4 Guiding Principles for this Year’s Spring Clean

A few weeks ago, we at 1-800 Ridofit brought you our Guide to Cleaning Before you Clean, a pre-spring cleaning primer to help you prepare your head and your home for the big job to come. Here we are now just a few days after the official first day of spring enjoying some of the nicest weather we’ve seen all year and it seems only fitting to follow up that blog with a full-blown spring cleaning post, so here are Ridofit’s 4 guiding principles for this year’s spring clean.

Plan in advance

This is without a doubt the most important part of any smooth spring clean. As you’re well aware, spring cleaning is an ordeal. It’s a lot of work- and I do mean a lot of work- so don’t use half-measures, get a plan in place before you pick up a broom, grab a garbage bag or get going on your cleaning in any capacity. Start off with a list. Write down everything you want to accomplish and the time you hope it will take. Not only will this help you structure your work but it will also help you to be more productive- every time you check something new off of the list it will feel like you’re getting more work done and you’ll be more motivated to get even more of it done.

Find a Partner

We’ve talked about this in previous posts but it really is one of the best ways to get more done in less time so it bears repeating. Particularly with a comprehensive cleaning job like a full spring clean, getting your partner, friends, family or roommates is a great idea. If you have to, offer them something small as a reward- a home cooked meal, a box of beer- something like that. But however you convince them to help out, an extra pair of hands will lighten the load and a conversation partner will quicken the pace.

Reorganize

For a big cleaning job, it can be tempting just to put things back the way they’ve always been, taking stuff that has been moved from its usual home and putting it back there. However this can cause you to gloss over one of the most important aspects of a successful spring clean- decluttering. If you’re looking to get rid of extra or unnecessary stuff around the house (as you should be) you’ll be much less likely to do so effectively if you’re just putting things away rather than actually cleaning and reorganizing. If you aren’t actively trying to work against it, it’s much easier to just put something back where it’s always been rather than getting rid of it altogether, so when you’re cleaning this spring, shake things up a little bit, give your house a fresh new look and get rid of what doesn’t fit with it.

Think outside of the Box

Don’t limit your cleaning to the obvious. Everyone wants to make sure their bathrooms, basement, and living room are in order, but take things a step further. Take things to your kitchen, bedroom and anywhere else you may have neglected and get rid of all the books, DVD’s, CD’s and clothes that you can. Take care of that room you’ve been neglecting, and as I said earlier, cleaning isn’t just about putting things back where they were before, get rid of the clothes you don’t wear, entertainment and other items that you don’t use anymore. Charity organizations do pickups in just about every neighbourhood on a regular basis and there’s always someone who could use your neglected items more than you.

There you have it. A couple of easy things to keep in mind that will speed up your spring. Plan everything out in advance and chart your progress, enlist some help, break free from the norm and shake your house up a bit, and expand your thinking when it comes to what you are and aren’t cleaning. Have fun!

Top 5 Tips To Avoid Cleaning Related Winter Woes

Sometimes winter sucks- snow is falling, the wind is howling, and all you want is to park yourself in front of a fire with a glass of hot cocoa and wait until spring. We’re just lower energy in the winter; it’s natural and it happens to the best of us. We let some things slide over the winter months- sometimes healthy eating or time at the gym, sometimes hobbies, but more often than not it’s cleanliness. It’s hard to work up the energy to keep your home in order when you’re having trouble finding enough to roll out of bed. That said, there are ways to avoid the winter cleaning blahs, and 

1-800 Rid-of-it has you covered there with our top 5 tips to avoid cleaning related winter woes.

Spice things up a bit

We tend to think of cleaning up around the house as a boring chore, just one more thing we need to do but never want to. If that’s the case, it’s time for you to rethink cleaning. Put your favourite show on or blast some music to rock out to in the background; raise the tempo and make cleaning fun again!

Get yourself a cleaning buddy

Like with just about anything else, cleaning is more likely to be a drag when you’re doing it alone, so don’t! Rather than giving your partner or kids a list of chores to get done on their own time, clean together. You can talk, laugh, and feed off of each other’s energy, and the work goes by notably faster with someone by your side.

Use cleaning to break up your work

Given road conditions, unreliable transport and the dreaded flu, winter involves a lot of working from home. If you’re anything like me, you probably have a tougher time being productive in the comfort of your own home than you do in at the office. If you are working from home and you hit a wall in your work, take some time off and clean! The change of scenery and focus should improve your productivity, if you’re lucky, l bringing order to your home will bring order to your thinking. Small chunk your work and your cleaning and both will benefit.

Set the mood

Like I mentioned earlier, sometimes all you want to do is bask in the glow of a warm fire with a hot mug of something or other and wait out winter. So why not do that and clean at the same time? Light a fire, drape yourself with a blanket and get to work! No one said cleaning needs to be unpleasant, so get comfortable and get to work.

Turn it into a workout. 

I saved this one for last because it’s the furthest from left field. Exercise!? In winter!? Isn’t the whole point of winter to overeat and neglect your body!? Well, sort of… But we’re passed the holidays now and New Year’s resolutions should be just as important as holiday habits. Try to speed clean, alternate a set of pushups or situps with each room you clean or do some heavy lifting and clean under furniture. Your cleaning will be doubly efficient and doubly beneficial and that should motivate you to get it done.

There you have it. The winter blahs don’t need to get you down, get out there and get it done.

Geothermal Energy in Iceland

In these energy conscious times, there is one small nation that has enviable resources. Iceland sits on a rift in the continental plates and has a high concentration of volcanoes. The benefit is geothermal energy. Five plants supply over a quarter of Iceland's electricity. Even more impressive is that 87 per cent of the buildings get their heat and hot water needs from this geothermal resource. The heated underground reservoirs are continually replenished by rain water. That is not in short supply, they get up to 177 inches yearly. They have had to run a separate pipe to supply cold water! The deepest parts of the reservoirs can get to some 750 degrees Fahrenheit.

The rest of the electricity is supplied by hydro power. This small nation is dotted with magnificent waterfalls and not all have been harnessed as yet. Since they only get .1 per cent of their energy from fossil fuels, I think we can be fairly certain that they will meet the goal of being a totally fossil-fuel free nation very soon.

This has all been accomplished in the twentieth century. Iceland was once a very poor nation. They depended on peat and imported coal. However, geothermal energy was tapped for washing and bathing a thousand years ago. The foresighted developer was a Snorri Sturlusson who built a fifteen foot round pool, lined it with basalt tiles, and tapped into the naturally warm waters. His modern day descendants have fully restored it. The pool can be seen on top of a grassy hill in the town of Reyholt. Not as appealing as the tourist destination of the Blue Lagoon, but very intriguing.

It wasn't until the shock of the 1970s oil crisis that the Icelanders got serious about exploiting their own natural energy resources.  They  ended up jump starting a whole industry. They now export this expertise to Germany as industry gets incentives for using renewable resources there and to the Philippines, where there there are also reservoirs of underground heat. An Icelandic bank helped finance a project in China and also one in Nevada, U.S.

With such cheap energy, Iceland has also been able to start commercially viable greenhouses for vegetables and flowers. The climate in Iceland is harsh and imported food expensive, so all the population now enjoys the benefits of a more varied local diet than before.

By;Jacky Crawford