spring clean Archives - Megan Taylor

Spring cleaning is wonderful, in the aftermath anyway. I have a lot of decluttering to do at the moment, all will be revealed very soon as to why. Do you ever find that once you start clearing that you wish you had never started. Well here are my five top tips to declutter successfully.

1. ONE AREA AT A TIME

Don’t expect to declutter the whole of your house in one day, or even in one weekend. Decide on the areas that most need doing and/or you are most excited about doing. If you have too much to do then you are going to get overwhelmed and likely get nothing done.

2. MORE MESS TO GET LESS MESS

The honest realisation that we all need to come to terms with is that you have to create a s**t storm to create bliss. The best way to tackle an area like a drawer or a wardrobe is to tip all of the contents onto the floor and organise in an open space. You can then really see everything that you have been storing away and easily organise items into piles.

3. THE RIGHT FRAME OF MIND

It is incredibly important that you are in the right frame of mind to do a clearcut. Feeling sentimental, don’t do it. Feeling poorly, don’t do it. Feeling sleepy, don’t do it. You need to feel refreshed, excited and ready to clear out your life. As soon as you start feeling a little sentimental or start getting distracted by every item you come across, either stop, take a break or move onto a different area.

(A little glimpse into the cheesy books I own. The books on the top left actually have me on the spine and cover!)

4. WHERE TO SEND YOUR UNWANTED ITEMS

We are all far more aware of sustainability at the moment which is incredible so rather than just chucking your unwanted goods into the bin, make sure you create different piles for different homes. I like to create a recycling pile for absolute tat that I know couldn’t be used again. A friends and family pile for those items I know someone would like. Then I have a charity pile for goods that could be sold in a charity shop. Another pile that I used to create was an eBay selling pile but this pile lived in my home for 6 years without budging so I just include this in my charity pile instead. I would love to make a little extra cash but realistically I have other things I want to do with my time instead.

Also, you don’t want to have these bags lying around causing you annoyance for evermore, or like me having bags of “charity goods” living in the garage…ugh, so irritating. So, make sure you tell yourself that they are rehired within a week tops to avoid stress and mess.

5. MUSIC IS THE POWER

Music really is the power when it comes to decluttering. Have an epic power list full of music that inspires you, you can sing along to and you feel fab listening to. Pop music, rock music, running playlists and show tunes are always great to declutter to in my opinion.

(When you finish your clearing, make sure you fill your house with fresh flowers and plants.)

How are your skills when it comes to decluttering or Spring cleaning? Have you got anymore tips to share? Below is a little truthful image of what my desk looks like at this very minute as I finish up this post…

If you have been following me on Instagram and You Tube you may well know Liam and I are in the process of “trying” to sell our house. We live in a large maisonette but are desperate for our own space and to have a house. This has been a huge learning curve, there is so much to learn…but more on that in a future blog post. I am going to give you the 411 on how to buy a house. Yet, for now, we have just got to the stage of having photos of our place taken. This involved a full day of decluttering, tidying, cleaning and oh boy did it take a long time. It was worth it though and I am here to tell you why you too need to spring clean right now.

CLEAR YOUR AIRWAYS

Once you start to declutter and move old boxes or look under the bed you will most likely be inundated with dust. I don’t mix well with dust, it makes me sneeze and itch for hours after so I have to be careful. We have a cleaner and still have dust in places that she can’t seem to find. It is good to keep on top of this for your cleanliness and general healthy wellbeing. I am a bit of a delicate soul and was finding that I was getting a bit sensitive in my nasal area when going to bed, so we pulled it away from the wall and found a super thick dust layer along the skirting board…we are clean people I promise 😉 Even in our bathroom we found dust on our top shelves pilling up on beauty products which I am still planning on testing. Everything feels so much fresher now and I am aiming to not leave anything unattended for so long next time.

FIND LONG LOST GOODIES

One of the many wonderful things about Spring cleaning anytime of the year is finding long lost goodies. Last weekend I found a lot of jewellery behind my chest of drawers and beauty products lost behind taller bottles. It was like everything was new all over again. Recently we even recovered my Santa Clause the movie DVD in an old DVD player that we were going to throw away…thank goodness that wasn’t thrown away (it’s one of my faves ssh).

SPARK YOUR CREATIVITY

I’m not sure about you but whenever I have had a clear up/decluttering session my creativity blossoms. I think it is because of two reasons, the first being that my working space is so much tidier and there’s less to distract me. Secondly, when I am tidying I come across things that trigger memories or inspire me in some way or another.

DECLUTTER

Especially as a blogger I store and hoard a whole lot of stuff. I can’t physically use it all, so after a trial period I should really decide whether or not to keep it but I have a serious case of attachment issues and struggle to let go. Therefore I often keep most of it for myself hehe. Over the weekend we had to have a big clear out before our estate agent house photos and this meant I really had to declutter. I found old products which I adored and products which I was never going to use so I made piles of giveaway/charity/keep and my shelves are now thanking me for it. You can see everything and therefore I am more likely to use them. Go ahead and declutter to actually make use of what you own.

LOVE LIFE

I remember reading some Cosmopolitan supplement about Feng Shui way back when I was a teenager which really stuck in my head. Apparently you need to have a clear under bed to attract a good love life. So, if you’re single, maybe you need to clear out the clutter from under your bed? Hmm… maybe a bit of a peculiar and suspicious one but worth a try 😉

Have you began to Spring clean? Does it make you feel better?