Description: Toss it. Donate it. Declutter it. Give yourself room to breathe.
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Transcription: Hi, and welcome to episode 39 of Self-Care for Educators. I am your host, Tina Boogren, and this week's invitation is all about Spring cleaning. Whew. Hear me out. Some of you got really excited right then, and some of you were like, Ooh, Nope. No, thank you. You might think of this ... Okay. If spring cleaning feels like, whoa, that's just too much, because you have this image in your head of like cleaning baseboards and like getting into cracks and crevices ... maybe that's a little intimidating. Instead, ... maybe you just want to think of decluttering.
I love when we switch seasons and there's something, especially those of us that live in a place where we actually have all four seasons ... There's something that just feels so renewing about entering into each new season. And, this year in particular, I feel, oh, such a sense of hope moving into spring, and that sense of hope and that transition ... always feels like a really delicious time to clean out, to let go of things. I usually incorporate this with my closet. So, four times a year, I dig back into my closet, and I do a massive cleaning. So, I'm switching from my one season to the next. So, thinking about Winter, moving into Spring ... I have a little, or Summer, and I have a little bit of in-between Spring, because Colorado, we're all over the board. For example, just as a side note. So, when I'm recording it this week, we are supposed to be in the seventies Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and then I think we're getting a massive snow storm blizzard coming our way. We'll see if that actually happens towards the end of the week. Such as Spring in Colorado. But, I'm getting close to finding the weekend that I am going to do the massive closet switch.
And, once I start the closet switch, usually I kind of just get on this roll, and I just start cleaning things out. It feels so good. Get rid of things. Donate things. Move things, especially around the closet. So, I always asked myself ... Although this year is different. So but, what I always ask myself is, Have I worn this in the past six months? And, if I haven't, it's a good idea to get rid of it. Although that's a hard one this year, because I think I've only worn about three pairs of nighttime/daytime pajamas. So, that's a little bit different question this year. However, in a general sense of I haven't worn it, I always think about someone else could get better use out of this. This also helps I think about, curating my closet to a place, to avoid decision fatigue. If I have too many choices and just get overwhelmed, just ... It feels so good to get things out of the way. So, maybe it's your closet that you're Spring cleaning.
Maybe it is your desk at school or at home. Maybe it is your classroom. Maybe it's inviting students to do a little Spring cleaning around their desks or their lockers, or even their environment at home. Maybe it's cleaning out a garage. Maybe it's just cleaning out one drawer per day, or maybe it's setting a timer that you're just going to take five minutes or ten minutes or fifteen minutes, whatever works for you to clean something out and give yourself like a week to do it. Even just throwing out one thing a day. I know a lot of people do 30-day challenges where they get rid of one thing every day. I love that. That's a very simple way to declare or just tiny piece by tiny piece sense of opening up space. That sense of allowing yourself a little bit of breathing room metaphorically, maybe even physically, can just feel like Heaven ... Can feel like, oh gosh, the weight has been lifted. And, what a great way to move into the next season.
Just feeling a little bit lighter, a little bit lighter. That's what I want you to play around with this week. What can you declutter? What is Spring cleaning look like for you? What is that ritual of changing seasons? How do you let go of things that you need to let go of in order to welcome in the new? I'd love for you, as always, to jump into that Facebook group and share what ... How are you playing around with this? What does this look like for you? How are you bringing this up? In your classroom? For your family? Just for yourself. When is a good time? When do you do this? When do you engage in Spring cleaning? Is it in the, in the Spring time or do you do it another time? And, how do you engage with that? I cannot wait to hear your ideas. You guys always take these ideas and turn them into something amazing.
Thank you so much to Brooke for making this happen. Thank you to Marzano Resources and Solution Tree for this job I get to do. Thank you to you, my bad-ass Self-Care Squad. If you haven't already, it would be so, so helpful if you could rate and review us, whatever platform you're on. It just helps our other fellow, bad-ass Self-Care for Educators members find us. Word of mouth is always the best form of advertising there is, and we want everyone to be able to join us. So, thank you for rating and reviewing, and as always, if you've got any questions or ideas for topics, please, please, please jump on over to our website, which is a place that you can contact us. There's Show Notes there. There's resources there. You can find us simply at SelfCareForEducators.com. So, that's just all one word SelfCareForEducators.com. It will bring up the podcast. If you go to Show Notes, you'll be able to see transcripts and resources. You can go back, you can review things. You'll also see a place where you can contact us. And, that's a great place where you can ask questions or submit show ideas. I love to do those listener question episodes. So, that's a great way to get ahold of us there.
Have an amazing week. You guys, I can't wait to hear what decluttering, Spring cleaning, lightening your load feels like, looks like, sounds like for you this week. Let's get after it.