MESSY ROOM

Dear Jellybean,

I have the problem of a messy room. My room is very small and it gets messy all the time! You can't even see my floor, that's how messy it is! I am asking advice on how to organize it, make it look like a girl's room, and how to keep it clean and neat without cleaning it every single day.

Dear Writer,

Oh boy, if my mother could only see me giving advice about not being messy! I used to be the all-time messy room champion of the world, and my mother used to complain to everyone about it and really embarrass me! I am pleased to say that I am no longer Miss Messy, and maybe you can learn from my experience! I found that the biggest thing that helped me get my room cleaner was HAVING PLACES TO PUT STUFF!

First, I went through everything in my room and put it in giant piles - a pile of clothes, a pile of stuffed animals, a pile of books... you get the idea. Then I made a list of what kind of containers or furniture I needed to keep stuff off the floor. So I wrote down plastic container for my junk jewelry, a bookshelf for my books and CD's and tapes, a wicker box for my stuffed animals, a bulletin board for pictures of friends and notes and letters, and so on. Then I got the containers, and put everything in them, and that was so much effort and my room looked so great, that I pledged to do a minor clean up every Saturday (so it never got horribly over-messy again) and that's how I became Miss Not-So-Messy. Follow my example and maybe this strategy will work for you too. Now go clean your room!