How To Clean Up A Messy Room Fast

Discover how to clean your very dirty bedroom fast with this (fail-proof) step-by-step guide. But first…

I LOVE walking into my room and feeling like it's saying oh hey girl, you're back – I missed you! But I'm not gonna lie. I like to come home to that but that's not always the reality. I'm married and naturally, we share a bedroom. Which I also believe is the most insidious idea in the world! I don't want to roll my eyes at my husband every day for the rest of my life because he doesn't make the bed when he gets out of it and leaves dirty (and clean) clothes wherever. And did I mention the q-tips? They're everywhere. He should be free to live however he wants. Just not in my sacred space.

I get sloppy too. My closet stays in a state of emergency. And when I think about it, I don't like the pressure of having to maintain it daily for someone else. I'd rather everyone have a space to be free. But keep the community areas on point. Like 24-7. Rain, snow, sleet or hail. I might be a dictator of sorts.

But I'm venting so let me stop. Why is your bedroom dirty? Before we talk about cleaning, you should really ponder this for a second. Knowing the answer will help you keep the room cleaner in the future. And who doesn't want that am I right?

So before we dive into the tips, I need to give you a golden nugget to kick things off so that you can get in and get out with a clean bedroom fast.

👉 Skip doing a total closet detox or major decluttering project – save that for another day. Instead, let's focus on surfaces that are visible. The bed, furniture surfaces, floors, making sure the blinds are pointing in the same direction, stuff like that. As long as you can remember that, you'll be able to whip that room into shape in just a few minutes. And with that, let's get to it!

Clean Your Bedroom Fast & Keep It Clean | 7-Steps

Step 1 // Everything that doesn't belong must go!

Let's talk trash, dishes, and other undesirables that belong somewhere else in the house – not in your room. Simply grab a trash bag for the trash and a basket or a box for the rest. Spend a minute or two collecting everything and when you're done, just set it all outside the door. You can put that stuff away later.

This may be super helpful if your whole house is a wreck! // How To Clean Your House Super Fast if it takes you all day and night to get your house cleaned! You'll learn the strategies and techniques you need to get the job done faster!

You might need to read this // How To Clean A DISGUSTING Bathtub – And Make It Look Almost New – FAST!

Step 2 // Strip the bed – or make it!

Now's the time to wash those sheets if it's been a minute. Strip the bed, and start the washer so the sheets can get cleaned while you're cleaning the room – multitasking at its finest.

Skip the stripping and instead make your bed if your sheets were recently cleaned. For a perfect, (botox) smooth bed, pull everything off then remake the bed from scratch. A made bed gives the whole room a new vibe!

If you need to clean your room fast, making your bed is the single most important thing you can do to give your room an instant face-lift.

If you want to deep clean your bedroom, take this time to flip or rotate your mattress.

Step 3 // Separate the clean from the dirty-ish clothes!

Clothes lying around your bedroom can be dealt with quickly – even if they're everywhere. What's clean and what's dirty? Sort everything into 2 piles. Clean items get placed neatly on the bed and dirty clothes on the floor.

Once you're done sorting, dirty clothes go straight to the hamper. Wherever that may be. Clean clothes will be put away the lazy girl approved way – now's not the time for any Marie Kondo style folding.

Loosely fold items and tuck them into drawers. Hang as much as your closet will allow. The biggest key to getting your clothes put away quickly is staying focused – that means you need to put your phone on do not distract mode.

Step 4 // Let's cut through the surface clutter!

You should be seeing some real progress at this point so let's start focusing on surfaces. A little tidying, organizing, and straightening need to be done to pull the room together. Think dresser surfaces, nightstands, floors, desks, etc.

If stuff is kind of everywhere, make things easy on yourself by putting like with like. Books with books, photos with photos, hair stuff with hair…stuff. You get it! That'll make it easy to find a home for everything.

If you have a lot of stuff on your surfaces to the point that you're overwhelmed and don't know where to start, grab a basket and clear the entire surface. Consider the basket a temporary storage solution. You can put things away from the basket when you have time.

READ THIS // 5-Painlessly Simple Things You Need Now To Keep Your House Clean

Step 5 // Don't just dust. Clean furniture + surfaces!

An all-purpose cleaner is usually all you need to clean your bedroom fast. Be sure to use a slightly damp towel so that you can actually clean surfaces – remove drink rings, stickiness, and dust – in one swipe.

Pay attention to commonly overlooked areas: the bottom of furniture, headboards, doors, mirrors, picture frames on walls, light switches, and ceiling fans. These things make your room look flawless when done!

Quickly clean the surfaces in your bedroom by working from left to right, cleaning a section at a time.

If you want to deep clean your bedroom, now's the time to clean the blinds and baseboards as well. You always want to clean from top to bottom so be sure to clean the blinds before you clean surfaces in your room.

Step 6 // Clean floors using the FOIL method!

Whether you have carpets or hardwood floors, you need to clean your bedroom floors using the FOIL method. Actually, use this when cleaning floors anywhere in the house!

If you're a millennial, you might remember FOIL from a math class – first outside, inside last. Finally, a real-world application lol Use this method whether you're vacuuming, sweeping, or mopping.

When cleaning the floors, focus on the edges or outer areas of the room first. You can follow the baseboards or walls of the room. Once that's done, cover the middle and rest of the room like normal. This is the quick-n-easy way to have perfectly clean floors from corner to corner. Your bedroom will be so clean, they'll swear you hired a cleaning service!

Step 7 // Keep your bedroom clean with a simple nightly cleaning routine!

Use this routine to clean your bedroom fast

Prevention is the best medicine and when it comes to keeping your room clean, a daily routine is a fail-proof remedy. Every evening, set aside 10 minutes to declutter your room and plan outfits for the next day. Once per week, do a little light cleaning to keep the clean vibes strong – you'd only need 10-15 minutes. Easy to manage right?

Here's a nightly routine you can swipe // A Simple Nighttime Cleaning Routine For An Ultra Clean House if you want to keep your house clean, mornings stress-free and actually sit down for once without feeling guilty! Use this post as a guide or inspo for your daily cleaning routine.

Cleaning Planner Printables — The Clean Cure Etsy Shop is home to all the cleaning & decluttering magic you need to get your house under control once & for all!

How to clean your bedroom step-by-step //

I updated this post on 12/3/2020 to add a checklist you can swipe.

Step 1: Grab a trash bag & a basket or a box.

Step 2: Starting at the doorway, work your way around the room collecting trash from the floors first – can't clean anything if you can't walk – and then the furniture surfaces. Set the bag outside the door.

Step 3: Now grab your basket or box to collect items that don't belong in the room like dishes, papers, toys, etc. Set it outside the door when you're done collecting randoms. You'll sort the basket later. AFTER you're done cleaning.

Caution: If you decide to put the items in the basket away first, you may never get the room cleaned. A rookie mistake I've been super guilty of making a time or two.

Step 4: Strip the sheets from the bed & throw them into the washing machine. If your sheets are clean, just make the bed.

Step 5: If you've got clothes everywhere, this step is all about sorting. Put clean clothes in a designated place to deal with later or if you've time, start hanging them up now. You know where the dirty ones go.

Step 6: It's time to do a little dusting and cleaning. Grab a high duster, towel & all-purpose cleaner so you can hit the ceiling fan, wipe down the tops of your dressers, headboard, etc.

And this is the point where you can stage the room – make it look at insta-worthy;-) You don't have to give your paycheck to Target to give your room a magical touch. Simply make sure all your blinds are pointing in the same direction, pictures on the walls are straight, and if you don't know how to decorate, just arrange things from tallest to shortest. That always works.

Step 7: Are the sheets ready to be put back on the bed? Either make the bed now or swing back around to this later.

Step 8: Vacuum or sweep, then mop. Easy enough right? Just make sure you get along those baseboards and under furniture – as far as you can easily reach – and you'll pass with flying colors.

Step 9: Repeat all – or most – of the steps above weekly-ish to keep your room tamed.

And if you're kinda serious about getting your home under-control…

You can easily keep not just your bedroom clean, but the entire house – without taking a long boring course. Even if you work a full-time job or have a house full of sometimes (or never) well-behaved children.

The secret to keeping your house clean isn't a new vacuum – although I will admit I love taking a new vacuum for a spin around the old block. To manage your home so that it doesn't feel like a struggle, you simply need to get organized. And unlearn messy habits. And the trick is to do it in a way that works for your personality & schedule.

The Clean Vibes Planner Kit has the very simple tools you need to create simple but totally doable cleaning schedules & routines that work for you. As well as other life bettering tools like a meal plan kit to help you take deer-caught-in-the-headlights-look out of dinner time. And who doesn't need help with that?

Good things are meant to be shared! Save this to your Pinterest account so you can actually find it later and so others can see you've got all the good stuff!