Always Start with the Bed

Cleaning up can be intimidating, but you always have to start somewhere. Making the bed immediately gives more surface area to use for the next steps. The bed is what usually takes up the most space in the bedroom, making it a perfect tool for sorting and organizing the rest of your things.

Start Small then Go Big

It is easy to get overwhelmed with a task as big as sorting out the entire contents of a room. Do not assume that decluttering will only take a few hours or just one day. If this is the first time in a long time that you’re doing this, then chances are all the items you will find have been accumulated over a number of years. Cut yourself some slack.

Focus on one small area at a time. The bedside table or the dresser, for example. Work on it, complete it, and move on to the next small space. Repeat the process every day and soon, these small spaces will add up to a big part of your room spick, span and already decluttered.

Categorize Your Clutter

Have four bins ready to catch the things you will find in your room. One bin is for trash, the other for donations, the next is a hamper, and the final one will be a catch-all bin.

Things that you obviously have no use for should either go to trash or donations. All dirty clothes go to the hamper and clean ones should be returned to the closet. If you’re feeling inspired, clear out the closet too, and find things from there to put into trash or donations. Your catch-all bin is for items you are not certain where to return. This bin will be revisited at the end of your decluttering so you can put some things back in their rightful place.

Do Not Hesitate to Bin It or Donate it

At the end of your cleanup, the catch-all bin will start to look like a treasure chest. Do not get tempted to return everything back where you found them.

Group all the items in this bin according to their similarities: clothes, jewelry, cosmetics, books and so on. For all repeating items, the general idea is to put it to donations or trash it. For example, if you have three kinds of the same makeup brush, do you really need all of them? Choose the best or the newest one to keep, bin the rest and move on to the next item. At the end of this, the only things left should be the items you really love.

Remove Unnecessary Furniture

The small items are the easiest to get rid of, so give yourself a pat on the back if you’ve completed steps one to four. The real challenge is saying goodbye to bigger items like bulky furniture, which contributes a lot to the cluttered feeling in the bedroom. Freeing up floor space is a great way to instantly make a space look and feel roomier. Swap furniture pieces for efficient storage solutions, like opting for wall-mounted shelves instead of a standing book cabinet.

Containers, Containers, Containers

Tabletops tend to collect a lot of small articles, which when put together becomes a buildup of clutter. Stash those loose items into beautiful containers like bowls, trays or lidded bins. Dressers, side tables and grooming spaces will look much better decorated with beautiful boxes, while keeping all personal items neatly contained.