Spring Cleaning Tips

We are doing some Spring cleaning at our house this weekend! It is just amazing how stuff accumulates throughout the year.

Organization guru Julie Morgenstern shared these 8 tips for spring cleaning in the April issue of Redbook. I hope they are as inspiring to you as they have been to me!

8 things you can toss without guilt-right now!
1. Kitchen items you haven't used in a year or longer. If you've never used your breadmaker or panini press, the odds you'll used it in the near future are pretty slim. Donate the bulky appliances and enjoy the extra space.
2. The entire contents of your junk drawer. There's a reason you call it that! Think you might hae some useful items stored there? Empty the whole drawer into a box, and any time you use an item, place it back in the drawer. At the end of the month, toss whatever's left in the box and rename the newly functional drawer.
3. Clothes that no longer fit. They make it more difficult to search your closet to find the things you do wear. If you truly believe they'll fit at some point in the near future, then box and store them until then.
4. School work from high school or college. The material is most likely outdated, and the chances you'll refer to it again are slim. Save your favorite papers in an archival box, but toss the notebooks, texts, and handouts.
5. Baby gear. Safety standards change so quickly that car seats and cribs are generally outdated just a few years after they're manufactured. Plus, they take up a lot of room. Keep only if you're already working on baby number two.
6. Random receipts. If you don't know what they're for, or if they're for basic items (groceries, toiletries, lunch) that you don't need to record for taxes or expenses, get rid of them.
7. Half-used bottles of shampoo, conditioner or makeup you only tried once. If you don't like the product enough to use it everyday, you won't like it in a few months' time.
8. Books you've never read, or books that you'll never re-read. Donate them and save space on your shelves for the books that speak to your soul.