A Spring Cleaning Checklist for Your Editing Business

Apr 5

Springtime comes with a sense of renewal and new opportunities that always make me feel reinvigorated. To celebrate, this episode is a re-air of a previous episode where I offered six tips to refresh your editing business.

Of course, you don’t have to wait for a certain season to follow these tips, but it’s natural to feel the itch to do a little spring cleaning at this time of year. Taking advantage of that fresh spring energy is the perfect way to set yourself up for success in quarter two. Consider this your spring cleaning checklist for your editing business.

Hello, everyone. In my neck of the woods right now, we are getting so close to springtime. For me, that always comes with this sense of renewal and growth and new opportunities, and so I thought it would be a great time to revisit a previous episode on how to refresh your editing business.
Now, you know, we don’t have to wait for a perfect time, a perfect season, or the new year or a new month or a new week or whatever. But for a lot of us, spring does give us that itch to clean things up and to start fresh. So today we are gonna talk about some simple and straightforward ways you can clean up your business for Q2, no matter what the weather is like where you live. All right. I hope you enjoy.
Welcome to The Modern Editor Podcast, where we talk about all things editing and what it’s like to run an editorial business in today’s world. I’m your host, Tara Whitaker. Let’s get to it.
Hello. Welcome to today’s episode. So at the time of this recording, it is September, which is back-to-school time for a lot of people.
I thought, what better time to do a little quick-and-dirty business reset to enter this new season. Now, even if back to school isn’t applicable to you, you don’t have kids or you don’t go back to school yourself, or you’re listening to this episode in like, January, doesn’t matter. So whenever you’re listening to this episode, it’s a great opportunity to just get some quick wins, reset your space, reset all the things and just start off on a fresh foot, right?
So this episode is going to be here for you whenever you need it, but maybe the first time you’re listening to it will be around the back-to-school time. So I’m gonna list out six ways that you can freshen things up, get you on the right track. As always, take what’s applicable to you, tweak anything if needed, and just leave the rest.
Because I know a lot of us have different ways of organizing, not organizing, doing things differently. There’s no such thing as a one-size-fits-all approach. So I’m gonna show you and share ways that I do things that is not necessarily at all the right way, the only way. It’s just the way that works for me.
All right, so first off, we’re gonna clear off your workspace. Workspace is going to depend on what you use, right? If it’s a desk, a corner of the couch, your kitchen table, whatever it is, and then here are some ways to freshen it up. And these are from my own experience. Take your dirty dishes to the sink. Throw away any garbage. Recycle loose paper. Remove anything not needed from the space.
I’m very guilty of this one because I’ll use a bunch of things for something and then they just sit there, or I put it in a pile, or my kids bring me something that they made. I’m actually looking right now at these math cubes that were put together with painter’s tape that I, you know, I probably could move at this point, but it’s also cute.
So do what you need to do, but take off anything that you no longer need and then you can dust or wipe down anything. Again, not speaking from experience at all, but maybe wipe off the coffee splatters on your desk mat, that I’m actually looking at right now speaking of, which is kind of funny.
All right, moving on from that, and then if you like scents, it’s a great time to light a candle or use some air spray. I’m a little sensitive to scents, so I like—what are they called?—tea lights that aren’t scented. They’re white, like they’re not colored or anything, and I just like the vibe of a lit candle, so if you’re in the same boat, this would be a great time to do that.
All right, next thing is you can organize your computer desktop. Now I know everyone uses their desktop differently, so this is again, take what’s applicable to you. I use my desktop as a holding space slash dumping ground. When I download stuff or I wanna save something quickly, I just save it to my desktop.
And then once a month, which is at the beginning of every month when I do my monthly wrap-up tasks, I take a look at my desktop and I move everything to either applicable folders or I just trash it. I inevitably always end up with a ton of screenshots that I no longer need, and instead of going in and deleting it at the time, which could be more productive, my brain just likes to do it all at once. So I do that once a month.
If you want a bonus task, you can also back up your computer right now. Back it up, back it up. In theory, you should have a cloud backup and a, like a hard drive or an external backup. Do whatever you can at the moment, because speaking from experience, the last thing that you want is to lose a project mid-edit. It’s not fun. It sucks. So back up, back up, back up.
All right. Next thing. Clean out your bookmarks and extensions. I love to bookmark blog posts and articles and videos and things to watch ’cause I’m like, oh, I’m totally gonna go back and read that later. Dear listener, I never go back and read them and they end up piling up.
So if you’re in the same boat, take a peek at yours right now. See if you can either read it or watch it or use it right now or chunk it ’cause chances are it’s just gonna sit there and you’re never gonna read it. There’s so much content to consume. We’re never gonna consume it all. It’s fine. We just weren’t meant to consume that piece of content, release it, and let it go.
And speaking of that, also a great time to unsubscribe from emails you no longer want or need. This is one I’m pretty good at, but also not good at it. And what I mean by that is I have, my email is open all day, which it doesn’t need to be. And I also have four inboxes, which, ugh. I have two personal, because I had an old, old one, and then I have a newer one, and then I have two business emails, and there’s no need to be checking them as much as I do, and I check them—it’s a habit, like it’s, I don’t even know how many times a day I check it, and it’s so disruptive, so I’m working on that.
But this is why I tell you all of that. If you’re someone who also does that and checks your email and deletes things like as soon as you see it or categorize it or whatever, here’s my suggestion to think about if it works for you. Take a day, and you don’t have to delete or move anything, and you can read your emails, but don’t delete, don’t move, and then at the end of the day, or even the next day, go through each email one by one and see, do you still need that email? Can you choose the I want fewer emails option, or can you just totally unsubscribe?
It is shocking to me when I do this because I’ll go in usually the next day and I have so many emails that are just junk or not anything that I actually need, but I don’t realize that when I go in and delete them one off throughout the day, at the end of the day, or like I said, the next day there’s, thirty, forty, fifty emails, and then you can really see, oh, do I actually need this stuff?
I’m gonna try and do this once a month with my other monthly tasks because I’m just getting, again, with the consumption, I’m just getting inundated with content and my brain hurts.
All right. Next thing is to review your subscriptions or your memberships or those things that you subscribe to whatever monthly or yearly basis. It’s always a good time to review those, but if you want a quick win, go through and see if you still use those things, if you still need those things, are they still serving you the way you intended them to or wanted them to.
You can do this a variety of ways. Either keep a list of all of the things that you subscribe to, either like a Google Sheet or an Excel sheet. I use YNAB, You Need a Budget, because the things that I do are paid, and it’s a very easy way for me to scroll through and be like, oh yeah, I am still paying for those things. Do I still want to pay for those things?
For example, I just canceled my Merriam-Webster Unabridged subscription because I never use it. I just use the free website and it’s, I mean, it’s only $35 a year. It’s not breaking the bank, but hey, that $35 I can use and invest it somewhere else. So take a peek at yours and see if there’s anything that can be cut or redistributed or you know, whatever the case may be.
All right. Last but not least, clean out your social media following. I’m totally doing this soon because I came up with it for this podcast episode because I used to be good at doing it, and then I just kind of pushed it off. Now I’m not saying go through your entire following list in one sitting; that obviously could take decades, you know, depending on how many people you’re following and how many platforms you’re on and how easy the platform is to go through them.
But just take one step at a time, maybe set a timer or choose one account. I do this particularly with Instagram because they are notorious about following accounts, like me following accounts that I never followed or would never follow.
But somehow I go in there and I’m like, no, I did not follow you. Delete. Instagram is really poopy about doing that. So if you’re on Instagram, check that out. I probably should do it on—well, you know what? I don’t even use Threads. Never mind. So I’ll just focus on Instagram, so it won’t take me very long.
But if you’re on Facebook or TikTok or Bluesky or you know, all the other ones, that’s gonna take more time. But just take five minutes, ten minutes, do what you can. I guarantee you, at least if you’re on Instagram, you’re gonna find some accounts you can scrub.
That’s it. There’s some quick ways to reset, get your space clear, you know, maybe get your mind a little more clear. Like I mentioned, these can be done at any time. It doesn’t have to be the beginning of the school year, January 1st, whatever. There’s no such thing as the perfect time or environment or set up.
For example, I’m hoping you don’t hear anything, but I have an excavator right outside my window because our neighbor is getting their sewer changed out, and I could have said, well, you know what? I can’t record this episode, but I’m not gonna do that. I’m just gonna do it and it’s gonna be okay with how we do it.
Same thing with organizing or doing what you need to do. Do it where it fits and we’ll just roll with it, right? If you want to dig deeper into getting your digital life organized, I do have a free course I created inside the Freelance Editors Club that all members get access to, and it goes deeper into these topics.
These were very, like I said, quick and dirty ’cause I wanted you to get some quick wins, but if you wanna go deeper, that course is available, so you can head to TaraWhitaker.com/Club to sign up for a free trial.
And until next time, keep learning, keep growing, and keep whatever it is that serves you and allows you to do your best.
Thank you so much for tuning in to today’s episode. If you enjoy The Modern Editor Podcast, I would be so grateful if you left us a review over on iTunes, and as always, you can head to TaraWhitaker.com to connect with me and stay in touch. We’ll chat again soon.

Clean Up Your Workspace

When’s the last time you decluttered your desk? If you work from home, your workspace could also include a countertop or the corner of your couch. Whatever it looks like for you, take some time to freshen it up. Here are some ideas:

Remove dirty dishes
Throw out any trash
Recycle loose paper
Move anything you don’t need out of this space
Dust/wipe down the space
Light a candle

Cleaning up your workspace will help you feel way less mentally cluttered when you sit down to work every day.

Declutter Your Desktop

If you’re like me, you probably use your computer desktop as a holding space for random files, photos, and downloads. It can quickly become cluttered and overwhelming, so I recommend taking some time to organize it.

Personally, I love doing this once a month. I take a few minutes to either delete things I don’t need or put the things I want to keep in folders off my desktop. There’s no better feeling than seeing it all cleared away.

Bonus task: After you declutter your desktop, back up your computer.

Refresh Your Bookmarks and Extensions

I love to bookmark blog posts and articles I want to go back and read, but spoiler alert: I never go back to read them. In the end, all I get are a ton of bookmarks piling up in my browser. If you do this, it’s time to let go of those articles you’re never going to read.

Clean Up Your Email Subscriptions

All right, I know this one can feel overwhelming, especially if you have multiple inboxes that sit open on your computer all day. Here’s what I suggest:

Take one day to read all your emails, but don’t move or delete any
At the end of the day (or the next day), go back through them and ask yourself which ones you still need
Unsubscribe from the ones you don’t want to receive anymore
See if there’s a “receive fewer emails” option from the ones you still want to receive

Trust me, you’ll be shocked to see how many emails you get throughout the day you just don’t need.

Organize Your Subscriptions and Memberships

At least once a year, it’s a good idea to review your monthly and yearly subscriptions and memberships and see if you still need them. For budget monitoring, I recommend making a list or spreadsheet of everything you’re paying for so you don’t run into any surprises. (I personally can’t recommend YNAB enough.)

As you go through each one, ask yourself if it’s still serving you and if it’s something you still want to pay for to keep using.

Declutter Your Social Media Following

It’s time to clean up your social media accounts. Chances are you’re following people whose content isn’t a good fit for you anymore, or thanks to the algorithms, whose content you don’t even see.

This is another one that can feel overwhelming, especially if you’re on multiple social media platforms and follow a ton of people. Instead of trying to do it all in one sitting, set a timer for ten minutes and get it done in increments.

Spring Cleaning Your Business = Quick-and-Easy Wins

Remember, you can do these tips anytime your business needs a quick refresh, but why not take advantage of the spring cleaning vibes? These tasks will give you some quick-and-easy wins that help you feel empowered and motivated in your business.