Spring Cleaning.
These two words muster a myriad of responses.
Some folks embrace deep cleaning. Some folks run from it.
My gut tells me that a lot of you are like me…you love it when you can get it done but the crazies of life make it more and more difficult to accomplish!
I have to confess, bona fide Spring Cleaning is a distant memory for me. I remember a time in my life when I honest to gosh did a deep cleaning over every nook and cranny of my home.
Time’s they be a changin’.
Sounds like I’m not alone. I did a little research. Guess what? The ritual that our mothers and grandmothers so diligently practiced is going out our dirty windows.
The truth is our lives are different than our Mama’s and grandma’s. My Mom never jumped on a plane or drove hundreds of miles to keep up with kiddos activities. The generations prior were not blessed (and let’s be honest…sometimes beleaguered) by the gazillion opportunities we and are progeny have today.
We gain so much, but a victim of time spent away from home is time spent at home!
We have less of it and I refuse to spend what precious time I do have allocating endless hours to cleaning. Enter my friend FlyLady.
If you have not checked out FlyLady you need to. She doesn’t believe in Spring Cleaning. According to her (and Wikipedia) Spring Cleaning is dated (we no longer need to clean the soot out of our homes once the warmer March winds arrive.)
FlyLady promotes the ongoing implementation of “zone cleaning.” In a nutshell, she promotes dividing out our homes according to areas or zones and deep cleaning those areas for 15 minutes a day.
If you want to follow her protocol for keeping up with your home’s cleaning needs click here for more information. If not, start with the two simple tips below. Hopefully they’ll help trigger the less than tantalizing, but oh so gratifying process of “spring cleaning.”
- A journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step. Did you know that if you dig into the origins of that saying what it really means is “Start with where you are standing.” I LOVE that. Sometimes I make it too hard. This proverb reminds to pick one small thing that’s right in front of me. Start with one small space. You will be amazed at the incentive that occurs when you clean out the spice rack in the kitchen or a messy bathroom drawer. Check out this post for an example.
- Whatever “zone” or room you choose to work in remember the 3 point system for clearing out an area. I won’t go into it here but it really does work. Check out the three sack system for details.
Good luck, God speed, and good gravy—— it’s time for a little deep cleaning.
Your (sprung for spring cleaning) DoAhead Friend,
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