by Jennifer Swanson
If there’s one place in your home you need to keep in order, it’s your bedroom. Sure, you could successfully argue for tackling other areas of your home first (like your kitchen), but you don’t sleep there (although you might wake up there). If you can’t sleep well or wake up relaxed due to a cluttered bedroom, you are inviting extra stress into your life.
Here are a few quick tips to help start and end your day well.
1. Make your bedroom a place of peace, quiet, and relaxation. Remove from view or store anything that hinders a good night’s rest and a pleasant wakeup in the morning. Reserve your nightstand only for things you need to help you sleep. Consider eliminating from your bedroom all television, newspapers, talk radio, etc.
2. Sort everything, grouping similar items together, to get a better idea of what you have. Then be realistic about what you need to keep. Finding “a place for everything” often means letting go of items you don’t need and giving them to someone else who can use them.
3. Arrange hanging garments in your closets by length to create more storage space below. Keep clothes and accessories off the floor by installing hooks, pegs, or back-of-door organizers behind bedroom and closet doors. Store items you use most often in the most convenient spaces, and store the rest in harder-to-reach areas. See “Clean Out Your Clothes Closet” for more closet organizing ideas.
4. Arrange your furniture with efficiency in mind. Put dressers near closets, bookshelves by the bed, and extra blankets in underbed storage. Think beyond the room you’re in, and consider swapping or borrowing furniture from other rooms. Furniture sliders, available at many home improvement centers, ease the job of rearranging.
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5. Create child-friendly, accessible spaces in kids’ bedrooms. Observe your children to get a good idea of which items are their favorites. Periodically, rotate the others in and out of storage to control the clutter and give your kids some variety. With older children and teenagers, pick your battles carefully.
6. Maintain bedroom organization with simple routines. Each night, clear the surfaces (bed, dressers, floor, chairs, etc.) of any clutter that accumulated during the day. Choose tomorrow’s outfit and hang it on a designated hook. Then begin each day by putting away your pajamas, making your bed, and opening the curtains.
Once you experience the peace of a simplified bedroom, you’ll be more determined to keep it that way. No matter how chaotic the other parts of your home may seem, you’ll always have one restful place you can count on.
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