5 Things to Spring Clean This Season Besides Your Home

With warmer temps, budding flowers, and brighter skies on the horizon, there's no better time than spring to hit the refresh button. While your spring cleaning checklist likely includes dusting the curtains and bookshelves, de-staining mattresses, and disinfecting every surface in your home, why not expand your spring cleaning efforts beyond carpet stains and oven door grime?

Now's the time to declutter, simplify, and wipe clean other aspects of your life that may have fallen by the wayside over the last few months (or years). Here are some fabulously helpful ways to spring clean everything from your routine to your relationships, so you can start off the season with a blank slate and healthy headspace.

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Your schedule

Look for commitments in your schedule that fill you with dread—those things you've been doing the same way for years, like a weekly staff meeting—and create new, less time-consuming ways to handle them. Try walking-and-talking meetings. Instead of sitting face-to-face, you can circle the block, which sets a natural time limit. You'll also be moving and in the sun, and discussing hard things can seem easier. It works with kids and family too! Revamping how we fulfill our responsibilities can make them less onerous, and it carves out more time to do things we want to do.

Sam Horn is the CEO of the Intrigue Agency and author of Someday Is Not a Day in the Week ($16; amazon.com).

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Your wellness routine

Whatever you're doing, ask how it affects your body, mind (in terms of mental health and interest level), and heart (in terms of passion). If it doesn't serve at least two of these elements, let it go. I live where the London Marathon begins, and every year I'd get running fever—all I'd talk about with my peers was times, routes, and how great running was. But I realized running was causing shin splints and backaches, and my heart would sink when it was time to go. Yoga, on the other hand, always energizes me, supports my mental health, and gives me joy. So I hung up my sneakers! Every mind, body, and heart is different. Only you can decide what to make space for.

Ali Roff Farrar is a yoga instructor and the author of The Wellfulness Project: A Manual for Mindful Living ($25; amazon.com).

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