17 Genius Spring Cleaning Tips That’ll Seriously Upgrade Your Cleaning Game

Want to learn how to clean more effectively? Here are the 17 best spring cleaning tips that will make your home feel brand new (without loosing your mind).

Since it’s almost time for spring cleaning, I thought I would share some of the most helpful spring cleaning tips to help you tackle your home and keep your sanity in the process.

Even though the finished product of having a spotless home is a great incentive to keep going, the whole process can be a bit much when you’re in the thick of it.

But with these genius cleaning tips at your disposal, you will be much better equipped to dive into spring cleaning this year.

We’re going to cover everything from where to start to how to build a manageable system that will make the cleaning days feel like a breeze!

So whether you’ve never done a true spring cleaning before and need as much guidance as possible, or you’re pretty familiar with this territory and you’re just here to pick up some helpful tidbits to make your life easier – you’re in the right place!

Once you start applying these tips to your cleaning process, the whole thing will go a lot smoother. It’s always easier when you’re going into something like this with a strategy.

This post is all about the best spring cleaning tips that’ll instantly make your home look cleaner.

Best Spring Cleaning Tips:

1. Start With a Simple Game Plan

 This is one of the most important, if not the most important thing you can do to set yourself up for success!

Even if you’re someone who likes to fly by the seat of your pants, you’re going to want a game plan going into spring cleaning.

And more important than creating a super intensive game plan, is being realistic with your timeline.

A lot of people think this is a no-brainer, but if you’re not realistic and don’t give yourself enough time to complete your spring cleaning checklist, it’s easier to burn out and give up on the entire process (and we definitely don’t want that!).

Here are a couple of options you may want to consider:

• 30-day challenge (1–2 tasks per day)
• 7-day power clean
• Weekend-by-weekend approach

My biggest tip with this would be to pick your daily non-negotiable. It doesn’t have to be an entire room, but choose a section of your home that you’re going to tackle that day – and don’t let yourself get out of it!

Be intentional not only about what you’re tackling, but when you’re tackling it. If you carve out 30-60 minutes just for that one task, you won’t have to worry about squeezing your cleaning in at the last minute or “not having enough time.”

2. Use Time Blocking

I highly recommend using time blocking as you clean! For one, it will make sure you’re not spending too much time on one task (we’ve all been guilty of this), and it kind of turns cleaning into a game.

Give yourself a realistic amount of time to complete your task. Worst comes to worst, you can always reset the timer or extend it a little bit if you didn’t have quite enough time to finish your task (this will help remove the pressure).

But try as best you can to see how much you can get done in one 30 or 45 minute round. You would be surprised how efficiently you work when you’re trying to beat the clock!

3. Declutter Before Deep Cleaning

Before you even think about picking up your cleaning spray and paper towels, you’re going to want to declutter. I kid you not, people would save so much time and energy if they would take the extra time to remove the clutter instead of trying to work around it.

Start by making your different piles:

• Trash
• Donate
• Relocate
• Clean

I always find it helpful to use the “touch it once” rule when decluttering. Once you pick up an item, decide immediately whether you’re going to trash it, donate it, relocate it, or clean it and keep it. No need to overcomplicate things or waste too much time on any one item.

4. Declutter, Clean, Then Organize

This will be your holy grail order when it comes to any type of home reset.

1. Decluttering always comes first. Get all of those items out of the way that no longer serve a purpose. They’re only taking up unnecessary space.
2. Then comes the cleaning. Once you’ve decluttered, go in with your spray and microfibre cloth. It should be a lot easier to clean with less items in the way.
3. Lastly, we organize! Organizing is so satisfying, because that’s when it really all comes together. A lot of the time, it doesn’t feel like you’ve made a ton of progress until you organize. It’s like the cherry on top.

These three go hand in hand – they’re your recipe to a spotless home!

5. Keep Supplies Portable

I highly, highly recommend creating some sort of bin or caddy with some basic cleaning supplies in it. This will keep you from having to go back and forth between rooms to transport all of your cleaning supplies.

Here are some ideas of what to include in your cleaning caddy:

• All-purpose cleaner
• Microfibre cloths
• Disinfecting wipes
• Scrub brush
• Glass cleaner

Just another way to save time, energy, and your sanity. 🙂

6. Make it Enjoyable

I know this is easier said than done. And cleaning is just one of those things that is going to be more enjoyable for certain people. But there are definitely some things you can do to make the time go by faster (and just make it less boring).

Here are some of my favorite ways to keep it interesting:

• Put on music, a podcast, or an audiobook (definitely my fav)
• Light a candle
• Put on comfy clothes
• Open the windows

Cleaning also becomes more fun and satisfying once you see the progress you’re making. Progress is a great motivator to keep going (and a good reminder of why you put yourself through this in the first place haha)!

7. Finish Rooms Fully

I cannot stress this enough – do not leave rooms half done! I know it might seem tempting to change up the scenery and switch to a different room or area of the house when you’re bored, but before you know it, you’re going to have a bunch of rooms that are only half cleaned.

And it actually makes it a lot harder when you realize you haven’t actually completed any one room because you’ve just been bouncing around.

I know it stinks to hear, but sometimes you just have to hunker down and finish the job one task at a time.

8. Go From Top to Bottom

This might just be the #1 rule when it comes to cleaning.

If you go from bottom to top, you’re basically erasing a lot of your progress. But if you start at the highest point (whether that’s the top shelf, the ceiling fan, etc.) and work your way down, you don’t have to worry about any dust getting on places you’ve already covered.

This means cleaning your floors last. That way you’re picking up any dirt that may have fell on the floor from cleaning your surfaces with your vacuum or mop.

9. Build In Reset Days

If you go for 30 days straight, you might just lose your mind. Just like with anything else – work, going to the gym, etc. – building in rest days will give you the chance to take a breather and not feel consumed by the whole cleaning process.

Reset days are also a great chance to empty donation bins, take out the trash, put away relocation items, and just get rid of some of the clutter.

10. Use the “While You’re At It” Rule

While you’re in one room, grab any obvious trash, collect stray dishes, and return items to your home. It’s worth the extra couple of seconds it takes you.

Even though it might seem tempting, the “I’ll come back later approach” has a much lower success rate. And you’re much more likely to forget about it when it’s not right in front of your face. You know what they say, out of sight, out of mind!

11. Schedule High-Energy Tasks Strategically

The last thing you want to do is leave your high-energy tasks for when you don’t have the capacity to complete them. People work better at different times of the day, so use that to your advantage.

After your morning coffee, when you’re feeling energized and ready to take on the day, start with that task that you know will take the most out of you.

Spring cleaning will take a lot less out of you if you’re smart about when you schedule your tasks.

12. Track Progress Visually

There is something about looking at a good before and after that will instantly give you the motivation and satisfaction you need to keep going.

And a lot of times, even if we think we’ve done a good job of capturing the image in our head, we don’t realize how big of a difference there is until we are looking at two photos back to back.

There is something about it that just feels so rewarding when you can really pinpoint the differences.

13. Avoid Perfectionism

Progress over perfection every time! I know some of my Type-A gals are rolling their eyes right now, but it’s true. Instead of making yourself crazy over the tiny details, aim for making your space a little bit cleaner, a little less cluttered, and a little more organized.

At the end of the day, clean is better than perfect and done is better than delayed. You can always go back after finishing your initial spring cleaning checklist and focus on the smaller details.

14. Create a “Maintenance Lite” Plan

Every once in a while, your home or apartment could use a good deep clean – and that’s what spring cleaning is for.

But in order to keep your progress, you’re going to want to create a maintenance plan that will keep you on track for a clean and tidy home year round.

This could look something like:

• 10-minute nightly reset
• Weekly mini-clean
• Monthly declutter sweep

Just make sure whatever you choose, is something that will work for your lifestyle. Otherwise, you’re risking all of the hard work you just put into spring cleaning.

You can head on over to the FREE Printables Library to find resources like the 30 day declutter challenge and the weekly cleaning checklist to help you maintain a tidy home or apartment.

15. Focus on High-Impact Areas First

High impact areas are those spaces that receive the most traffic flow, and therefore tend to gather a lot more dirt and grime than the rest of the house.

Starting your spring cleaning with these areas will give you the biggest relief. Because suddenly everywhere else in your home doesn’t seem so messy or dirty.

Here is a list of high-impact areas in your home:

• Kitchen
• Bathrooms
• Entryway
• Living room

This list might vary a little depending on where you and your family spend most of your time. But I know for me, my kitchen is always the number one place that receives the most attention (and crumbs with it haha).

16. Reward Yourself

Sometimes, you just need that carrot at the end of the stick to keep yourself going. It’s easy to have motivation in the beginning, but it can get tough when you’ve been at it for a while.

So you got to do what you got to do. If there is a day where you are really struggling to get yourself going and cleaning is quite literally the last thing you feel like doing, give yourself an incentive at the end to finish your tasks.

Here are a couple of ideas to get your excited:

• Favorite drink
• Takeout night
• Sweet treat
• New candle
• Relaxing bath
• Guilt-free rest

You can also keep yourself going by putting a reward at the end of your spring cleaning. Like once you finish everything on your list, your reward is that throw blanket or home decor piece that you’ve been eyeing.

17. Optional Daily Formula

If you’re a routine girl through and through, creating a little formula for yourself to follow will help keep you consistent.

Maybe it looks something a little like this:

1. 5 min tidy (morning)
2. 20 min checklist task (after work)
3. 5 min reset (before bed)

Total: 30 minutes

But no matter how you choose to customize it, there is something about a good routine that just gets you in the zone. And instead of thinking about it too much, it just becomes a habit. This is especially true if you repeat the habit at certain times of the day.

This post was all about the best spring cleaning tips that’ll instantly make your home look cleaner.

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