Get a Head Start on Spring Cleaning and Get Rid of 100 Things This Weekend

Spring is just around the corner ... which means spring cleaning is too. If you never hit the reset button on your house in January like many people do, March is sort of like your second chance at getting organized and getting a fresh start for the year. While we typically hunker down for winter, spring is a time to throw open the doors, air out the drawers, and welcome the longer days into our home. (And if you're reading this from anywhere outside California, it makes snow days feel much more productive.)

Your challenge this weekend: Find and get rid of 100 things from your house. It's easier than it sounds! You can throw them out, dump them in recycling, give them to a friend, donate them to charity, or even finally use them... as long as you clear out 100 things that were just sitting in a dark and dusty corner.

If you have a junk drawer (or you're like me and have several junk drawers — in the kitchen, office, laundry room, living room), you might even find all 100 things in the same spot. You can count that stack of unread magazines as 1 thing or 10 things; we won't judge. But as long as you keep the end goal in sight, this is an easy way to motivate yourself if you're the type that hates to clean. You can even turn it into a family activity and make each member responsible for clearing their share of the chaos.

Here are 25 things that might be cluttering up your closets and drawers right now... you'll be surprised at how quickly the other 75 surface once you get the ball rolling!

1. Catalogs you'll never order from
2. Magazines and newspapers you'll never read
3. Take-out menus for restaurants you rarely eat at
4. Take-out utensils and napkins
5. Fast-food condiment packets
6. Random keys you no longer remember what they're for
7. Padlocks with missing keys
8. Old batteries and chargers
9. All those Allen keys from IKEA
10. Pens that don't work and mystery pen caps
11. Dried-out markers and ink cartridges
12. Old receipts you don't need for taxes or insurance
13. Expired warranty papers
14. Scraps of paper with notes or numbers written on them
15. Business cards
16. Brochures and flyers
17. Product manuals
18. Rubberbands and paper clips
19. Zip ties and twisty ties
20. Tapes, CDs, and DVDs
21. Obsolete software discs
22. Matchbooks and lighters
23. Haircare and skincare samples
24. Unused mini toiletries snagged from hotels
25. Solo socks that never found their pair again