Would you rather spend a half hour of your Sunday in college cleaning, or perpetually wake up in a musty dorm room, aching to be home where the laundry fairy folds your clothes? (thanks mom!) Now I know my answer, and I won’t leave you in suspense- it’s obviously Sunday Reset! And look I get it, giving it such a title sounds daunting. But here’s how to do it the college freshman way: complete with breakfast at the dining hall, no alarm clock, and constant compliments on how good your room smells!
Step 1: Turn off that Alarm!
Okayyy, I may have lied a little bit. My Sunday reset starts on Saturday night (or, who are kidding, sometimes it is Sunday morning…). But I don’t set an alarm! I am going to be so much less motivated to do my housekeeping jobs if I am waking up at the crack of dawn to do them, not to mention exhausted. The weekend is a college student’s time to rest! You’ve earned it. So turn off that alarm and sleep! I promise your room is just as messy at 7am and at 11am.
Step 2: Teamwork
In a 15 by 10 foot shoebox, either everybody counts or nobody counts. The key to a quick but efficient Sunday reset, and honestly dorming in general, is communication. My roommate Sam and I agreed very quickly that we were going to keep our space clean. We both have very demanding majors and during flu season in Buffalo we cannot be getting sick! So we made a list of steps for our Sunday reset that live on our fridge whiteboard. We swap what we do every week to keep things interesting.
Our dorm room is TINY. And doing chores requires space. While we’re both moving around, the room can feel stifling. So we take turns being in there while we clean. Last week, I vacuumed while Sam was in the dining hall grabbing breakfast. She disinfected while I was in the gym. This whole process relies on communication. Sharing a space is not just sleeping within 5 feet of each other, it is taking care of each other, open communication, and doing your part to stay organized!
Step 3: Vacuum
But Maddy, I don’t have a vacuum! Trust me, someone on your floor does. Maybe your version of vacuuming is dusting under your chairs with a paper towel, or sweeping up crumbs with the communal broom from your kitchen. Either way, you must get the particles off of your floor. Winter in Buffalo is brutal, and there were a couple of weeks there when the salt from the snow outside had been wreaking havoc on our room. I could barely put my foot down without landing on some particle that my boots dragged in. A 5 minute sweep under your desks, beds and over your floor is a true game changer, and the basis for a good Sunday reset! This step also helps a lot with organization, we tidy up because we know we have to make way for the vacuum!
Step 4: Disinfect
For this penultimate step we are going to turn to our good friend Lysol, or if you are a DIY gal, your spray bottle of water and white vinegar. Sam and I use both wipes and spray, but that is just personal preference. The wipes are for the surfaces: desks, dressers and our fridge. The spray is for areas surrounding our freshly made beds, and in the words of my kindergarten art teacher “Just a dot, not a lot!”, with spray. The smell of our Lysol is STRONG, so we always finish this step off with a generous Febreeze. Our favorite right now has been the collaboration with Wicked: For Good, in the scent “Wonderfullest Woods”, though they did discontinue that, so I make this my formal plea to reinstate it in the name of a Theatre Kid’s Sunday Reset!
A quick addendum to this step is that Sam and I have an Ice Maker in our room! We use her very frequently; her name is Olaf 2 (we don’t talk about what happened to Olaf 1…). Every other Sunday, we use a cleaning tablet and run a cleaning cycle through Olaf, and wipe down the inside of our fridge!
Step 5: Enjoy your Sunday!
As you can see, Sam and I’s Sunday Reset is a bit of a “Choose Your Own Adventure”. Maybe your dorm is a triple, maybe you have a corner room and 5 extra square feet of space (and if that is you I am deeply envious). But nonetheless, these steps are a guideline for you and your roommate(s) to find what works best for you!
When all is said and clean, you should have the rest of your Sunday to enjoy! Crawl back into that freshly made bed, put on an episode of Bridgerton, or do that Bio Homework you have been putting off. But you must thank me when your friend comes to your room on Tuesday and asks you “How does it smell so good in here?”