It's Time for Spring Cleaning

It seems the winter is finally starting to ebb away. Flowers are popping up, trees are budding.

Unfortunately, the melting snow also uncovers layers of grime and silt, both outside and inside your home. As you open windows and take the flannel sheets off the bed, other things start bothering you. Like piles of magazines still unread, clothes that need mending, holiday gifts that never got returned.

Now is a good time to take a few minutes each day and conquer some of those tasks. Even if you spend only fifteen minutes a day, you will see an improvement at the end of a month's time.

Here are some areas to address:

• As you swap out your clothes for the season, get rid of anything that doesn't fit or you didn't wear over the winter.
• Sort through the children's toys and get rid of one in every five.
• Look through your kitchen pantry or freezer and toss old food.
• Open a box in storage and see if the contents is still really important.
• Go through some photos and toss duplicates or poor images.
• File some paperwork, purging old papers as you go.
• Take ten books to your library for their annual sale.
• Throw away all the holiday catalogs you received in the mail.
• Erase old messages on your answering machine.
• Return anything that isn't yours to its proper owner.

Taking on little tasks instead of large jobs can be just as rewarding. Results are more immediate, which motivates you to do even more. You don't have to be completely organized overnight. Just clearing a little clutter at a time will go a long way to a calmer life.