Exam after exam, the only thing you could see in your room was your desk. Despite stacks of papers piled over each other and pencils scattered across the entire desk, you still had space to study. That wouldn't be much of a problem, right?
But your peripheral vision suddenly disappeared, and the only objects you had in your mind were your desk, chair, laptop, and a heap of worksheets you had to complete by the end of the week.
However, when spring break comes and you take a look around…your room is a mess. You now see the dust on the top of your bedside table and the bookshelves, clothes shoved into the corner to make the entirety of the room seem cleaner, and trash overflowing with finished post-it notes and scratch paper. While you do realize you have to get on top of that elusive spring cleaning, it can seem daunting to get started on such a heavily procrastinated task.
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Spring break is one of those breaks that just seem to heal students before the difficult exams and workload that get piled onto them until the end of the school year. Many schools normally range this break from one to two weeks, allowing a student to heal, rest, and catch up on any missing or behind work. Basically, it’s the free fall that students are awarded after climbing up a tall hill.
Not only is spring break a valuable time to declutter areas; the transition from winter to spring tends to spark a need for “new season, new me!” Many students begin to replace their winter clothes with spring clothes, pack up the winter decorations and instead hang up artificial plants, and change the overall vibes their rooms may display.
While you're at it, why not look through your closet for items from elementary school or the inessential hair bows from middle school?
There are many ways to declutter, or practice “spring cleaning.”
Although teens often dislike cleaning and would rather sit on the couch playing games or watching TV, as we grow older, cleaning messes and organizing spaces provide peace and calmness to our daily lives.
On social media, many content creators upload videos named, “Weekend Reset” or “Sunday Reset” or a video of some sort that displays cleaning up messes and readjusting their schedules. In these videos, the creators get vacuum cleaners, anything that is used to clean spaces- and turn it into an ASMR cleaning session. Starting a new week or month with a clean space can help relieve and prevent any unnecessary stress created around you.
It may be hard to get inspiration on where to start, so this article is for you!
As a student, backpacks are normally clustered with binders, folders, notebooks, and miscellaneous papers that spawned out of nowhere. Although starting with a backpack may not affect spring cleaning, upstanding a binder and starting with removing unnecessary items can be the start of walking with a lighter back.
Remove old papers. Remove books that just add unnecessary weight- most of the time, you won’t even have time to read a book during a school day. Remove all your old notes and keep them at home.
Anything that won’t be used in everyday life is better kept at home, where it's safer and provides you with mental and physical comfort.
Everyone has different priorities, and personally, mine is not sitting down on the floor and putting away all my clothes one by one on a Monday night. By the end of the week, piles of clothes sit on my floor, patiently waiting to be put away.
That being said, clean out your closet while you're at it! Regardless of having heaps of clothes, many teens state that they don’t have any outfits to wear- because they can’t find anything! As a student, I tend to wear the same fits every week because I’m too lazy to go sifting through my closet.
Remove old dresses and clothes that you won’t ever wear again. If you forget that a piece of clothing existed, it likely wasn’t memorable enough to make a statement with you. Don’t remember it?
Get rid of it. It’ll create space in your closet for different clothes that you may not have space for, or newer clothes that you’ve been longing to get.
Once your head turns left to right, scanning your closet, you’ll understand that there really is a lot to clean out and it will be time-consuming. But the work eventually has to take place, so spring break might just be the perfect time to do so.
A room, or the house, may seem very clean at first sight, but a completely clean and organized home is rare. Numerous individuals have a habit of shoving items into random cabinets and drawers- out of sight, out of mind, right?
Without an incentive, beginning the cleaning and decluttering process is difficult- but it's the results that we’re coveting. After finishing the cleaning process, it’s a proud and relaxing feeling that begins to sprout.
Getting up and pulling yourself together to really look at the smaller bunches of messes on the floor, or having to notice the small inches of dust on your dresser may be frustrating, but it's the aftermind of everything that allows you to keep your peace and have a cleaner working environment.
