Messy Room? Read This

Do you ever walk into your room and wonder what color your carpet or floor used to be? Let's put it this way...I have a sign taped to my door that says "This is a federal disaster area. Enter at your own risk."

For those of you who feel like cleaning your room would take a whole day, or who don't want to do it because you don't know where to start, try this. Follow these easy steps for cleaning your room and you'll be able to see that carpet or floor again in no time...

1. Grab all your cleaning supplies: a vacuum cleaner, broom, dustrag, liquid cleaners, etc. and put them next to or in the middle of your bed. This will ensure that you don't get distracted because you have cleaning supplies right where you sleep.

2. Grab all your dirty clothes and put them in a hamper, clothesbasket, or bag, and place them outside the door to your room. This way they are completely out of your room so you don't have to worry about moving them anywhere else if they get in the way while you clean. Out of sight, out of mind.

3. Hang up or fold and put away all clean clothes that may be laying around. If you have a lot of clean clothes around your room, skip this step and put them on the bed for later. This allows you to keep cleaning the rest of your room while holding your bed hostage so that you make sure to put your clean clothes away later.

4. Put all trash in the trashcan. If you have stacks of papers, newspapers, or magazines, get a paper bag to put them in for now. You can sort through them later and recycle the ones you don't want to keep. (You can ditch more of them than you think, trust me.)

5. Get a box or another clothesbasket, etc., to put random "stuff" in. You'll find it is a lot easier to put things back where they belong if the misplaced items are in one place and a pile of heavy textbooks isn't sitting right where your desk lamp is supposed to go.

6. Straighten all surfaces: desks, table-tops, dresser-tops, etc. and move everything else off the floor (either put it on your bed or on other furniture) so you can vacuum (or mop).

7. Vacuum or mop the floor and dust and clean all surfaces.

8. Put away your cleaning supplies and delve into that box on your bed, putting all your stuff back where it belongs. This actually goes faster than you would think.

9. If you left your giant pile of clean clothes until the end, put them away now. Then make your bed. Yea, you heard me. It's more satisfying for yourself and everyone else if you walk in a clean room and see a bed made.

10. Is that what color my carpet really is?

I hope you enjoy having the ability of walking from your door to your bed without tripping and killing yourself. Now there's just a few more things to remember. Always have a clothesbasket of some kind in your room so you can throw clothes in it right away, and keep a bag for recycling papers next to your desk or table. Folders in a binder (as much as I grew out of them before high school) are actually a great way of organizing important papers. By making sure you have a place for your stuff to go, you won't be compelled to just throw it on the floor somewhere or let it pile up. And look at it this way, you know where everything is when you need it!