How to Organize a Bedroom

If you spent fifteen minutes this morning looking for your favorite pair of shoes in your closet or searching for your favorite novel in your bedroom, you could benefit from some bedroom organization. While organizing a bedroom is time consuming, the benefits can be astounding and can turn your room into a peaceful sanctuary.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Boxes
• Sticky notes and pen
• Trash bags
• Cleaning supplies
• Storage containers

1. Prepare boxes to categorize the different items in your bedroom. Use cardboard or plastic boxes and sticky notes for this purpose. Be sure to clearly label each box, so there is no confusion about where items should go. Some categories that you might have for a bedroom include papers, books, magazines, clothes and shoes.

2. Label another box "Donate," for items you will give to charities, other family members or to friends. Also, prepare a box labeled "move to another room" for items that belong in another room in your house.

3. Go through your bedroom one area at a time to separate things into the categories you chose. If you find that you need to make another category of items, prepare a new box for that category. Be sure to use a trash bag to gather any items that you can throw out. Continue categorizing your items until you have placed all items in their appropriate boxes.

4. Clean your bedroom using cleaning supplies. Wash sheets and curtains. Clean windows and mini blinds. Vacuum the carpet or sweep the floor and dust off all surfaces.

5. Take a good look at your categorized items to come up with an organization plan. Figure out where you intend to put things in your bedroom. You may choose put clothes in the closet or in dresser drawers, for example.

6. Purchase storage containers such as bins, baskets and file boxes to store similar items together. Think about the specific items and the quantity of items you need to store when purchasing storage containers for your bedroom.

7. Put items away in your bedroom. Be sure to keep all like items together and store things by category. Doing so will not only keep you organized, but also it will make it easier for you to find items and see what you actually have in the future.

8. Keep up with your organization. Don't forget to put things away, remove unnecessary clutter and trash and clean your bedroom on a regular basis.

Tips & Warnings

• If you find that you don't have enough time to organize your entire bedroom in one day, you can organize separate areas of your bedroom on different days.
• Use a hamper for any dirty clothes you may have in your bedroom. Be sure to take your dirty clothes to the laundry when the hamper gets full.
• To keep your bedroom organized, remember that as you bring a new item into your bedroom, you should remove an item from your bedroom. This will prevent cluttering your organized bedroom.
• Don't buy storage containers before you've separated all items so you'll know what size boxes to purchase.

Resources

• Purchase storage containers here