It’s almost winter break again, and you know what that means — inspections. Do you know what else that means? A month away from your dorm. If you’re anything like me, you like to power clean my dorm before winter break for two reasons: 1. I don’t want to be fined during inspections and 2. I like to return to a nice clean home when January rolls around.
Here are five tips for reorganizing and cleaning up your dorm for this holiday season.
Purge
There are two different types of purging: donation and trashing. Donation is when you go through the things that have some semblance of value to you, and you decide what you no longer need. Maybe you bought a shirt three years ago, but you’ve never worn it. Well, now’s the time to stop moving it back and forth — donate it. Trashing, on the other hand, is going through all of the miscellaneous items you may have picked up from the involvement fair back in September or going through the box in the corner that contains all of the broken things that you keep meaning to fix but never have time to and throwing them away. It’s time. I promise, if you haven’t needed it yet, you probably will never need it.
Declutter Your Surfaces
I’m very bad at this. I tend to come home put down my stuff on any clear surface I can find and then that item will reside there until I need it again. It just takes so much effort to put it back where it belongs when all I want to do is lie in bed after a long day of school. However, one of the first steps to cleaning is decluttering. Make sure everything you own has a home and try to remember to return it to that location after you use it. You know what they say: an organized room leads to an organized life.
Declutter Your Surfaces
I’m very bad at this. I tend to come home put down my stuff on any clear surface I can find and then that item will reside there until I need it again. It just takes so much effort to put it back where it belongs when all I want to do is lie in bed after a long day of school. However, one of the first steps to cleaning is decluttering. Make sure everything you own has a home and try to remember to return it to that location after you use it. You know what they say: an organized room leads to an organized life.
Do Your Laundry
Is your laundry basket overflowing? When’s the last time you washed your sheets? Wash your clothes if you haven’t in awhile. I know it may be tempting to just wait it out and say “I’ll just wash them when I get back home,” but honestly, that just makes packing more difficult. Block off a Thursday afternoon or a Saturday morning and wash your clothes and sheets. There’s no better feeling than climbing into bed with fresh sheets, and your suitcase will thank you if you do wash your clothes ahead of time.
Sit Back and Admire Your Work
You’ve worked hard this semester, and you’ve worked hard on organizing your space. Classes are almost over, and you’re already stressed about final exams, projects and papers. Take a little bit of time to appreciate all of your hard work. Step out of your room, close the door, count to three and walk back into your organized, clean room. You’ll hopefully feel a sense of relief flood over you, and you’ll be able to lie down on your clean sheets, turn on your favorite show and take a nap.
