Spring is nearly here and it is the perfect time to give your life a spring clean. The official start of spring is Thursday 20th March. Spring is a season of rebirth and new beginnings. In nature, animals emerge from hibernation, plants regrow and flowers bloom. The days are longer and brighter, which makes most people happier.
It is a fresh start.
Spring cleaning is often associated with cleaning your home, reorganising items and throwing open the windows to get rid of the stale air and let the fresh air in. People typically put aside a day to do this and by the end, they may be tired but I have never met anyone who has regretted it. It is like hitting a reset button and starting again with a nice and tidy home.
Wouldn’t it be amazing if you could do this for your ever-growing to-do list?
Well, you can!
The Truth About Tasks and Falling Behind
We all have good intentions. We make goals, make a to-do list and as the days and weeks pass, the list grows longer and longer. More things crop up that get added to the list. You push back tasks to the next day because you’re tired and can’t face doing it today. You get sick and all those tasks get reassigned to when you’re feeling better. A missed day is bad enough but what if you are sick all week?
The list grows and grows until you realise the backlog is out of control and you can’t bear looking at the list, never mind tackling it. This is when you need to accept that things have gotten unmanageable and it is time to work towards a fresh start.
Whether you have a task list that is only slightly out of hand, or if your list causes you to spiral into a pit of despair, this article is for you. I am going to go through step by step on how to give your life a fresh start, a spring clean. By the end you will have cleared through the backlog and be ready to start spring feeling lighter and ready to get on with life.
Step 1: Put Together Your To-Do List
You will all have different methods of recording your tasks, some of you will have lists in notebooks, others may have lots of post it notes with half completed tasks on, whilst those who prefer electronic methods may have a giant list a mile long on an app or website.
Whichever system you use, to get a fresh start you must make sure all the tasks you want completed are now in one place. If this means typing in a few tasks from a post it note to an app, do so.
Step 2: Purge Your To-Do-List
Spring Cleaning involves wiping away the dust and that’s exactly what you are going to do with your to-do list. Look through your list and delete any tasks that are now irrelevant. It is amazing how some things, which initially you had thought of as being important, were not. And as time passes, it is easier for you to recognise this.
There’s no shame in this, just delete the tasks.
Step 3: Categorise Your Tasks
Look at your remaining tasks. Can you see tasks you have been putting off because you are not looking forward to doing them? Do you see tasks that have no real deadline and so they have sat on your to-do list for months? Are there tasks that you had completely forgot about, but do need doing? If you answered yes to any of these, then that is a sign you need to do a spring clean of your tasks.
Please note: Your to-do list may contain items that are to be completed on a certain day in the future, e.g. post Sarah’s birthday card. If her birthday is in 3 weeks’ time, there is no point in posting it too early. When completing Step 3, do not include tasks you have scheduled for future days.
Divide the tasks into categories and there are different ways to do this. I have found the most effective method is to divide by area type.
But what does this mean?
Divide By Area Type
This means splitting the tasks by where you will be when you are doing them. See the diagram below.
Can you see how I have grouped together all the tasks I need to do on my laptop? This means that I will sit down and work my way through the orange tasks in one go. I start up my laptop once, log in and that is it. I am not logging in, doing a task, then shutting down my laptop, going to the kitchen to wash the pots and then coming back to log in to my laptop again. It is a waste of time and adds friction to getting things done.
It is the same with any task which involves driving somewhere, take everything you need with you and get it done in one big journey.
Step 4: Choose Your Day for Spring Cleaning
Pick a day. Any day as long as you have a full clear day. You do not want to be worrying in case you have plans later on and you run over by 30 minutes. This day is all about you preparing for a fresh start in spring. Clearing away the cobwebs, the old tasks that have sat there for ages undone.
Step 5: Time Block Your Spring Clean
Know you know what day it is, you can begin to plan the timings of the day. Why is it important to know which day it is? Because you may have to fit school runs into your schedule or it may be a Sunday and the shops you need to go to are only open for a short period of time.
So, look at your tasks. Some of them may be better completed at certain times of day. For example, the tasks that involve driving need to be done during typical shop/tip opening hours. For time efficiency, I would do these tasks in the morning when shops are usually less busy.
I would do the tasks on the laptop first because they require more thought. I don’t know about everyone else but once I am physically tired, my brain is usually pretty tired as well. Completing the task in the morning would be a lot quicker for me, before I’ve tackled anything else.
You can keep your time blocking simple, but make sure you have it written down, like any of these:
Step 5: Prepare Ahead of Time
Look at the tasks I have to do. Is there anything that could be done the day before, to ensure I am truly efficient on my spring cleaning day?
Ideas:
- Asked my mum beforehand if there’s a particular book she’d like or a book by a particular author
- Charity bags and tip bags loaded into the car the night before
- Make sure I have bin bags ready for clearing out the kitchen cupboard and sink
- Know which cash ISA account you want
- Portable speaker charged and ready to play music when I clean the house
- Have food in the house for lunch and dinner
You also need to prepare yourself. Make sure you get a good night’s sleep and you have a written or printed schedule ready at hand. You don’t have to have a physical copy but if you keep having to check your phone for the next task, it’s much easier to ‘quickly check’ social media. Before you know it, you’ve lost half an hour to mindless scrolling. Keep your phone away and non-essential notifications turned off.
Common Questions for a Spring Clean
What if I have so many tasks to do that it’ll take more than one day?
No problem. If you can, plan everything across two days. If they are consecutive days, make sure you plan in time to relax, otherwise you may run out of energy on day 2.
I always have something going on in my day. Does it have to be a full clear day?
No, that is just the ideal scenario. Try to aim for a day which has at least two thirds free e.g. morning and afternoon, or morning and evening. As long as you plan accordingly, you can still clear a lot of your tasks.
What if one of my tasks takes more than one day?
That’s fine. Break the task down into simple steps and schedule those steps wherever you can. E.g. you may be able to do steps 1 and 2 the day before the spring clean and do the final step, step 3, on the day.
Final Thoughts For A Spring Clean
Clearing away your older tasks, ready for a fresh start, is what this spring cleaning day is all about. It gives you the opportunity to focus your time and energy on other goals you may have. It will also make you feel lighter, less weighed down by the thought of all those undone tasks.
Recap:
- Put together your to-do list
- Purge your to-do list
- Categorise your tasks
- Choose your day
- Prepare ahead of time
So have a think about whether this process is right for you and make a start today!
