How to organize a teenager’s bedroom

Teens are busy, busy people. They often get a bad rap from adults who call them lazy. But in my experience, which includes raising five daughters and working professionally with troubled teens, they are ambitious, fun, and interesting. Teenagers are my favorite age.

However, a lot of fights happen between parents and teenagers because they don’t keep their rooms straight and clean. Out of every five girls I had one who was habitually disorganized. We finally agreed that she would keep her bedroom door closed and clean and organize it once a week. That worked for both of us. Now that she is an adult and has her own place, she is organized. Teach the correct principles and they will eventually rule themselves.

A teenage girl asked me to help her organize her bedroom, so let’s get to that:

He told me that his room is so cluttered that he avoids it. With a few tips and systems in place, this can become your refuge from the world and a place to take your friends for a chat and a good time.

You have recognized that there is a problem, so now what you need to do is start working from the inside out in your room. Turn on your favorite music, get a gift, and enjoy. Start in your closet by taking everything out. I know this is a lot of work, but I suspect that half is already on the ground. You need to evaluate what space you have and get rid of all those clothes that you never wear because you don’t like it; need repair, do not fit or are out of date. If you have seasonal clothes:

Place the hanging items in the back of your closet on the bar or move them to a different closet in your house if there is space.

Fold your clothes and place them in a clear plastic container with a lid and place it on the top of your closet shelf. Label the container (seasonal clothes or you can put winter, summer, ski etc).

Or use the drop-down bins under the bed to store seasonal clothing. If your bed is not high enough to do this, buy bed risers and that will give you an additional six to eight inches of space under your bed.

Whatever you do, don’t store the clothes you wear now with the clothes you wear at a different time of year. Turn your clothes in and out.

You have premium spaces in your bedroom and you want these areas to be available for the things you use most often.

Now that you’ve taken everything out and looked at each piece of clothing, hang them in the closet, gathering similar things: shirts, skirts, pants, dresses, etc. Have a place for your shoes, either a shoe rack on the floor or one hanging on the closet rod or above your door.

Then go to your dresser and get everything out of your drawers. If you want, you can make one drawer at a time. Use containers in your drawers to keep everything together and organized. Neatnix has great bins to organize drawers, I use them and I was even amazed at how much time they saved me.

Your desktop is next. Go to your desk drawers and do the same, but if you really want to start with clutter on your floor, that’s fine. Pick up only the clothes at this time. Hang or fold clothes as you pick them up or put them in the basket if they are dirty. Assign a different drawer for different things, one for sportswear, another for underwear, t-shirts, shorts, pants, and nightwear. Of course you can fold in the drawers; Again, containers will make your life easier, as things will stay neat in their intended place.

Keep a basket in your closet, one that hangs, or one on the floor. You can store it in the corner of your room, get one that is cute and looks cool. The wicker baskets are pretty, they can also be spray painted any color you like.

I know this takes a long time, the mess didn’t happen overnight. Take the time to get a full job done and then you won’t be wasting your time every day or avoiding your room due to all the clutter.

If you have sports equipment that you have to keep in your room, get a basket to hold the rackets, balls, whatever. If you don’t use them very often, see if they can fit on a closet shelf or in a drawer under the bed. You can store your bed sheets under the bed in a removable container if necessary. Fold the top and bottom sheets and put them in the corresponding pillowcase to keep them neatly folded. This also works well for the linen closet.

Get everything out of your cubbies and drawers in your desk area. How many pens and pencils do you have? Get rid of all but five. Keep only the ones you really like. It doesn’t matter if it’s a good pen if you don’t use it. It is a waste of time to take a pen and put it away because you don’t like it and don’t use it. Put containers in your drawers to hold everything you put in them, pens, paper, glue, notepads, tape, computer disks, pins for a cork board, notes from friends, whatever you keep in your drawers.

Then when you’ve used something, it’s easy to put it away because you can simply toss it into the container where you live. If you don’t have drawers on your desk, organize the top of your desk in the same way, using containers for everything. Buy cute containers, again Neatnix has great organizers that you can use. Have a container for your school papers on top of your desk, where it is close at hand, or in one of the drawers. Don’t put away all your school papers. Keep a sample of your work. Place them in a large manila envelope and place it on the shelf in your closet. Save just one envelope per year.

Make your bed every morning and I mean every morning. If you do school work in your bed, it will be ready for you when you come home from school, you and your friends can sit on your bed and talk, and at night it will be ready to lower the sheet to sleep. If you’re doing your homework in bed, be sure to put it in your backpack for the next day (hang your backpack from your desk chair) or, if it’s in progress, it can be on your desk, in the designated basket.

Makeup, manicure supplies, perfumes and other personal things together. Always Collect Likes – Get cute containers and put all your makeup in one place. You can even have separate containers within a larger container. Do the same with the other things. Things that you don’t use very often or put them on a shelf in your closet, if convenient, or in the bottom drawer of your dresser or in a space that is not a premium space but is easily accessible. Another good organizing container that has more than one use is an over-the-door shoe rack. May contain scarves; baskets of things like makeup, hairbrushes, hair dryer, curling iron and other girly things.

Now is the time to collect whatever is left on the ground. Put these things in your desk drawers, recycling bin, trash bin, or ‘take things to other rooms that shouldn’t be living in your bedroom’ basket.

If you eat in your room, leave the dirty dishes by the door when you’re done and when you leave the room they can go back to the kitchen. While cleaning your room, get some kind of container: a basket, a box, a sack to put the things that need to go to a different room. Once you’re done with your room they come back, don’t waste time doing it one at a time.

Now you have a system in place: everything has a place and you put everything in its place. I know that doesn’t always happen, but if everyone has a house, they will have a better chance of living there. When you try on your clothes and you’re in a mad rush and leave them on the floor, make a pact with yourself that you’ll hang them up before you go to bed, no matter what. If you threw them out because you really don’t like them and will never use them, recycle them and don’t clutter your space with them.

By allocating a place for everything and having containers to store them, you will be able to get into the habit of storing things so that clutter does not accumulate. You will like your bedroom again and you will not avoid it. Your mom will say, “Why are you spending so much time in your room? I never see you.”

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *