There’s an age-old adage that comes to mind this time of year: less is more. Spring, the season of change, of growth, of renewal. For some, this has a profound impact on our lives. Diets may change, new habits may be fostered, resolutions may be reinstated. For others, this time marks the annual purging of household clutter: Spring Cleaning.

Spring Cleaning. It’s a phrase that haunts many of the nation’s youth. The ambition of the parents can equate to unwelcome pressure, chores, and obligations. Let’s face it, very few of those among us enjoy engaging in a deep, thorough cleaning the toilet bowl. Most of us enjoy spending our Friday nights with family and friends, maybe taking in a film or lounging in the warming springtime air with café lattes or frozen yogurt, not knee-deep in the flotsam and jetsam of everyday life, wading into closets and attics that have remained undisturbed since 1982.

But, they say, organization is key! And who are we to argue? In fact, they are right. Organization is key, and what better time than the spring to revamp and re-envision our homes?

Here are a few Spring Cleaning Tips

1. Room By Room: In a fever of ambition and excitement, many of us make the mistake of tackling too much too fast. This results in an initial phase of absolute chaos (it’s always darkest before the dawn…), where the room that once served as your living room now looks more like a locker on Storage Wars or an in-home studio on Hoarders. By tackling this project one room at a time, and choosing as a starting point one of the more manageable rooms, you can slowly begin to engage in the process, identifying stressors and developing processes along the way that enable you to take on those terrifying spaces.

2. Donate: This is where the less is more comes into play. If you’re going to be rummaging through artifacts of an earlier life, of an earlier species (one that got to sleep in on the weekends, one that didn’t have mortgages and life insurance policies), you may as well start a pile of goods that you can donate. After all, do you really still need that the sky-blue jumper, or those electric hair rollers, or the dress (or worse, the corsage) that your daughter wore to prom in 1999 (or you wore in 1982)? Not only will some young person fawn at the jumper when they find it at the local thrift shop, but you’ll have one less thing taking up space, and the thrift shop will make a couple bucks, which most likely makes a difference in your local community. It’s a win, win, win, win.

3. The Box System: It’s a tried and true method, most likely because of its ultimate simplicity. Set out three boxes (cardboard, rubbermaids, even garbage bags). Designate them: one for donations (see above), one for garbage, and one that is dependent on the room (if it’s a home office, consider one for recycling, if it is a child’s bedroom it might be for permanent storage (the garage, the basement, etc.), if it is a bedroom it might be for winter clothes. You get the idea.). This technique can provide you with a bit of structure, and the joy of filling boxes and carrying them out of your house brings with it a nice dose of serotonin.

Most can agree that clean feels better- it provides an atmosphere of peace. It is important to remember though that most cleaning products are toxic. Try using your Osana all natural soap to clean your self and your counters! Here is how you can turn the bar of soap into liquid!

 

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