Spring Forward into Organizing
It’s that time of year again, despite the weather reports of snow in places like LA and Seattle. Spring IS coming – and with it a whole slew of challenges for keeping your home organized. Here are five spring forward projects to tackle soon:
Rain, Mud, and Mess
Between the slush of melting snow and the rains of spring, mud is a real problem, especially in the entry way if you aren’t lucky enough to actually have a mud room attached to your home. One way to minimize clutter and the muddy entrance of your kids is to have a space right at the door for everyone to step out of their rain boots or mud encrusted tennis shoes. You can buy a shoe tray, or simply make one. Family Handyman has some great ideas for making your own shoe tray.
Sport and Activity Transition
It’s time to put away the snowshoes and skis and get out the spring sports equipment. Whether you have kids participating in school sponsored sports or just stay active as a family, keeping your sporting equipment organized makes everything a lot easier. This time of year, you may be getting a tax return, and investing your tax return in garage organization can make it much easier to keep sports equipment organized by season.
The Big Push to the End of the School Year
TeacherGoals shared a meme on Twitter that made us laugh.
It feels much the same to parents who are trying to get their kids through the end of the school year without imploding, losing their homework, or “misplacing” their band instrument. It’s a great time to refresh those back-to-school organizing tips and refresh them in your mind and in practice. Things like getting homework done right after school, laying out clothes the night before, and packing lunches either the night before or for the week can really make a difference and help you survive until summer break. Keeping a calendar of upcoming events and important dates – choir concerts, games, testing, college visits – all of this can be easier to keep track of with a family calendar or whiteboard.
Pre-Garden Prep
As we spring forward into organizing, the garden is a great project to start thinking about. It’s too early to mow – in fact, the No Mow May movement is trying to get people in most climate areas to avoid mowing until after Memorial Day to help protect bees and other pollinators. But that doesn’t mean you can’t start seedlings in your house for your garden, organize your lawn tools and make a list of any you need to replace, and take a close look at your property to see if you need to make any repairs before the garden is planted. Houzz recommends adding these steps to your spring organizing:
Toss out worn-out gloves and long-expired seed packets and recycle empty packaging.
Use wall-mounted grips to store long-handled tools, and stash short-handled gardening tools point-down in a bucket of sand.
Tools should be stored out of the elements, so if you don’t have a garage or storage shed, consider investing in a small outdoor storage cabinet where you can keep these items safely protected.
Declutter Your Bathroom
Decluttering your bathroom is something you need to do with every season change. It’s one of the rooms that becomes cluttered and disorganized often, especially if there is more than one person sharing the space. Most of the clutter in bathroom drawers comes from buying cool looking makeup and products that you end up not liking. And there they stay, right? But if you organize and declutter your bathroom frequently, you can get rid of these products before they expire – which means you may be able to donate them to local shelters. Not only does it make it easier for you to find the stuff you do love to use, making it easier to get ready in the mornings, but you can help someone else out too.
This time of year gets really hectic. Not only is winter winding up and spring beginning, but we have Easter and spring break and summer vacation planning all starting to add to the to-do list. And most of the country will spring forward in two weeks. Planning your spring organizing now can help you be ready to spring forward into organizing can definitely help you have a less stressful spring.