This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at NCSU chapter.
I can be messy. Everybody is. Everybody has walked into his or her apartment or dorm room, looked around, and just said “whoa…” Because we can’t believe the mess! There are clothes on the floor next to the door, the TV remote is in a different room from the TV, you have a clean pan sitting on your bedside table…and you don’t remember leaving any of them there! I will always be disorganized, and if you are now, you probably always will be too! There is nothing wrong with that! But everybody needs those little ideas to make the little changes that makes all the difference in the world. I’m talking about tips to help you around your apartment that will make your life a little easier.
- Post-it notes – These are ESSENTIAL. Put a stack of post-it notes where you hang out the most around your apartment. For me, it’s on my coffee table, where I sit with my computer at home. They are used for notes ranging from to-do lists to lyrics from a song you want to look up. Also, post-it notes are great for cleaning days! Before you start cleaning, put a bright colored post-it note on everything that needs to be cleaned or wil help you clean. For example, put it on the bookshelf you need to dust, your bed sheets that need washing, and the vacuum!
- Daily to do list – Get into the habit of making a to-do list. If you have a busy day, then that stressed and confused feeling can only make it worse! Do it on a piece of paper while you’re taking notes in history class, make one the night before, while you’re eating breakfast, etc. You don’t even have to look at the list the rest of the day, but it helps to visualize your day.
- Calendar – Buy a dry-erase board for your kitchen. It’s very useful whether you live alone or have roommates. Each roommate can choose a different color. Plus, you can decorate the board every month to make your kitchen brighter!
- Triple Sorter Hamper – I have one of these and I love it. It takes out those ten or so minutes you take to make color piles on your floor of your dirty clothes. You separate them into whites, darks, and colors and when you’re ready to wash, they’re ready for you, too! It’s about $40 at Target. Bag to save mismatched socks – We have all lost socks, and had a million mismatched socks in our drawers. To help that problem, put a gallon sized Ziploc bag on top of the dryer. So after you are done folding laundry, put the mismatched socks in the bag. Every month or so, look through the bag and I guarantee you will find at least two matching socks in there!
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Clothespins and string to hang pictures – This is a seriously cute and REALLY cheap way to display your pictures. Make a folder on your computer and fill it with pictures from Facebook or your camera that you’d like to develop. Put them on a CD or a flash drive and head to a place that can develop them. When I did this, it was about $0.27 for each 5×7 and a total of $13 for all my pictures. While they are developing, go to Michael’s and find hemp string – it’s that rough, thick, brown string used to make jewelry. It costs $1.99. Then find wooden clothes pins. A set of 50 cost me $1.54 at Target. If you don’t have any already, buy a pack of clear pushpins. Once you have everything back home, zigzag the string around your room. Then, hang your pictures with the clothespins on the string. It looks really fun and it is a fraction of the cost to buy picture frames for each photo. Plus, 25 frames would take up a ton of counter space…now you have free counters and a room full of memories!
- Coupon holder – Find a small basket or a letter holder for your kitchen and whenever you find coupons, put them in there! You can organize them by food, health, beauty, etc, or you can just drop them in. Also, whenever you leave a grocery store, walk by the self-checkout aisles. A lot of people leave coupons after they check out. There is a dispenser usually beside the receipt printer!
- Vase with rocks for kitchen tools – If you have an extra vase, put matching kitchen utensils on your counter! My drawers were getting very cluttered, so I found a glass vase, and filled it up about 4” with decorating rocks, which are cheap at Target. Then I found all of my silver-colored kitchen tools and stuck them in there. All of the other mismatched supplies are in the drawer, but more organized!
- Cubbies – These are so useful. I’ve had one for years, but maybe there are cubbies you can buy at Target. IKEA would be better, they are cheaper but they are also located in Charlotte – still worth the trip! Cubbies online at Target are about $100. I have DVDs in three cubbies, books in five cubbies, and the other four cubbies I have picture frames and artwork. I know they are pricey but they help with clutter, and a lot can fit in them.
- Cute bottles for soap and lotion – instead of having a big, tacky bottle of lotion sitting out, buy a cheap, $4 or $5 ceramic pump bottle. Then put your lotion in that and voila! You have a decorated sink counter! Same goes for soap in your kitchen and bathroom. Ceramic pump bottles look so much better than an industrial size Dawn Dish Soap bottle!
A lot of these items are cheap and efficient. Others, like the cubbies, are more expensive and they may have to be on your Christmas list. But I wouldn’t have mentioned them if they were not very, very useful to me! I understand how it feels to be tight with money, but after three years of college under my belt, I am finally learning the tricks I wish I’d known years ago!