Cluttered room

[annice22]

I have a question about clutter. Are there any "neat freaks" here because I can not seem to keep my room clean it is driving me crazy because this not the type of person that I see myself as. I see myself as a neat person trapped inside of a messy person.

Was there ever anyone that use to be a messy/cluttery person and is now a neat person?

It seems like I would clean my room and then within a couple of days it would look like a pig pen again. I know one thing is that I don't have alot of time because I am so busy.

So if anyone has any cleaning tips, beside just pick up the mess. I would so appreciate it.

Thanks GCers.

Annice FSS

[Dionysus]

Many people trip as they enter my room. So, I can say I have a little clutter.

It seems like I would clean my room and then within a couple of days it would look like a pig pen again.

My mother says the exact thing. Her issue is that she simply does not have enough storage space. That could be your problem.

[OrigamiTulip]

I swear by FlyLady.

This is what I did:

1. I bought some (ok, a lot of) of those Rubbermaid tubs.
2. I organized my stuff by categories and put the categorized stuff in individual tubs.

The end result I know where all my stuff is and it's not junky anymore.

[ZTAngel]

When I was still living at home, I was a slob. I had clothes and other random stuff everywhere. When I went to college and moved into the dorms, I realized that I was living in a room that was 3/4 the size of my bedroom at home and I had to share it with another person.
I started organizing EVERYTHING. I think the key is to put things in some sort of order so that it's easier to find. My CDs are in alphabetical order. My clothing is in color order. Obsessive compulsive? Maybe. But, it has helped keep my room clutter-free for the last 4 years. If I'm looking for my red halter top, I immediately go to the section of my closet where I keep my reds. This way, I won't be going through my closet and throwing clothes on the floor in attempts to find this one shirt. During attempts to find a shirt, I would throw my clothes on the floor and not pick them up again until my next laundry day (if even then). They'd get all dirty and wrinkled and I'd just have to wash them again. Now everything in my closet is easy to find.
I also have a wooden filing cabinet in my room to keep papers organized so they're not all over my floor.
My friends call me a neat freak but it took YEARS to get this way.

[MeLikey]

I was very messy at school, and when I was in the dorms it didn't help much either that my roommates were both neat freaks so it made me look 10 times worse... when I lived in the house, my sisters would joke about having to do a running start just to jump over all the crap on my floor to be able to sit on my bed-- it was raised on cinder blocks-- the way that makes the bed the highest so I could shove as much crap under there as possible. I had 2 rather large plastic containers that fit under my bed nicely-- 1 was for t-shirts and the other was for random crap, ie. stationary, blank floppy discs, etc. I was always running around busy that I just kinda let my room go-- at least that was my excuse for my messy room! But I'm still trying to recover from my messy ways, I type this as I was about to clean my room 20 minutes ago....

[CatStarESP4]

I admit that I am a messy person. I had a roommate who was such a neat freak who suggested that I find another place to live because she couldn't take it anymore. (She did manage to live with me for an entire academic year though!) However, I am trying to change my ways, but old habits die hard!

[pinkyphimu]

i second fly lady! i am still pretty new to it...and haven't been following it 100%, but they have really good ideas and it is easy to follow the parts that you are ready for and ignore the ones you don't.

[honeychile]

I have tears in my eyes, I'm laughing so hard! Just yesterday, I had an avalanche of papers cover me, my keyboard, and pretty much every around it! I've got to read about this Fly Lady!

I have tons of stuff from genealogy, DAR, ADPi, soccer, and other interests that I'm unwilling to part with. I have started organizing some things into notebooks, though. If I could get the rest of my life as organized as my genealogy, I'd be thrilled!!

[absolutuscchick]

I am definitely a messy person when I have my own room. But when I shared a room freshman and sophomore year, I was somewhat neat because there was no space for junk!! Often times my desk would get covered in junk, but I'd have to clean it up so I'd have space to work on. Now, with my own room, I have like three baskets where I dump clean clothes as I look for stuff to wear and like every week I get around to rehanging them, and my desk permanently has a bottle of vodka and stacks of paper..as well as my dresser...

My advice is to basically make a place for everything; drawers for your files, color coded closet, bookshelf for your books, shoe racks, drawer organizers for your desk and bathroom, the whole nine yards. It really makes it alot easier to clean up if everything has a home. That way it's just a matter of putting it away, which is fairly easy (unless you're just lazy like me...). When you don't have a home for things, its definitely a daunting task to clean.
Another suggestion I have is when you find stuff in your room, look at it and ask yourself "have i used this recently? Do I have a definite occasion I'm going to use it again?" If the answer is "no," THROW IT OUT!!! You don't need it!!

Hope my advice helped...I have been known to have somewhat of an organization fetish!!!

[CarolinaCutie]

The FlyLady is my saving grace! I love her!

[Lady Pi Phi]

FlyLady has some great tips. When I go home I'm going to apply them to my room. Because I am really messy. I've done the rubbermaid thing too and all I have it several rubbermaid bins in my room and I don't know where anything is so I end up dumping them out on the floor to find what I'm lloking for, and of course I don't clean up my mess so it just gets worse