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In the old days of open fireplaces and coal ranges, people used to spring-clean the house. The nature itself seems to spring-clean, with melting snow, storms, fresh, pale green of new buds and young leaves.

Let us learn from Nature. What better time than Spring to take stock, refresh and renew your life?

But it won't happen all by itself. It takes a concious effort to slow down on the treadmill, to give chance to the fragile shoots of personal change, to find time. A spring clean of a house takes a whole day, maybe a whole weekend. You need time to spring clean your life too.

But time find you must. Often we hear "But I have to do that, and that, and that!".

Life is often a race after more money, more experiences, more knowledge, more things, more, more. We lose ourselves in that race.

In the same way that space gets cluttered with objects, time gets cluttered with things to do. Use the spring to de-clutter your days and design a new life a new you.

(1) You can't de-clutter your days if you don't know where all the time goes.

Keep a diary for a week, ideally with 15 minute slots and record all activities. You will find a periods of activity, and periods with seemingly nothing happening. Nobody can tell you which are clutter and which are valuable. We all have our individual priorities.

It's worth looking at some times more carefully, though.

Firstly, times spent arguing, fighting, gossiping. Some fights are healthy: emotions need to be aired and air cleared. But many fights repeat old patterns. Such fights don't refresh, they poison. Try to stop, to make ways to break the wasteful cycle of negative talk.

Secondly, routine chores. Many people, especially women, clean and tidy just out of habit. Do you have to vacuum all rooms as often as you do? Could you wear these jeans another day?

Thirdly, so called entertainment. Empty, boring TV that just sucks watchers in. Books that we start and continue reading out of pure momentum: neither fun nor inspiration. Bleary-eyed browsing of the Internet.

(2) Have a good look at your diary. You are bound to find time for your Spring reboot: you don't need very much, maybe an hour, or even just 45 minutes, a few times a week. Once the time is set, treat it as sacrosanct. It's your appointment with yourself, a date with the future you.

Respect this time as if it cost $200 an hour. Don't let others intrude. Switch off the telephones. Go outside at least sometimes, somewhere quiet: a riverside path, an empty beach, a walk in a wood.

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