, just a person with a swirly brain). So, roll up your sleeves and get to work, and you'll be enjoying the benefits of a clean home in no time. Happy cleaning!
