How To Organize Your Dorm Room Right

You might be a messy person at heart, but that doesn’t mean your room has to reflect your unbridled nature. No matter if it’s you who has the obsession with keeping clothes off the floor or your mother, attempting to keep your living space clean can only be for your own benefit. Without further ado, here’s my tips on decreasing the stress in your life that would come from having a messy dorm room.

1. Keep the dresser underneath the bed

If you want that extra space to put things, consider using your windowsill. Really, the room saved from having any drawers your university provides you pushed out of sight until you need to dig something out is a stress-free hassle. Save yourself the trouble of folding your clothes to put in the drawers and invest in a hearty amount of hangers to keep all of your T-shirts looking wrinkle-free.

2. File folders

All those spare papers and notes from your classes? Find some file folders with multiple pockets and arrange them by class so that you don’t end up shoving all the papers from your backpack or binder into every nook and cranny of your new home. This rushed organization method is highly effective, and you’ll thank yourself for it especially at the end of the year when you have to sort through the papers for resources you need and care about versus that college algebra quiz where you made a B.

3. Hooks on the walls

These can be used for jackets, wet clothes, necklaces, purses, or anything really. There are many brands out in the world which cater to the college crowd who are in need of temporary hooks which don’t leave marks. If they don’t fit well with the clean aesthetic you have going for your room, consider sticking them on the inside doors or on the sides of your closet- wherever is convenient.

4. Shoe rack

Got a lot of shoes? Those long plastic or fabric sheets with pockets will go perfect on the inside of your closet door as a method for keeping your sneakers organized away from your Crocs. It gets surprisingly easy to lose shoes when you’re running in and out of the dorm all day every day, hopefully this trick to organize your dorm room will keep you from having to re-hash that same $7 pair of flip flops from Old Navy.

5. Boot tray

Does it rain or snow a lot at your university? Do you plan to have people over? A boot tray was a lifesaver my freshman year. Make the rule that when somebody enters the room, they have to deposit any shoes, wet clothes, or umbrellas at the door. Those tiny vacuums everybody buys for their dorms can’t pick up anything let alone dirt, and having a few people confused when they walk in is better than their filthy shoes all over floor, that’s for sure.

If a lot of people come over or you have multiple roommates, you might consider making a rule that would limit the amount of shoes one person should have on the tray at a time for the sake of finding a good balance to organize your dorm room. A pyramid of shoes is nobody’s best friend if they’re all dirty or soaking wet.

6. Valet tray

No not the guy who takes your keys at the Oscars, these are small and stylish containers to keep everything of a certain kind organized and together. Mine typically holds scrunchies, earrings, and my keys, so whenever I’m in need of any of those three I know where to go. This might not be a big step to organize your dorm room, but everything helps, and keeping your student ID and keys in a consistent location will make everything go more smoothly in the long run.