Dorm life can be hectic especially if you’re in your final year of college. Most times you’re busy with projects and papers and probably have very little time for yourself, talk less of your room. When I was in freshman and sophomore year, I struggled so hard to keep my room and closet organised for even a whole day. Early morning classes meant frantically going through my drawers and clothes looking for what to put on and never putting stuff back to where they belong. However, after a few months into junior year, I finally found a system that worked.
Here’s tips on how to organise your dorm room and closet (and keep it that way for good 😁)
1. Keep it minimal: its important that you only bring what you need. When you have too much it makes it harder to find where to out all of it and also makes it easier for your room to get messy. Remember that less is more. You don’t need to bring 100 different clothes for 100 different outfits. You can have 20 clothes and create 100 outfits with them. Have a mindset of a minimalist clean and fresh space.
2. Bring a ton of Hangers: in freshman year, I had. probably about a dozen Hangers for my clothes and let me tell you, I had a LOT of clothes. I ended up not wearing most of them but still had them in my closet just in case. After hanging up 12 clothing items, I folded the rest. It looked pretty neat at a glance but it wasn’t workable. I could see my clothes because they were stacked one on top of the other, some were even way in. To get them out I would have to remove some clothes and start searching. Most times I was in a hurry and I’d just mess up the whole thing.
What I’d recommend is to get as many clothes hangers as you can for school because hanging up your clothes allows you to see them at a glance and makes it easier when you’re looking for something. Better to get super thin hangers so you can fit more in to your closet (closets can be super small. Mine was built into the wall and had doors). You can actually hang more than one clothing item on one hanger e.g. I typically have like 4 tops on a hanger. I hang up all my tops and jackets but I fold all my skirts and pants because I tend to have more tops than bottoms. Saves up a lot more room too.
3. Color coding: to make things easier also, you can color code you clothes. So on one hanger you could have just blue tops and on another, just black to make it easier to find a particular color anytime you’re looking. Not just color coding, you can also organise according to the texture of the clothes like maybe let all Chiffon textured tops be in front and then the thicker ones go at the back. Anything that works for you and makes your getting ready in the morning easier.
4. The importance of pouches: I love using pouches. It makes my life easier, sounds silly, but it does. I have a pouch for underwear and socks and another one for makeup. It’s just better to have similar items in one place so you don’t have to start looking for them and all.
5. A place for shoes: this tip is super important. I used to just leave my shoes under the bed before but that made them either dusty really fast. I also tried putting then in plastic bags but it makes some shoes wear out faster because air wasn’t getting to them. So what I learnt was putting your shoes in light weight bags was my best bet. It helped them to last longer and made my morning routine fast because I didn’t have to start cleaning or looking for one missing shoe. They were all in a bag at the bottom of my closet.
You can store your shoes wherever you like, on racks, in bags, in an ottoman, doesn’t matter. As long as it’s easy to to access.
6. Vanity items: depending on your dorm, you might have a vanity area. If you don’t, like me, that’s still okay but it means that you need to put your daily care items where you can get them quickly. My closet in school was compartmentalised into 3; so the top area I used for clothes, the middle area for snacks and the bottom for shoes and miscellaneous items. I put my daily care items on the top area because it’s the are I look at first. It makes it easier to just grab stuff from instead of crouching or bending down the bottom area.
I have only essentials at the top area like skincare items, hair cream, deodorant, and body spray. Then I keep perfumes on the bottom so they don’t fall on the floor and break (I don’t take perfumes out of their boxes cause the cardboard boxes kinda serves as an extra protective layer. I have has a sad case of one of my favorite perfumes falling and breaking so, I’m not taking no chances again)
7. Get extra storage: if you don’t have enough space for stuff in your room and you have a budget for it, go ahead and purchase extra furniture like drawers, stacking baskets or organisers. If your bed isn’t high enough, you can get bed risers and raise it up so you have more storage space under there for maybe drawers or even a mini fridge. Just work with what you have and if you don’t have much, you can purchase storage solutions.
8. Make it a habit of putting stuff back immediately you use it: this is the most important tip of all and it is to put stuff back immediately you have used it. It’s easy to forget or procrastinate on it but it will save you a lot of unwanted stress. Tidying up your room and closet is one thing but keeping it tidied up and organised all the time is a completely different thing on its own. You have to deliberately do it. Deliberately put stuff back and keep your stuff organised. As you continue to do it, you’ll form a habit overtime and it’ll become part of you and before no time, you’re closet will be organised all the time 😊
That’s everything I have for today. If you remember any other organisation hacks that I somehow forgot to out in, please mention then in the comments section.
Stay positive and I’ll see you in my next post!
Xo
Jess
jessinthemundane 