Cleaning and Organizing Tips for Even the Messiest Person

Lower your expectations

It’s likely taken a while for your apartment to get to the level of messy that it’s currently at. Therefore, don’t expect to fix it all with the snap of a finger. The mess took time to make, so it will take time to clean up. Your best bet is to start small. Pinpoint one single area to clean or organize–a junky kitchen drawer, the jumble of mess underneath your bed, or maybe the bathroom counter. Give yourself, say, 30 minutes to knock out a single area within that allotted time. Set a timer on your phone, turn on some energetic tunes and get to it!

Focus on problem areas

Is there any particular untidy part of your place that stresses you out and you avoid it like the plague? That’s probably an area you should work on cleaning and organizing sooner rather than later. As daunting as it seems, the benefit will be worth it in the end. That’s simply because you’ll feel better every day without the overwhelming feeling you were getting when that area was at its worst. For example, if your desk is covered with bills and random documents, knocking that mess out once and for all will likely motivate you to sit down and get more work done.

Try the box trick

Need to declutter in the quickest, easiest way possible? Grab a large box. Go to any room in your apartment. Take a good look around. What don’t you need anymore? What haven’t you used in a long time? What did you forget that you even own? Take those items that no longer serve a purpose in your life and place them in the box. If you consider the box trash, then throw it out and forget about it. If those items could be of use to someone else, consider dropping the box off at a local donation center. The goal here is to go through your apartment regularly and box up items that are no longer needed. Some people don’t stop until they’ve placed 100 items in a box, but you can start small with maybe 10 or 20 items. Keep going until your place is clutter-free and stress-free!

Work in segments

If you tell yourself that you need to clean your bedroom, it probably sounds like an overwhelming task that you’ll never get done. That’s because cleaning a bedroom could include a lot of different things. Think and work in smaller sections to get that room cleaned. Clear off the junk on the nightstand. Fold the clothes in the corner chair. Vacuum. Change the sheets on the bed. If you break down your chores and compartmentalize them mentally, they likely won’t seem as daunting as cleaning a whole room.

Set a schedule

Once you get your placing looking good again, you will naturally want to keep it that way, right? Set a regular cleaning and organizing schedule that works for you. It doesn’t have to be anything too overwhelming. Mondays might be the day you do laundry. Tuesdays may be set aside for cleaning out the fridge and freezer. Maybe you can manage to do multiple chores in a single day. Just try setting a schedule. See what works. If the method you try doesn’t work out, just try a different approach.

Happy cleaning!