A Tween's Guide to Room Cleaning!

When your parents tell you to clean your room, what do you do? Do you shove everything under your bed? Stuff things in closets and drawers? All of the above? Well, this is not really the correct way to clean your room, even if it does seem like the easy way out! When you hide everything in random places, the junk starts to overflow, and you never know where things are! Here are some tips that will help your room be clean and organized, and make room cleaning quick and easy!

1.) If you have overflowing avalanches all over your room, chances are, you need to weed out some stuff! Here are some tips on how to do so!

• First of all, set up 4 bags or mats. One for trash, one for paper recyclables, one for plastic recyclables, and the last for donations to toy drives or Goodwill. Set the things you want to keep in a neat pile to the side; you will organize them later.


• You can recycle letters that were sent home from school or church long ago announcing events that have already happened.


• You can also recycle phone numbers of people you met at summer camp, the park, etc., that you don't plan on seeing again and forgot almost everything about. Chances are, if you don't remember them that well, they won't remember you either.


• It is also pointless to keep every single coloring page, paper, and piece of artwork you made in pre-school and Sunday school. Pick out your favorites and get rid of the rest. You can type the stories and songs you wrote when were young and save them on your computer and/or flash drive. (Flash drives are good because if your computer crashes, you will always have your special pictures and documents on the small but helpful flash drive!) You can also take pictures of projects and artwork to get them out of the way. ( I call them "Throw Away Pictures"!) You obviously can't keep everything you make over the years!


• You can hand down or donate toys that you are too old for or don't need. Party favors are good examples. Some are useful, but most are just small toys like bubbles, bouncy balls, and plastic rings. The ones you don't want, your younger siblings or the less fortunate kids that don't have toys might love them, and will be happy to get them. If you find left over school supplies from last year, you have several options. By now you probably have bought all of the school supplies for this year, so you could either keep the old ones for back up or donate them to one of your teachers, just make sure they still are in good condition and work.


• There are 2 important things that you need to keep in mind while weeding out. The 1st thing is that if you have survived this long with the item shoved in the back of the closet, you can probably live without it! The 2cnd is that if you are not sure if you want to keep something or not, go ahead and keep it. If you get rid of something, you can't get it back, so discuss with your parents what you want to keep and get rid of, because they might want you to keep what you would have never thought of keeping. Remember, your parents are wise adults that are experienced in this area! They were in your position once too; they can help you!

2.) After you finish weeding out, it's time to start organizing! This will help a lot when you are looking for something later. Here are some tips about organization!

• Have a certain place to put calculaters, text books, folders, and papers that always stay at home. Keep them together in one place so that you will always know where they ar


• Keep odds and ends together in a small bag, drawer, or neat pile.


• Have a somewhere like a cabinet or drawer to keep all of your games or puzzels. If you are in the mood for a game, you will be able to see all of your options at once without having to dig through your room!


• Keep all of your art supplies in a cabinet, closet, or drawer. Have some sort of way of knowing which supplies are have been opened, and which are unopened so that you won't, for example, open a new box of crayons when you already have 2 opened.


• You might want to find some storage bins and cadies to put your make-up, jewelery, and hair accesories in.


• You need to make sure that you put your things were you will be able to find them easily when you need them.

I hope these tips are helpful to you when you're cleaning your room. Every once in a while weed out and organize to suprise your parents with a neat room. I just resently cleaned my room and my parents were impressed with the results. They couldn't believe how organized it looked! I am happy to share these tips with you, and I hope they work wonders for your room too!