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Get Organized
Keeping a Teen's Room CleanQuestion: Hi, I am a 15, teenage girl, And I need to clean my room, but I am having trouble getting started, I look at the mess, and I just find something better to do, If you could give me some tips on cleaning my room or something, that would be great, and would make my mom a lot happier! Please email me if u can the answer to my problem. Thanks.DJ Answer: Getting started is the hardest part of the whole job, isn't it? One of the biggest tips I can give you is to NOT look at the big picture this time, but to just focus on one little portion of your room. If you were here with me, I'd have you look through a toy telescope so that you would see only one small area of your big organizing project; this helps you focus on just one little workable area at a time. Now it's time to pick a corner of the room and let's get started! Whether you work around the room right to left or left to right is up to you, but just declutter (sort, weed out, reorganize) one little area of your space at a time. Otherwise it's just too much for you (or anyone else) to handle. Before you start shuffling and tossing through the clutter, or rushing out to buy lots of cool containers for organizing, you really do need to start with a plan. I call it my 4-step "AwSOMe Organizing" plan:
Step 1: Always start with a plan PLAN to create a home for the things in your room that you use on a regular basis, probably every day or so. Clothes you wear most of the time, including accessories, will go into the closet. But out-of-season clothes can go under your bed, in a box in the basement or attic, or into storage. Store things where you will use them, not where ever you may have a little space leftover-- this will make your clutter stay under control, and will even streamline your morning routine, which overflows into really good time management. As you SORT through the chaos in your room, make 4 stacks (or find some boxes to hold all these things for easier removal): Keep, Toss, Donate, Undecided. Now start in one corner of your room, either in the room itself, a dresser, or in your closet, and start sorting. Keep things you have worn within the last year-- if you aren't sure whether Mom will let you give up that pricey pair of blue jeans you had to have last spring, put it into the Undecided pile and ask her later. Stay on task! This really is a quick-and-dirty step in organizing-- don't stop to flip through photo albums when you come across them, or read notes from classmates, but place them into the KEEP box for organizing. (You can always look through them later on your break, which you'll really deserve). Toss broken or unrepairable things such as stretched out hair scrunchies, ripped clothing, and trash (duh). Tip: don't toss those socks without mates just yet-- you may find it's partner on down the road in your organizing journey. And consider turning those blue jeans with ripped knees into cut-offs-- put them into the Undecided box for now. Now it's time for the fun part: Begin to ORGANIZE the piles in your room. I like to start with the easy one first. Take out the TOSS box to the trash, or at least put it outside your room. (See how easy that was!) Carry the Donate box into the hallway or a spot where you can have Mom do a quick glance to make sure you're not donating Grandma's pearls to the thrift store! The Undecided box can also go into the hall or another neutral zone outside your room. Save it for last or another day when your mind is fresh and you can figure out where to put these things-- have a friend or your Mom help you if you'd like; sometimes two heads are better than one. Look around and you'll see a LOT of space and just ONE pile of stuff with which to fill it. That wasn't so painful was it? Create a home for the good stuff, those things you've decided to keep because you love them or use them quite a bit. Make zones or centers in your bedroom for using your things so you won't fall into the same trap as before: having chaos in your private space. Hang clothes in the closet on a rod, and consider having Mom or Dad help you install a second rod just below (parallel to) the one you have; that creates double the hang-up space you had before! Group clothes together by color and function, either School Clothes/Fun Clothes, or Shirts/Skirts/Dresses/Pants. Some people like to group their clothes by color, such as red blouses mixed with red tee shirts. There isn't a rule here, just do what feels right to you; you can always change it later, say in a couple of weeks. Do the same for all the items in your closet, such as shoes, belts, baseball caps, and so forth. Try to hang things up on the back of doors, inside the closet, on hooks, and any other vertical space you can find. The less you have on your floor, the longer you'll be able to maintain your new system. Store the other KEEP items in your room: mementos go on your bulletin board, or into a box until you can hang a board for display. Stuffed animals hang in a toy hammock on the wall or sit on a shelf for display. School papers get organized into folders and hanging files, creating a brand new paper management system for the school year. And sports stuff gets tossed into sturdy tubs on the closet floor, under the bed, in a foot locker, or hung on the wall with a grid organizer rack. The cost of the organizer doesn't matter, but the system does. Use your imagination to set up the best way possible to find and use your favorite things. And the last and most important step in being an AwSOMe organizer is to MAINTAIN your new system. I know your mom or teacher has probably told you to "clean as you go", or finish one project before getting out another one. It may sound silly, but it really does work. Organized people have discovered that cleaning as you go, or filing as you go, keeps work from piling up and cleanup time is much less. So if you take 10 or 15 minutes a day to reorganize your room, putting things into their new home, or tweaking the system a little to work better for you, instead of spending all day Saturday cleaning your room, you'll be at the mall looking at the latest fashions with your friends. Happy organizing!
Good luck,
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