How can I keep my room looking clean?

Question

I'm thirteen and I cannot seem to get my lazy butt to pick it up. There's clothes everywhere. After I use something, I throw it on the floor. There's Azumanga Daioh Mangas in one corner, shoes in another and clothes all over. If I actually knew how to plan it out in steps, that would help. And my the top of my dresser is a mess. My desk is okay, and My nightstand doesn't need much, but the room is a disaster. I need help. I want to be able to have friends over and not be embabrassed or anything. I'd also like my parent's to stop reffering it to a tornado. Help?

Answer 1

hi yuji. it is very brave of you to acknowledge your problem at your very young age. but you're never too early to start organizing and cleaning you room. it just shows that you are accepting that you have problems and you are ready to make actions in finding solutions. i'm proud of you.

ask yourself this questions:

what is the purpose of your room?

what do you want your room to look like?

do you feel calm whenever your inside your room?

do you know where your things are?

are they accessible to you?

if you were able to answer these Qs truthfully you are ready to tackle your problems.

i have some ideas that may help you achieve your goal.

it may be overwhelming for you at first but i think the best way for you to deal with your clutter is break it down. you may want to start with one drawer of your dresser or closet and work your towards the rest of your things.

you will be needing 3 boxes that are labeled, keep, trash, donate; a timer; damp cloth for dust or swiffer duster.

tackle one drawer at a time. time yourself, you have 15 minutes to do this task. take out all the things inside. if it's your dresser of cloths, if you haven't worn it for 6 months you may want to donate it chances are you don't want it anymore. if it has holes or it is beyond repair, throw it away.
once it's empty clean the drawer and put back your stuff. if your timer beeps and your not finish yet your holding on too much. let go of memories.

do the same with your other drawers.

if you have a lot of stuffed toys and it's crowding your room, let go of other toys, choose only 7 of your favorites. get a camera and take pictures of them neatly lined up on a bed or couch. even if you choose to donate them or just store them you still have the memories of your stuffed friends.

books. if you're done with them either you donate them or store them in neatly in a plastic bin. do not overcrowd your bookcase. you're still young you will acquire a lot of books.

do not leave any dirty clothes inside your room, put them away in a hamper.

make your bed every morning. just do it.

tidy up before you go to bed. you will have a good night sleep knowing that your room is tidied up when you wake up in am.

make it a habit to return your stuff in their places so it will be easier for you to find them again when need them.

empty your trash daily especially if you eat inside your room, you don't want your friends to smell what you ate three nights ago.
if you can do not eat inside your room, ants and bugs will crawl their way to your room because of your crumbs.

open your windows for 30 minutes to let the fresh air in and out with old.

it may be a lot to do for now but you will rewarded if you will make it a habit to clean and keep your room tidy.

good luck.

try to read organizing in & out for teens.

Answer 2

Here's a little trick I learned for doing things that are hard: "What's the minimum I could do right now?" Then do that. Sometimes if you see that you've made a little bit of progress, you will be motivated to do more.

You could also set a time limit: "I'll work for 10 minutes, and then if I don't want to do more, I'll stop." 10 minutes is better than nothing!

Another trick I have used is to put everything on the bed. Then, before I can go to sleep, I have to take things off the bed and put them away.
In the future, after your room is clean, you can keep it clean by simply putting things away after you use them. Not later, but right then.

You could also ask for help from your parents or a sibling. Just tell them what you've told us; you're a little overwhelmed and you'd really appreciate some help.

Keep it up! When your room is clean you'll feel so much better!

Answer 3

it will take some effort initially at least. first go through your things and decide on what you can throw away, give away and what you need to keep. then sort out the stuff you need, fold it up or hang it up depending on your clothes space. then go through your books and other stuff, do the same thing and arrange them neatly. make the bed and generally make the room look reasonably good. this can take a day or two so be patient. maybe have a friend over to help as it will be more fun to have someone with you than to do it alone. then you would have to maintain it that way or else you end up having to do major cleaning every week. so for that, stop being a slob and put your things away as you use them, it will really help. Hope this helps and that you get your phone soon. Good luck.

Answer 4

Before any of this, man up to your parents and say it quite frankly to them. Mom, dad, I suck at keeping my room clean and I know that really bothers you. It bothers me to. I want to have a clean room, and it's something I've not been good at. I want to do better and I'm going to. But while I'm getting better at it, could you not reference a tornado when talking about my room? Also would it be possible if I get it looking better we could pick up some things to keep it that way?

You'll figure out what you need like a hamper, or storage crates, file boxes later.

As for getting there . . . .

Break it down into pieces. Cleaning a whole room is a lot of work. The more pieces you can do it in the better. Divide laundry. Put laundry in baskets. Put books on a shelf. Etc. etc. etc.

Reward yourself for the hard stuff. (Avoid food as a reward, instead do something you wouldn't normally do, etc.)

Set a timer for 10 minutes and tackle one task until the timer goes off. Walk away and do something else for a while and come back to it.

Create stuff to keep your organized. It's your room and it's your stuff. Make the boxes and stuff that your organize with your own. The more you make it part of who you are the less it will seem like a chore and the more natural it will seem.

Get someone to help out if it's really bad. Order some pizza when your done. (Yeah I know, it breaks the reward rule I set earlier, but when it comes to getting other people to help you out, you wouldn't believe what you can get people to do for pizza! :) LOL)

Overall, quit thinking about how bad the room looks and start thinking about the things that you do that make it that way. Rooms don't destroy themselves, the inhabitants do. Change some habits, and more importantly find things that change those habits for you, and you'll keep a clean room.

Clean doesn't mean perfect, you can still be "messy" and not have a disaster area. Just control the mess. Like you can have a bowl on your dresser for your keys, wallet, etc and just make sure to always put them there. And then make sure that the bowl gets cleaned out every once in a while. Throw away receipts and other junk that gets collected there.

In addition clothes don't always have to be immediately washed, but they look less of mess if they are in a hamper. The bed doesn't have to be made perfectly, pulling up the bead spread will do. You get the point.

Answer 5

Well, first things first you need to STOP throwing things around your room and have a place for everything and everything in it's place.... So, start at one end of the room and work your way out.. Get some heavy duty trash bags, some storage bins or some baskets... Label TRASH,KEEP,DONATE.. Go through a few feet at a time.. Sort clothing first... If you haven't worn it in a yr. donate it, if it's torn toss it, If you love it and can't part with it keep it... The clothing that you keep you need to organize and put in your closet. . Seperate into CLEAN/DIRTY and put away clean clothes and put dirty clothes into a hamper.. If you wear something and it's dirty IMMEDIATELY put into hamper NOT on FLOOR... That will help keep the room tidy... NEXT move on to dresser/desk spaces and sort belonging.. .If you have CD's./DVD'S etc.. sort if there are things that you no longer listen to or watch try selling them to a used cd/record store or maybe to friends.. I like to keep cd's in a case logic binder it takes up much less room than the jewel cases.. I have my cases in a box in the basement... If you have a computer/ipod consider downloading all your music onto computer or ipod... I like to use baskets/container for small desk things to keep clutter under control.. Sort papers into TRASH/KEEP depending on what you are keeping you may want to get a file system and keep it in a neat drawer of your desk or even your dresser.. The important thing is to when you empty you bookbag/backpack etc.. that you trash things you don't need immediately INSTEAD of leaving them around the room to accumulate... Get yourself a message board/tack board to keep important papers in view... I hope this has helped somewhat.... Good luck

Answer 6

The hardest part is the getting off your fanny and cleaning it in the first place. After you get it clean, remind yourself how much it sucked to clean such a tornadoish pigsty every time you go to throw something on the floor and not put it in its proper place. If you pick up after yourself right away, it is so much easier and less time consuming than if you wait until it's so unbearable that you hardly know where to start.

Make it so that everything has a place and then make sure that everything gets put back in the same place. This also helps if you have a tendency to lose things! I hope this helps, I know it can be rough.

Answer 7

pick everything off the floor, get a trash bag and throw all trash away. Sort out your clothes into dirty or clean. Clean either hang or fold and put in dresser. next go to your dresser do the same thing put everything in trash, then what isnt trash see if its something you want to be displaying or get a box and put all things that are not trash but not worth displaying in there. then get a swiffer and start swiffering.

Answer 8

First off you should buy yourself a laundry basket and keep it out of the way. A room looks much cleaner when there are no clothes on the floor. Get in the habit of dusting your room once a week and pass the vacuum (or however you clean your floor) every three days. If you do this your room should look pretty good and clean.

Answer 9

Start by putting everything in the floor and lying around on top of you bed. Then sort and put things away. Throw away anything that you really do not need. Get youself a basket for dirty clothes to keep in there. The key is to spend 10 minutes every day picking up and making sure things are squared away and learning to pick up as you go.

Good luck!

Answer 10

Start by the doorway to your room and work in by picking up the clothes then the stuff that is actually garbage then the bed area above and under, next area near closet, then near TV and dressers then just pick up the middle of the floor.

Answer 11

haha i have the same problem....my solution?
start with trash, get a trash bag up there and just throw all the trash away
next pick up clothes and fold them, sort into clean and dirty
next put everything that was on the floor or on a dresser in a big pile in the center of the room, then sort it into piles according to where the stuff goes in your room, then take each pile and put it away continue with the piles untill you are done
then dust
then vacume
listen to loud music the entire time and sing along to make the time go by faster

hope this helps! good luck cleaning!!!
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