Posted on April 28th,
2010
by John Kirchner
It’s that time of year: Spring has sprung. Flowers have bloomed. And everywhere you turn, someone’s telling you about getting started on spring cleaning or giving you tips on what to do for spring cleaning or how to do spring cleaning in an affordable or environmentally friendly way. Well, we’re adding to the pile today, but there’s good reason: Spring cleaning isn’t just good for your home — it’s also good for your mental well-being.
At Psychology Today:
Clutter is mentally exhausting. In our less developed prehistory, we needed to continually survey our environment, to make sure that nothing that found us appetizing was approaching. It’s easier to review a less cluttered environment, danger stands out more clearly. …
Clutter is undesirable for another major reason. We use the design of spaces we control and the objects we place in those spaces to communicate to ourselves and others who we feel we are — at least on our good days. We are very good at reading our own environments and those of others — research has shown, for example, that we can pretty accurately assess a person through a quick review of places they control. We can even estimate how well a space could communicate who we are — that’s why we can take a couple of steps into a perspective home and decide if it’s the space for us.
Now that you know a bit more about why it’s important, Home Renovation Guide has some good tips to share. Most notable: “Find something that motivates you to get started” and “Start out small.” Easier said than done, but check out the other tips to start wrapping your head around a game plan.
Those are strategic tips, helping you map out your approach. This article by Cecilia Williams offers some more specific tactical tips; it serves as a checklist to make sure you hit all of the household hot-spots that need some springtime cleaning attention.
And for fun, this piece offer some quick ideas for making your spring cleaning routine a bit more earth-friendly with the help of technology. You can shop smarter, use less energy and find ways to recycle items that are otherwise difficult to dispose of.
[photo]
More from Marvin:
Try Marvin's free Online Remodeling Planner for inspiration and organization
