De-stress by decluttering your space
By Christie Melhorn, September 19 2017 —
By the time midterms hit, your room will likely reflect your hectic schedule — clothes scattered around your room, an overflowing garbage can and dust collecting on your dresser. Keeping your space clean during school is as impossible as cleaning every typo out of an essay, but you can at least lower the severity of the student stress storm. The following tips can help you declutter your room and your mind to keep your life more organized.
Purge your wardrobe:
Uproot the wrinkly T-shirts and pants dwelling in the bottom of your dresser. Be ruthless. Don’t second guess yourself if your first impulse is to toss something. Cleaning out your dresser will save you time and frustration when getting ready after accidentally sleeping in. Alongside your neglected clothes, you can discard bad or embarrassing memories attached to them. Although some things are worth keeping — the very outdated bodycon dress I wore in for my 21st birthday in Vegas will forever hang in my closet — it’s also a good idea to keep a few things that you wouldn’t mind getting dirty while doing chores.
On campus, you can donate unwanted items to the Campus Community Closet (CCC) — a program designed to provide everything from clothing to household items like linen and towels to students at no cost. There is a CCC textile bin in front of the Yamnuska residence hall. You could also arrange a clothing swap with friends or donate to local charities and thrift stores like Value Village and Clothing for a Cause. Just make sure your donations are clean and functional. No one wants the shirt you stained on half-priced wine night. Click here for more information on where you can donate your belongings in the city.
Maximize storage space:
Not everything you own needs to be visible for the world to see in your room. Use the space under your bed to store anything from clothes to books to bodies — just kidding. Ikea sells large plastic storage drawers starting at $15. Installing shelves in your room can also be a great way to store extra stuff, especially if space is tight and you can’t fit a bookshelf.
In your closet, hang more than one item on a hanger to conserve space. Also try rolling your clothes instead of folding. This will save you time and decrease the likelihood of leaving your clean clothes to either live in the laundry bin or in a heap on the floor until the end of time.
Use dividers:
Everyone has a drawer in their house — either in the kitchen or your nightstand — crammed with assorted odds and ends. Fit your drawers with square dividers to prevent the items dumped in there from tangling. There will be a day where you need that extra charging cord or toonie sitting in there. It’ll be nice to simply open the drawer and retrieve it rather than extracting a mutant ball of wires, paper clips, melted lip chap and whatever else was abandoned in there.
It’s highly unlikely that your room will stay neat and tidy for the duration of the semester, but it also doesn’t have to be a complete war zone. You’ll have enough fighting to do between classes, a nagging cold, working and trying to make it to your best friend’s birthday. Having at least a semi-organized room will give you extra time and energy to pour into those things rather than fishing textbooks out of the debris of your room.