Keep it simple with pre-spring cleaning

There’s no reason to wait until spring to do a top-to-bottom deep clean of your home. Save the stress and energy and start early with smaller tasks that you can accomplish in your spare time. If you tackle the interior of your home before spring really hits, you can give outdoor tasks your entire focus when warmer weather arrives.

Tackle the dust. It’s an easy task to neglect, but a thorough dusting of your whole home can be accomplished fairly quickly. Get all the surfaces and knickknacks, dusty bookshelves, baseboards, door frames, and windows. It’s also a good time to check your air filters to ensure that dust doesn’t quickly pile up again.

Wash all your bedding. Sheets and pillowcases should be washed more frequently, but now is a good time to tackle all of it — blankets, mattress pads, and dust ruffles, if you use them. Pillows, including down, can also go in the washing machine. Warm on the gentle cycle is a good bet, or check the manufacturer’s instructions. If you have foam pillows, though, skip the machine and refer to the label instead.

Clean ceiling fans and vent covers. We’ve all glanced up at the ceiling fan and wanted to scream when we noticed the dust — avoid that feeling and give each fan blade a quick wipe. Remove vent covers, including the bathroom vent fan cover, and wash with dish soap and water.

Deep-clean your appliances. It’s a great time to clean the oven, wipe and disinfect the interior of the fridge, scour the microwave and get the gunk out of the nooks and crannies in your countertop appliances, like mixers and food processors. De-scale your coffee maker with vinegar and cold water and dump the old crumbs out of your toaster.

Purge the closets. If it’s snowing or raining, throw on some music or a good audiobook and settle in to chuck all the clothes that you don’t wear anymore. It’s an annoying chore, but it always feels good to get it done.