Spring Cleaning

As soon as the weather starts getting warmer, the sudden urge to declutter my life gets underway. I mean everything: the house, the car, the phone, the laptop and the people. Spring cleaning is a time for a fresh start and, especially, a wonderful way to prepare for a strong finish to the semester. The following is what spring cleaning looks like for me. 

The first thing that comes to my mind when I hear the word “declutter” is my clothes. Oftentimes, I hold onto clothes for way too long thinking one day I’ll wear them, but I never do. I’ve gotten better at letting go of items because I have shifted my mindset to needing to love my pieces, rather than just liking them. The most helpful idea is that, for me to buy new clothes, I must get rid of the old ones that are no longer serving me. Once the closet has been decluttered, it sets the tone for spring cleaning and now you can declutter and clean everything.  

The next part of spring cleaning is to clean either your house or your apartment. Now for those who live in apartments, this might mean a super clean kitchen, room and bathroom, but for me living at home means it’s time to do everything in the house. For example, I clean the counters, dust and mop, in addition to now scrubbing the walls, decluttering the pantry, cleaning the ceiling fans, etc. 

Once you have a clean space, you have a clear head. This means it’s time to get on your phones and delete all those unnecessary screenshots, apps we no longer use and our useless notes. This frees up so much space to capture your new memories and rids you of the burden of a too full iCloud storage. Then, you do the same with your laptop: organize your files into folders and delete all the things you don’t need anymore. This is a rewarding form of decluttering and will make your life so much easier.  

Lastly, spring cleaning is a time for cleaning out people. People are meant to be in your life for a reason; sometimes that means they are only with you for a season, and that is okay. With the arrival of the new season of spring, it’s important to check what season of life you’re in. Maybe, the people in this phase are still wonderful people and it’s totally fine to keep them around as long as they understand that your path is not their path. However, there are also those whose paths no longer align with you and your values, and you may have to let them go. This is so that new people who suit you better can come into your life. Do not hold on to anyone who brings you down or prevents you from being all that you can be. If a person is causing more harm than good in your life, you may have to set them free for your own health.  

Spring cleaning is a wonderful reset button on our lives, so take advantage of it no matter how cliché it might sound. As this semester nears an end, we need all the clearheadedness we can get and we want to enter summer glowing, happy, and free.