Spring is officially here, serving as the perfect time to declutter, organise, and freshen up your living space and your life. Whether you’re an advocate of Marie Kondo’s method of getting rid of things that no longer ‘spark joy’ or prefer to dedicate a weekend to all things decluttering, nothing beats that feeling of accomplishment when completing a spring cleaning checklist.

But who said spring cleaning is just solely for the home? Google Trends reports a 26% increase on the search ‘career refresh’ just this past month. Many people see this period as the perfect time to refresh and re-evaluate their careers to set themselves on track for the remainder of the year. From reworking your personal development goals to cleaning up your inbox and CV, 2024 is the year to declutter and help you refocus in the workplace.

Here, founder of leading mentoring and career progression platform PushFar, Ed Johnson, provides his spring cleaning career checklist to set yourself up for success this year.

1.Dust off your resume

Most of us are guilty of only updating our CV when we’re looking for a new job, but this leaves you with a mammoth job of trying to remember exactly what you’ve achieved in your career, especially if it hasn’t been updated for years.

A regular spring clean of your CV once or twice a year will help you keep on top of all the accomplishments you’ve achieved recently, that you might otherwise forget. It’s also likely that your career goals will have shifted, so this also provides the opportunity to remove any skills that do not support your current career objectives and demonstrate your value to your prospective employer.

What’s more, a regularly up-to-date CV will serve as a positive reminder of your hard work and what you have achieved over the years.

2.Create the perfect WFH set-up

With around 44% of the UK now working either remotely or hybrid*, the ways in which we work are continuously evolving, transforming parts of our homes to become dedicated home offices and workspaces. But whilst many of us enjoy working from home, it can often have its challenges, especially if you’re working in a small home office.

Giving your home office a spring clean is essential to ensure you can work as productively as possible. Maximise your storage opportunities for essentials like printers, stationery and tech so everything you need is within reach, without eating into your personal space. Ensure you have the right ergonomic support and ditch the uncomfortable furniture – stand-up desks for instance have grown in popularity, adjusting your working position throughout the day to encourage productivity.

Having a comfortable work-from-home space will help restore productivity and boost your performance.

3.Set clear goals and objectives

The New Year always serves as the perfect time to set career resolutions to progress in your current role, but sometimes these can slip once back in the swing of your day-to-day tasks. Revisiting these goals and objectives is important, as you can review what you’ve achieved so far, and make sure you’re on track to meet your goals for the rest of the year.

Asking yourself what you want to accomplish this year and setting yourself two or three attainable goals, with a clear deadline, will provide you with a newfound motivation in your career.

If this is something you’re unsure on, then working with a mentor is the perfect way to get clarity on what your ultimate goals are, and they can also provide you with strategic support to guide you in the right direction to achieving these.

4.Digital decluttering

We’re all guilty of letting a mass of emails build up in our inboxes. Digital decluttering is often overlooked, but once you have the right system in place, you’re likely to feel more in control of your workload and ensure no email goes missed.

You wouldn’t keep clothing in your wardrobe that you don’t wear anymore, so why hold emails that you no longer require? Unsubscribe from newsletters you no longer read, filter your emails into specific folders within your inbox to make them easily accessible, and delete any emails that no longer serve any purpose.

Creating a tidy inbox will create a tidy mind, reducing your stress levels by ensuring your inbox only holds what you need.

5.Check in with your network

After a busy start to the new year, spring serves as the perfect time to reach out and check in with professionals you may have spoken with or met at previous networking events, to ensure you’re maintaining meaningful relationships with those in your field.

Take a few minutes out of your day to fire across a few emails or send a few messages on LinkedIn to keep the relationship established – you never know when these connections will come in handy later down the line.