When you think of spring cleaning, you probably relate it to an intensive cleaning up of your house. After a long winter with your home buttoned up against the cold, spring cleaning is an opportunity to refresh your space, give it a good airing out, and clean all the nooks and crannies to look like new again.
But your home is not the only space that can use a good spring cleaning. What if you took that same idea, but instead of cleaning your physical surroundings, you tidied up your life?
What could that look like?
There are plenty of ways you can “spring clean” your life. Start with your habits and routines. Are you getting enough sleep? Eating healthily? Exercising? Do the activities you engage in on a regular basis support the life you want to live or do they take away and distract from that life?
If you are still working, how are you meeting your career goals? Do you have an active social life or have you let it slide? Do you express positivity, gratitude, and kindness on a consistent basis? What about self-care?
If it’s high time you gave your life a good spring cleaning, here are nine steps that can get you started.
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9 Steps to Spring Clean Your Life
1. Take Stock of Your Current Life
Before you begin the process of spring cleaning your life, you will need to take careful stock of how you are currently doing.
- Do you have clear, specific goals for different areas of your life?
- What sort of progress are you seeing on these goals?
- What areas of your life are you happy with just as they are right now?
- Are there any areas of your life you’d like to change?
Taking stock of where you are at right now will help you determine where to direct your energy going forward.
2. Clear Your Mind
Life is busy. We’ve all got a lot of different things pulling us in multiple directions.
Spring cleaning is your opportunity to find ways to relax and destress. You must control feelings of overwhelm before you can effectively work to make changes in life. Otherwise, you’ll just feel even MORE overwhelmed, and give up before you ever get started.
- Developing a daily meditation practice is a great way to clear your mind.
- You might also try journaling. Getting those thoughts spinning around in your head onto paper can do wonders for lowering your stress levels and increasing productivity.
- Dance, sing, doodle, paint, or jog a few miles.
- Do whatever “your thing” is – the thing that relaxes, calms, refreshes, and motivates you.
3. Unplug From Technology
Sure, we all love our computers and phones. But sometimes we need to unplug and get our noses out of our tech gear and pay attention to the world around us.
- Try to designate a day, portion of a day, or a group of hours that you avoid all technology. Reclaim your time.
- Prune some of your social media accounts. Do you really need to be on Facebook, Instagram, SnapChat, TikTok, Clubhouse, and LinkedIn every single day?
- Avoid mindless television-watching. Only watch specific shows that you really want to see. When not actively watching, turn the tv off.
4. Review Your Goals and Revise Them As Needed
For the vast majority of people, some goals work out, and some don’t. This is why it’s important to adjust your goals once in a while.
Figure out what is working, and double down on that.
Find out what isn’t working, and figure out why. Do you need to change the goal, or change what you are doing to reach the goal (chances are it’s the latter!)
Make a plan to review your goals on a monthly basis to make sure you are staying on track to reach them in the timeframe you have chosen.
5. Say No More to Bad Habits
It might be time to clean up those bad habits of yours. Bad habits add up over time and cost you in the long run. It’s easy to fall into bad habits without even realizing it. Take some time to examine your habits to see what needs to change or improve.
The best way to change a bad habit is to replace it with a good one. And remember, it’s not how long you practice it, but how consistently, that builds a strong habit.
6. Clean Up Your Relationships
How do you clean up relationships? That may sound like an odd concept, but it’s actually a very important thing to do.
Take a look at your relationships – both the closest ones and the more casual ones, too. Do they make you feel good? Do they bring you down and feel toxic?
Sometimes, we have to let people go from our lives if they are damaging to us in any way. If the people in your life don’t cheer you up, lift you up or build you up, why are they in your life?
Make an effort to spend time with people you love and build those relationships to be even stronger.
7. Clean Up Your Diet
A great way to spring clean your life is to improve your diet. And by “diet”, I mean your long-term dietary lifestyle, not weight loss dieting. Find a healthy, balanced way of eating that you can sustain over time. This isn’t about denial and limitations, it’s about creating food habits that work for you.
8. Refresh Your Fitness Routine
What is your fitness routine? Does it have enough variety and challenge to keep you interested? Is it time to adjust it (or start one)?
Spring cleaning is a chance to shake things up and try something new. If you generally focus on cardio, try yoga or tai chi. Try walking as your primary exercise, or switch to jogging, biking, or swimming. If you use hand weights, try a kettlebell. Explore your options!
9. Organize Your Workspace
This is almost real spring cleaning! Organizing your workspace is a great way to boost your productivity and get more excited about working in general. Reorganizing is less about cleaning and more about making sure every item has its space and every space has a purpose.
Of course, there’s more to this step than clearing off your desk. If you cook often, organize your kitchen. Have a craft or sewing room? Focus on that. Spend time on your computer – set up a new file system and delete outdated documents and programs.
Recommended Reading When You Are Ready to Spring Clean Your Life:
One Small Step Can Change Your Life by Robert Maurer
Improve your life fearlessly with this essential guide to kaizen—the art of making great and lasting change through small, steady steps.
The philosophy is simple: Great change is made through small steps. And the science is irrefutable: Small steps circumvent the brain’s built-in resistance to new behavior.
30 Days – Change Your Habits, Change Your Life by Marc Reklau
Marc’s mission is to empower people to create the life they want and to give them the resources and tools to make it happen.
His message is simple: You can plan and create success and happiness in your life by installing habits that support you on the way to your goals.
Make Your Bed: Little Things That Can Change Your Life by Admiral William H. McRaven
Based on a Navy SEAL’s inspiring graduation speech. These are the ten principles learned during Navy Seal training that helped him overcome challenges in his training, long Naval career, and throughout his life.
He explains how anyone can use these basic lessons to change themselves-and the world-for the better.
Read More:
- Using An Affirmation to Help Create the Life You Want
- A Beginner’s Guide to Journaling for Personal Growth
- 18 Proven Ways to Build Unshakeable Self-Confidence
- 3 Journal Topics to Help You Focus on Self-Improvement
Final Thoughts on Is It Time to Spring Clean Your Life?
Spring – the season of renewal – is the ideal time to consider the status of your life, and if it is going in the direction of your choice. There is always the possibility of change, but you must understand where you are in order to know how to redirect.
These nine steps will get you off to a solid start in reflecting on your life, health, goals, and dreams. Take the time to change your life for the better with a little spring cleaning.
