When you think about cleaning your room, what is the first thing that comes to mind? You don’t have time to clean? Is it too overwhelming? Are there too many things? The truth is that you can clean up your messy room quickly and still be able to find what you need whenever you need it. These easy steps will get it done in no time!
Get rid of what doesn’t belong in the room
The first step to cleaning your room quickly is getting rid of everything that doesn’t belong. Throw everything that belongs to another room in a laundry basket or bin.
Start at the door and work your way along the walls, starting from the right of the door. As you go, look at the furniture, the floor, and under the bed. Everything that is not yours or belongs to the kitchen, living room, bathroom, etc., goes to the basket. Don’t worry about where you’ll end up for now. Just know that this is your storage container for everything that needs to get out. Once you have gone all the way around the room and back to the door, take the box out of your room. We’ll take care of that later!
Organize the leftover piles
Now that your room only has the things that belong, do another room sweep and create stacks of things that go together. As you did before, start with the room and keep moving to the right, looking over the furniture, the floor, and any other places where you may have hidden things. These piles must have one thing in common: they will end up in the same place when your room is clean. Here are some examples:
Shoes
Dirty clothes
Clean clothes
Jewelry and other small items
Books and school supplies
Computer-related items
As you go around the room again, toss each item you find into a pile with other items that will end up in the same place. By the time this second sweep is done, your room will be organized, even if it doesn’t look like it yet!
Tackle all of the piles!
Now that your mess is somewhat organized, it’s time to tackle the piles! Each pile contains things that belong to the same place, so it will be faster to clean one pile at a time. Here are some examples of how to get rid of batteries quickly:
Clean clothes: You will want to take all of your clothes that need to be on a hanger and hang them up. That is going to remove most of the clothes in the pile. Now, tackle all the clothes that need to be folded, then put them in the proper drawers. Lastly, take all of the little items like socks and put them in their proper place. Shoes should be matched up and then lined in a specific area.
Next is the dirty clothes: It is simple. Take the dirty clothes and put them in the laundry room or in a laundry basket. Done!
Books and school supplies: Stack them neatly on your desk or dresser or on the floor (as long as it’s a neat pile). Keep it all together. Each stack shouldn’t take more than a few minutes.
Get organized for next time
Now that you’ve finished the piles and remember your carpet colour, it’s time to plan so this doesn’t happen again. Even if you’re not interested in keeping your room perfect, you can take steps to cut down on cleaning time for next time.
Consider the “stacks” strategy. Try to keep the things that go together. Even if they are not stored, make sure similar items are bundled. Instead of throwing your clothes on the bed, keep them with your other clothes, but hang them up if you want to make it easier.
Schedule a nightly cleaning. Set aside five minutes to get rid of that day’s clutter at the end of each day. Follow the same steps above, and you will see the progress quickly. If you do this every day, you will no longer have big problems to tackle.
Ready to tackle your closet now?
Dispose of the garbage
First things first, dispose of food wrappers, empty snack packs, junk mail, and unnecessary shopping bags to keep the room looking its best with minimal effort.
Put away items that don’t belong in the room
Store the vacuum in the front cupboard, return the scissors to the kitchen drawer, dump the dirty towels in the bathroom basket. A quick look around will often reveal things that can be removed from the room without much thought. This is a basic “grab and go” before starting any sorting and organizing.
Save anything that can be taken care of quickly
If you see things in the room that need to be put in their proper places, it is generally best to take care of them before moving on to more challenging cleaning, sorting, and organizing. For example, when cleaning the kitchen, return food to the refrigerator and pantry and put clean dishes away before moving on to scrub the appliances or sort the stack of papers on the counter.
Moving around the room: clean small sections at a time
Pick an area of the room to start with and work in tiny sections until it’s spotless and tidy so you can easily recognize your progress. Work your way across the room from there so you can always see how far you’ve come and what you still have to do. This way, if you have to leave to finish another day, you will know exactly where to pick it up.
Clean at the end of cleaning
If you’ve spent a lot of time cleaning and organizing a messy room, be sure to leave the area looking its best when you’re ready to finish, even if you haven’t finished all the work. Throw the cleaning cloths on the clothes, take out the trash, and tidy up the room to make it look like you’ve been working as hard as you know you have!
