Spring cleaning on your to-do list? Top 5 tips to make it pain free

Does Spring Cleaning get chucked into the 'too-hard' basket

Here at TaskRunners HQ we’re getting pretty excited about the warmer months. Sunshine, the birds, beaches, swimmers and BBQs…woo hoo! 

This also means friends and family crawl out of hibernation and decide to get friendly again. This calls for a bit of a spruce up to the place. Ok, a MAJOR spruce up. 

I don’t know about you, but our home seems to be a like a bowerbird’s nest accumulating stuff, dirt and dust over the winter months. As they say, a good clean and major purge is as healthy for your state of mind as it is for your ability to find your paperwork for your tax return (which by the way, that’s due soon too).

I won’t put sprinkles on top of your squeegee and mop over the fact that Spring Cleaning can be down right painful and you'll find every trick in the Procrastinators Bible to get away from it. Alas, that day will arrive when you can't fight it off any longer. 

Time to get it done! 

So we’ve put together 5 tips to make your Spring Cleaning tasks easier:

Task Tip # 1 - Planning is key

Block out a time slot in your week or weekend to get it done. Allocate as much time as you feel you’ll need and get it done within that time. That way, you’re not spending a whole day trying to sort out your sock drawer.

Task Tip # 2 - Round em up!

Round up the troops and delegate, delegate, delegate. We believe that the pleasure (or pain) of cleaning is much better shared with your loved ones. They might think otherwise.

Task Tip # 3 - Game on

TaskRunners fan, Richard's, 'House Adventure Race'

Make it fun for yourself and the family. TaskRunners fan, Richard, who’s a keen adventure racer sent us a photo of his ‘House Adventure Race’. Come up with a similar idea. But remember, it’s about quality so make sure the job gets down well or you’ll be coming back a second time to clean up the mess.

Task Tip # 4 - High to low

Start from the top down, this just keeps everything you’ve already cleaned from getting dirty again. For example, dust before you vacuum, wipe the table before you sweep and clean upper cupboards before lower, etc.

Task Tip # 5 - Shake it 

Put on some funky music to get you in the mood. It really is more fun to clean when you’re shakin’ your booty!

FREEBIE TIME!

Surprise, surprise, we’ve found some free Spring Cleaning printable checklists for you!

1) Here's a cute little checklist put together by Casa Sugar (as seen above): Link

2) Martha Stewart has put together a helpful download which includes spring cleaning tips: Link

3) Make your own spring cleaning check list. You can click items to remove them or add new items: Link

4) The Nest has a fun little checklist that turns spring cleaning into a game (see Task Tip #3): Link

5) Stay at Home Mum has a nice one pager spring cleaning checklist : Link

POST IT

And if all of this is just a little too much, that's what TaskRunners is for. Post up your tasks and get some help from a local Task Runner.  It's that simple.  

So tell us, how are you tackling Spring Cleaning this year and what are some of your tips and tricks? 

x Cheryl

Collaborative Consumption: The Sharing Economy

Life's better shared

We all got a mild tail kicking from the GFC a few years ago. Some of us lost jobs, others weren’t sure about their jobs, things became hard to afford and we looked across the water at the US, UK and Europe a little nervously there for a while. But sometimes the scary times birth wonderful innovation and invention in the human mind. 

It was some of that thinking that spawned ‘Collaborative Consumption’, Australia’s newest eco-business movement!

What is Collaborative Consumption?

Peer to peer sharing

For all its fancy pants sounding name, Collaborative Consumption is not anything we have not experienced before. It is basically about taking something we already have and sharing it across a few people rather than everyone having their own version to contend with. 

In TaskRunners’ case, it simply means taking the tasks one person faces and giving them to another willing person to perform, for either cash reward or the return of a similar favour at a later date. Or, on the other hand, if you have a skill or knowledge that you're proud of, sharing that as well. Nice!

Do I know of any Collaborative Consumption businesses?

Some of these car and ride sharing businesses look familiar?

A few well known businesses you may have heard of are things like the traveller’s new best friend AirBnB, events like clothes swaps, car sharing and of course task orientated businesses like TaskRunners. The idea of sharing things, labour, experiences and more across every day people in the community has really taken off in Australia. We now have over 70 kinds of businesses offering everything from local tours to textbooks, pet vacations and desks in office spaces, and even shared cooking and dining experiences. 

You'll be surprised just what you can find!

How is Collaborative Consumption green and socially responsible?

By sharing resources, we lessen our impact on the environment. This is particularly true of businesses like Open Shed , Zookal or Find a Uniform who specialise in sharing and/or recycling commonly needed goods across a few people on a regular basis.

Collaborative Consumption is also socially responsible because it relies on getting people together to help each other. This helps to:

• end isolation in our community, 
• give people a sense of belonging, and 
• provide a reason to be proud of the places where we live. 

Not only that but by working together:

• we help lighten our load and the stress related to it, 
• we give people reasons to feel useful, and 
• it's scientifically proven to aid self esteem and chase away the blues through helping. 

Sharing also keeps you from getting eaten by big cats

It is amazing to think that sharing something so simple as an item or a task can add so many benefits, but it’s true. These connections have a really positive impact on our environment and our community. 

Are you feeling the buzz?!

Will TaskRunners be useful for me?

Absolutely! 

In this day and age, most of us are super busy and wearing multiple hats in order to get by, work towards our dreams or even just manage to juggle work and family. But no matter who you are, we’ve all experienced the added value a pair of extra hands offers when it’s time to get things done. Or we want to be able to help others but can’t afford to market ourselves or don’t know how to let people know we are available. So TaskRunners is designed to simply connect the everyday person who needs some help with another everyday person who can provide it. It's that simple.

Where do I sign up?

Keep following us as we get ready! 

You can follow our journey through to September 2012 when we launch in a couple of ways. Tres exciting!

• Register your interest on our TaskRunners   
• Follow our posts on Facebook (Do ‘Like’ us) 
• Pinterest
• Twitter or 
• Via this official blog 

This is about you too - so just hit us with your questions and suggestions! 

What are your thoughts on Collaborative Consumption? Have you used a Collaborative Consumption business before? Share your experience with us.

Small task, HUGE help!

Reckon these guys could lend us some 'Help'?

TaskRunners needs your Help! 

It’s exciting times at TaskRunners. Whilst the website and design has been finalised and the copy is percolating nicely, as we come closer to launch time we still have some burning questions we need answered. That’s why we need you to share your thoughts with us so we can turn some of those assumptions into facts (or send them to the discard pile!).

We know if you don’t know your audience, you’re pretty much boned. That’s why we really need you to help us out by answering a ten minute survey. It sounds simple enough, but trust us, your feedback could make the difference between TaskRunners soaring like an eagle or coming to earth with the wet ka-thunk of an uncooked turkey. Believe us, we don’t like wasting good turkey.

It's question and answer time

We’ve created some questions based around finding out what is taking up too much of your time and you’d dearly love to jettison if you got the chance, what kinds of skills you could bring to the table, how you feel about in-kind (or barter) versus cash and generally what does and doesn’t float your boat when it comes to the things you need to do.

It’s something that anyone who leads a busy life can relate to (which is all of us, right?). We’re also particularly interested in hearing from small business owners, parents (especially super busy mums), freelancers, uni students, retirees, people who would like to or currently use barter – even if it is to tell us you think our ideas are not on the money. But no matter your circumstance, each voice counted will get us further away from guesswork and closer to the facts.

So please, help us to help you lighten the load. Give us five minutes out of your busy day today and we will use those five minutes to plan how we can repay you with a lot more free time at a later date! We’ll be ever so grateful.

Just click the link below to take you straight to the survey

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/taskrunners

Help us spread the word around through your Facebook timeline, twitter or email. 

Thanks a bunch!

The TaskRunners Team