Spring Cleaning Tips
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Spring Cleaning Tips
20 things you can live without to reduce clutter
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Pantry items
Discard anything expired and donate anything you wonÂ’t use in the next three months to your local food bank. Having all of your cereal, pasta and canned goods visible will help you know and use what you have.
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Books
Keep anything with sentimental value or that you can commit to reading this year. The rest of your book collection can be turned into dollars at a second-hand bookstore. Fire up your library card and consider investing in an e-reader such as a Kindle or an iPad.
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DVDs
Go digital: sell the DVD collection and use the proceeds to buy or rent movies on iTunes or Netflix. Used DVDs in good condition can be sold via Amazon.com or donated to your local library.
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CDs
Replace your CDs with a space-saving external hard drive. With your music collection available at the click of a mouse, youÂ’ll enjoy it more and dust it less.
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Photos
Scan loose photos and store them digitally. When itÂ’s time to make a photo book, youÂ’ll have a fresh crop of vintage photos to show off. If you donÂ’t have a scanner or want to save yourself some time, you can use a service like scanmyphotos.com to scan them for you.
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Skinny Jeans
YouÂ’ll be that size again, but itÂ’s no help being taunted by closets overflowing with clothes you canÂ’t wear today. Just keep what fits and looks great on you now. Realistically, when youÂ’re back to skinny-jeans size youÂ’ll be celebrating with a new wardrobe.
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Cleaning Products
Keep the multipurpose cleaners but safely dispose of the specialty and duplicate cleaners. YouÂ’ll find it easier to stay on top of soap scum and dust bunnies when youÂ’re just toting around a few bottles and rags.
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Dishware
Give away anything mismatched for a clean look to your dishware and glassware. Having fewer dishes will help you stay on top of loading and unloading the dishwasher.
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Vehicle
If you have a car you only use occasionally, consider becoming a member of an auto cooperative or ZipCar. You will save money, space in the garage and time: no more oil changes, maintenance appointments or car washes on your to-do list.
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Exercise equipment
Sell the treadmill you currently use as a clothing rack and use the proceeds to sign up for a boot camp or running group. YouÂ’re more likely to stick to a workout regime with your name on a class list and an instructor waiting for you. Visit Craigslist.org to find your local board to sell used
fitness equipment. -
TV
Get rid of the television in your bedroom and enjoy more sleep, sex and conversation. Bonus: reduced energy consumption and one less thing to dust.
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Wedding Dress
It looked amazing on you but will it do the same for your daughter 30 years after you wore it? Styles change and the majority of wedding dresses are only ever worn once. YouÂ’ve got the photos and the memories: let someone else give up the closet space.
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Childrens clothing
Stop doing the laundry until someone complains they donÂ’t have anything clean to wear. Whatever is still hanging in the closet can be donated — itÂ’s not being worn at your house anyway.
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Kitchen gadgets
Are your kitchen drawers drowning in never-used Bundt pans and apple corers? Consider gifting your rarely used kitchen gadgets to a friend that will use them. You can always borrow that culinary torch back should you decide to finally make crème brulee.
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Camping gear
If you havenÂ’t unrolled your sleeping bag in five years, itÂ’s time to say goodbye to it. Life with kids changes things, and itÂ’s common to prefer hotels and cabins over tents when youÂ’re toting a toddler. Sell the camping stove and the rest of your gear at a garage sale and use the proceeds for your
next vacation. -
Credit card and bank statements
Go paperless and request statements be emailed to you. Enjoy having less paper to
sort, shred or file. -
Cosmetics
Keep items you use daily and weekly and toss expired and experimental make-up and creams. A dramatic or new evening make-up look can be had from a demo at the MAC counter. All the clear space under your sink will inspire you to just buy what you use.
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Electronics
Get some office space back by donating your old computer to a charitable organization that refurbishes them. If youÂ’ve recently upgraded your cell phone, recycle or sell your old one. Cell Phones for Soldiers is an organization that will recycle your phone and use the proceeds to buy calling cards for soldiers abroad. Visit cellphonesforsoldiers.com to find a drop-off point in your city.
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Furniture
Once youÂ’ve pared down all your media, toys and clothing, youÂ’ll probably find that you donÂ’t need all three bookcases or that extra side table. Remove the extra furniture and youÂ’ll find your home easier to clean and more enjoyable to relax in. To connect with someone locally that wants your furniture and will pick it up, visit Freecycle.org.
I disagree with getting rid of the books advice. This is what’s used to be called home library. There is nothing more wonderful than shelves and shelves filled with books. Kids who grow up in the houses, surrounded by books have totally different perception of reading. Invest in beautiful shelves instead!
I disagree with the advice to scan all photos. Unless you invest in some backup – an offsite AND onsite, it is not smart to scan and only have photos in one spot digitally!
Here is another fun spring cleaning read
The Princess Of Garbage Day
Http://www.elephantjournal.com/2011/03/the-princess-of-garbage-day/
Seriously? Get rid of your books? This person is not and intellectual and doesn’t love books for what they are. I could never replace mine with an electronic pad. Same goes for photos, in fact I wish they weren’t all on my computer.
This advice is just bad. Get rid of your books, music and sentimental photos? Ummm, no. That’s not clutter — that’s what you get rid of clutter to make more room for.
Author here – interesting view points on books. I consider myself a reader (2-3 books per month of fiction and nonfiction) and I went from a few hundred books down to six. We have a large city library just a few blocks from us that we visit once a week.
As for children’s books – my son has a good collection of age appropriate books. Once he is old enough to respect – not eat – library books, we will borrow more from the library.
I’m a minimalist mom so I love not having rows and rows of books to dust!
Great advice Rachel. External hard drives are the way of the future. If you are thinking ahead ten years, then you could almost guess that DVDs and CDs are going to be a waste.
I think books are touchy because some people collect books and create home libraries as a hobby. But for those of us that don’t have that as a top passion, it really isn’t necessary to keep all the books you read. There’s a stigma that you SHOULD have a library in the home. A home library is nothing if you don’t engage the reader. And you don’t have to have a home library to engage a young reader.
As an educator, I believe that reading is critical for children and adults. Have a collection of books in the house. But switch them out after your collection has gone stale. We keep about twenty books around. Five that we just appreciate as a resource. Fifteen that we are working through. And eight of those book are on loan.
What purpose are those books serving? Also remember that after something has been in one place 3 months, your eyes glaze right over it. So your children may not be intrigued by those books anyways.
And yes, minimalism isn’t for everyone. I know what I consider clutter, others consider treasures.
I also decluttered my home library and am an avid reader. We grew up reading books rather than watching television but most of those books were from the library. I find it sad to see people with bookcases crammed full of books that were likely only read once. What a waste. Donate them or sell them and let them be read again! I often think people like to keep them to show off what they’ve read like it is a resume of their literary accomplishments. Yes, they might be a conversation starter but at the end of the day it seems like a waste of paper that we all have our own copy of every book we’ve ever read.
I am in my 40s, and still own a lot of the books I received as a child. Now that I have a child, she is permitted to read *some* of them but in many cases I’ve acquired a second copy. Someone advising me to de-clutter by getting rid of books is like asking me to simplify my morning routine by saving time not drinking coffee or shaving my head so that I won’t have to wash my hair anymore. I’d rather die.
I re-read my books. It’s true there are some I’ve not yet read but I want them and don’t view them as excess baggage. MANY of my books, children’s titles in particular, are read on a nearly-yearly basis. Many of them are out of print and not easily replaced in any format.
I realize that some people feel that owning books is a frill but for some of us it is the exact opposite of that.
Townie: I’ve kept a few sentimental books – two my husband gave (one he proposed with), family copy of Brewster’s Phrase & Fable, an anthology of poetry from university. But I realized I just was dusting more than I was re-reading my book collection. I’ve embraced minimalism this last year (write about it at theminimalistmom.com) so I’ve pared down our possessions to just what we really use. I have a small box of momentos and have scanned a lot of documents to one day show my son.
Like Katy commented, I realized my book collection was really about a need to show people I read a lot rather than actually reading those books multiple times. Now if I want to reread something I just check it out of the library.
My son has a dozen books that his older cousins gave him from their childhood and I love reading them to my son. When they are no longer being used by our family I will offer them back to the cousins and if they don’t want them we will donate them to a family that will use them.
Books we currently own- 2 Bibles, 1 college study guide (me), 10 college books (hubby), 12-13 misc for my son of the classics he loves, all contained in a small cloth bin. Otherwise, it’s the library for us and I couldn’t be happier.
Pics- larger one’s are in an album,. waiting to be scanned. The rest are scanned and backed up. I just print off when I want to change out the photos on the wall.
Sentimental items- very few. I have a few things that I love and my son can have them some day, if he wants them. I guess my photos would be our memories since I take pics of everything. : )
I’m an avid reader, book lover, don’t own an e-reader, and I have also gotten rid of most of my books. I have one small shelf of a few that I keep b/c I love them, but it’s only a small sampling of books that I love. Basically I keep what I am still really wanting to read, and I give it away when I’ve read it. I use the library. I will probably get an ereader eventually.
I save my photos on a back up but I do put favorites monthly in a photo box. It does not take up much space and technology isn’t completely infallible. I do think it’s good to question the things we think are good to save though.
My breakthrough was stopping saving their art work. I save one now and again in a box for each kid, but most I just take a picture of and toss. I enjoy looking back at them, but the cost of keeping them around for years and years just wasn’t worth it to me.
To the first commenter- you don’t need to have tons of books in your house to foster a love of reading. My kids and I go to the library every week. We periodically buy a new or used book, and then donate it when we are done. My kids have a small bookshelf stocked up, but they do not need tons and tons. We read every.day, and get through a lot of books. They see me reading all the time. I really want to foster in them the freedom of not feeling like you need to KEEP anything that ever has meant anything or has entered your home. It’s a great feeling to not feel like you are not defined by what you own. I like my bookshelf better when it is less cluttered, easy to dust, and when I can readily see which books I really want to read next.
Do not get rid of camping gear if you think your kids will might get involved in Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts. If they do you will need all of that camping gear.
I am a bibliophile, and also an English teacher (aren’t those synonyms?), so I won’t be getting rid of my books any time soon. But then, I use mine over and over in my classroom and such. So, I would suggest that if you are ready to part with yours– donate them to your local public schools where many classroom teachers would love to make them a part of their collection to share with students
The ideas are great and to a certain degree I have done these things… However the thought of all my books and photos on a computer makes me sad. I have books around because they’re old friends and albums of photos are great. I dare anyone to pick up a favourite book and re-read all your favourite bits or flick albums of old photos without smiling…
Looking at them on the computer screen is just not the same thing!
I think that if you don’t use it or love it then why have it. I ruthlessly clean my kitchen cabinets, pantry and closets twice a year. If I don’t use or love it-out it goes. That said, I am by no means a minimalist. My home is filled with things that I love and have collected over my lifetime. I had a wall of built-in bookcases built to house my books and Asian artwork. My books and artwork bring me joy on a daily basis.
This list makes me sad. I would rather have my books more than anything else in my house. I love to read and I love to go to my personal library and be able to pull a book off the shelf about whatever I was thinking about and read it. I am a historian as well so I use books over and over again in research. The idea of getting rid of books is awful. I have a whole room of my house dedicated to books. It is my quiet, relaxing, peaceful room. I also don’t think I will be getting rid of my DVDs and Photos. I don’t buy many DVDs, but I do buy the ones I want to watch over and over. And getting rid of photos is an awful idea! As a genealogist (goes hand in hand with history) I foresee future generations with no photos of their past generations. I mean, really, how often do digital storage devices change and old ones become completely incompatible? Anyone want to try to pull their family photos off a 3 1/2 Floppy disc these days? No, and in a decade or two no one will even be able to run an external hard drive on their computer either.
Books are one of the passions of the intellectual. Books are able to take you out of your reality of your hum drum life at least for a little while. Life without books is a life without meaning.
It comes across that the author has no passions……….
I love my book collection, especially as my kids are in the learning to read stage. I like being surrounded by books. I have an e-reader (new, still getting used to it), but I haven’t found it to be as relaxing as reading a physical book. I also like that I can just browse my bookshelf and see a book catch my eye and sit down and read. I don’t have to download anything, charge anything. I also disagree with the CDs, I’ve had enough hard drive crashes that I need the physical copies of the CDs. I have had to re-upload them a few times. The DVDs…well…that just depends on how much you watch them. We use them mostly on car trips for the kids, but we do have them all in a CD holder book and the cases are in storage. That has actually made them more accessible for us. I keep all the old photos too. I have a uh…small…uh…scrapbooking addiction, and am getting around to making ones of previous generations’ photos while my grandmother is still alive. I love looking through old, physical, albums and I’d be sad if my kids don’t have that from their lives. But we’re pretty brutal with toys and clothes and if they (we) don’t play with it/wear it, OUT it goes.
And now you have a quiet, bare house.
If I give away all my mismatched dishes, I will have no dishes.
If I had listened to this and threw away my skinny jeans, I would have had to spend crazy money to replace everything I had! I lost 50lbs last year, and my old jeans are perfect – if even a little big! I say throw away your FAT clothes, and keep yourself motivated to fit into the skinny stuff!!!
And how many tears and dollars will be spent when the computer you have stored all your pictures, books, videos and music crashes because of age or a virus? A lot of these ideas are nice in theory, but a tactile experience is part of being human and I’ll just live with some of the clutter.
THX that’s a great anwesr!
Great ideas, but hard to do realistically. Getting rid of books? No thank you. I’m not a big fan of most technology, don’t want to read my books on a tiny screen. Get rid of pictures? Hah. No thank you. Those are memories. What if the drive you store the digital prints on suddenly dies and you no longer have your precious memories? I’ll stick to my cluttered house….
This has some interesting ideas, but sounds more like remodeling than Spring cleaning! I can’t upgrade myself one socio-economic level just because I wanna simplify…unrealistic!
What would be the point of donating books if everyone is going to use an iPad or Kindle? it seems useless, I’ll happily sit in our home that has 3 filled up bookshelves, knowing that all the books will be read by me, my husband, or daughter.
I love my books. I collect all kinds of self learning books, and old textbooks from elementary school to college level, because it is fun to read and look back on how far my mind has progressed over the years. To rid myself of books and put them on an unpredicatable hard-drive is too unrealistic. And with the cds and dvds, I love them too much to simplify them on a computer that can crash without warning and all would be lost. Photos, I will just learn to be creative with scrapbooking. Pictures are history, and become legacies. Technology is changing too fast to rely on scanning to protect something so sentimental. I will just learn to be more organized.
It’s says a lot about our society when so many comments refused to give up their books above all the other stuff referenced. Maybe suggesting that to reduce clutter, people do it marginally…donate 20% of the books, CDs, DVDs, and clothing. This will free some space and not leaving the donor feeling depleted. We all have 20% of the stuff we can probably do without.
http://www.mothersaffordablemaids.com/services/51
Hellooo, where’s my 20th thing to get rid of? Count ‘em there are 19.
That was a worthless article. Apparently Rachel doesn’t read or she would know that people buy books because they want to keep them. If we didn’t want to keep them we’d go to the library. I’m assuming that its the same for people who have a tv in each room. As far as DVDs and CDs go – just put them in one of those big CD/DVD cases that holds 100 or whatever you need. Those cases take up very little space. Other than that, who has the money to buy cars, furniture, and high-dollar electronics that they don’t need. Anyone who does has a maid and doesn’t deal with their own clutter directly anyway.