If there’s anything as reliable as the changing of the seasons, it’s the cultural messaging that comes with it. Winter turns to spring, and suddenly, every algorithm, brand and well-meaning friend seems aligned on one idea: It’s time to get your life (or at least your junk drawer) in order.
Depending on how you feel about cleaning and decluttering in the first place, you may embrace the invitation to reset — or get overwhelmed before you even begin. Either way, most people can agree how calming a freshly organized home feels. And as it turns out, there are some legitimate reasons tidying up your environment can make you feel like everything else in your life is in order, too.
We asked mental health experts to explain the psychology of spring cleaning and share their best tips for navigating the process in a way that feels more manageable and satisfying.
Why spring cleaning feels so refreshing
When it comes to the benefits of spring cleaning, we’re typically talking about how it feels after the task is done and you have a fresh, decluttered space. That’s because most of the research focuses on the negative impacts of mess.
Psychologist and professor Joseph Ferrari, who has co-authored several studies on decluttering, said that an overabundance of possessions can chip away at your quality of life in a few ways, including by impacting the livability of your space, your relationships and your finances. (Just think of the last time you didn’t invite someone over because of the mess or got frustrated searching for the utensil you needed while cooking.)
This can be distressing and ultimately affect your mental well-being, Ferrari said. His 2016 survey on the subject found that the more clutter people have, the lower life satisfaction they report. Simply put, “they’re less happy,” he said. Another study found that women who described their homes as cluttered were more likely to feel depressed and stressed than those who didn’t.
On the other hand, Ferrari’s 2022 study on the emotions and motives related to decluttering found that participants experienced more positive emotions after they finished the deed — even if they had a negative attitude about the chore itself.
While you can benefit from tidying your living space any time of the year, you may feel extra motivated to do so right now. The start of spring — often regarded as a time of renewal and rebirth, Ferrari noted — is what some researchers call a temporal landmark, or a significant date that stands out from everyday life, similarly to New Year’s Day or your birthday. These events can trigger a so-called fresh start effect that makes you more likely to engage in aspirational behaviors. One study on the effect found that it can help us overcome procrastination, nudging you to start tasks sooner and finish more quickly.
Sarah Butler, a psychology professor and a member of the Institute for Challenging Disorganization research advisory council, described it as a mental heuristic, or shortcut, for chores that are on a long-term to-do list but “don’t cause enough friction to move them to the top of the priority list,” she explained. Think: sweeping under the furniture, donating clothes you don’t wear anymore or organizing your book collection. “Instead of having to decide when in your busy life is the right time to do those things, spring cleaning gives us a way to get from, ‘I’ll get to it eventually’ to ‘Okay, now it’s time.’”
When spring cleaning is intimidating
Not everyone feels motivated by this promise of a fresh start. “It can be very cognitively overwhelming,” Butler said of a massive spring clean. In addition to feeling strapped for the time or resources to dedicate to an all-consuming cleaning task, Butler said that a few psychological biases can make it surprisingly difficult to let go of things.
One of the biggest is loss aversion — the tendency to feel the pain of losing something (the belongings you’re discarding or donating) more strongly than the pleasure of gaining something new (a clean space) — along with the endowment effect, which leads us to assign more value to things simply because we own them. On top of that, the sunk cost fallacy, or the urge to hold onto something because you’ve already invested money or time into it, can further complicate things.
Taken together, these biases can make decluttering feel like loaded decisions. The good news: Even being aware of these challenges can help you push through some of the emotional clutter to get to the real chore at hand, Butler said.
4 tips to make spring cleaning work for you
First, ditch your preconceived notions of what spring cleaning entails. “We receive all sorts of messages about the right ways to do housecleaning,” Butler said. Polished before-and-after transformations on TV and social media make it easy to feel like anything less than a dramatic overhaul doesn’t count as true spring cleaning.
Similarly, don’t rely too heavily on any trendy cleaning methods unless you already know what works for you. While popular systems like the Marie Kondo method or Swedish death cleaning can be helpful starting points, they’re not one-size-fits-all. “For some people they work, and for some people they don’t,” Butler said. “And if they don’t, you might get frustrated and throw in the towel.”
With those caveats in mind, try these expert-recommended tips.
Start with one small task
If spring cleaning feels overwhelming, it may be because you’re aiming too big, too fast. Butler said people often approach it as one massive, all-or-nothing task. In reality, it’s “a lot of little tasks” and “a lot of individual choices.” Her advice: Start with something small and specific, ideally a spot that consistently annoys you. “Is there a drawer that every time you open it, you have to shove stuff back in to get it closed?” she said. “Maybe just make that drawer close.”
Focusing on a single, manageable fix can provide a quick sense of accomplishment and help you build momentum and confidence to continue, both experts pointed out.
Take a break after each to-do
Even if you want to take on larger projects to really achieve that Big Clean, dividing it up into distinct tasks and taking real breaks in between them can make a meaningful difference. Research suggests that when you take a pause after fully completing one task and before starting the next, rather than in the middle of one long, unfinished project, you’re more likely to return with focus and momentum.
In practice, that can look like tackling one defined area (say, a single cabinet), stepping away, and then starting fresh on the next cabinet, rather than pushing through the whole kitchen until you burn out.
Document along the way
Taking before-and-after photos as you go can help you really see your progress and celebrate small wins, Butler said. “Our brains are not cameras,” she said, pointing to a concept called change blindness, which makes it harder to notice gradual visual improvements in real time.
This can help keep you motivated: Rather than waiting for a dramatic final reveal, tracking progress task by task — like a single shelf or a dusty baseboard — creates built-in moments of satisfaction along the way. “Even if everything else still feels chaotic, you can look at that picture and see what you accomplished in only five or 10 minutes,” she said.
Make it a social event
Enlisting a friend to help you clean can up your chances of actually following through. “Just having other people around can help you push through when you’re feeling like, ‘I’m too tired, I don’t want to keep going,’” Butler said. A friend doesn’t even need to do the work for you, she noted; just being there can make it more fun and keep you out of your own head.
They can also lend a hand in making decisions about what stays and what goes. Ferrari said research in consumer psychology shows we’re less likely to part with things once we physically handle them, so having a friend hold items up and ask, “Do you really need this?” can create just enough distance to make letting go easier.
The post Why spring cleaning is good for you — and how to make it less stressful appeared first on Washington Post.
