Thanks for joining me. This episode is going to be a
bedroom and laundry reset. In case you're new to the show,
I'm Ronnie and you're listening to Clean with Me, the podcast
where I talk you through cleaning your house step by
step. Let's get right into the
episode. It is time to start a load of
laundry. That way, later on, you can do a
laundry switch and fold and put away some clothes.
There is going to be an opportunity to put away some
residual clean laundry during the episode in case you have
some. And by residual laundry, I'm
talking about a load of clean clothes that you're going to
pull out of the dryer or maybe a laundry basket or some larger
bin where you keep your clean laundry that you don't fold
right away. Hopefully you're folding stuff
right out of the dryer, but some of us don't always do that,
myself included. So I do have a place for clean
laundry in case I have to just put it somewhere.
Yes, that's one of my housekeeping weaknesses, and
that's OK. I do a lot of other good things
in my life. And you know, housework isn't
everything, but it's definitely something that we need to set
aside time for and it does boost our mood and keep the people in
our house happy and all kinds of benefits.
So I'm glad you tuned in today. Again, hopefully you're starting
a load of laundry. Maybe you need to wash some
towels and underwear, just kind of a survival load.
Or maybe you want to strip a bed and start washing sheets and
pillowcases. If you're washing a comforter, I
recommend hanging it up to dry if at all possible because I
hate getting into that cycle where I have to kind of readjust
the comforter and then start the dryer over again.
So I like to just hang mine up. I hang comforters either over
chairs or over this room divider that I have.
That way I can keep the laundry going.
I can put something else into the dryer instead of restarting
it to dry that comforter. Maybe you have a clothesline out
in the backyard if you have an older home, but I just recommend
hanging up comforters if possible unless you have a super
effective dryer that just dries a comforter in record time.
But some of us don't purchase top of the line appliances.
So I'm going to give you like one more minute to start that
load of laundry and then we're going to head to the bedroom.
I mean, while you're in the laundry room, it's always a good
time to straighten it up. You know, maybe you have a
hamper that's overflowing or maybe you need to throw away the
lint in your lint container or just tidy up the shelf that's
above your washer and dryer. Now is the time to start that
load and straighten up that room while you're in it.
And then we're going to be cleaning your bedroom.
And not just cleaning it, but thinking about how we're storing
things if having a messy bedroom is an ongoing problem for you,
OK. Because some of us kind of
struggle with keeping our bedroom organized.
It tends to get put last. In a lot of my whole House
episodes, I have you straight in your bedroom at the end.
And that's because I know it's not your top priority, but years
ago I read a book that recommended you start with your
room because that's where you go to bed, That's where you wake
up. And having clean surroundings in
your bedroom is super beneficial.
So there's definitely a case for prioritizing your bedroom.
And that's what we're doing in this episode.
OK, One of the first things you might want to do in your bedroom
is make the bed. It's a springboard task that
immediately makes your room look better, and it also gives you a
place to put things. So maybe you need to put fresh
sheets and pillowcases onto your bed if you just stripped it and
go ahead and make that bed. Even when my favorite sheets and
my favorite comforter are in the wash, I don't wash them in the
same load. But you know, if my sheets or my
comforter are in the wash, I sometimes make my bed just with
a complete alternate set of sheets, pillowcases and
comforter so that my room can look nice right away and I'll
have a place to put things while I'm cleaning.
Because when you're cleaning your room, the first thing you
want to do after making your bed is get everything picked up off
of the floor. Most items you're going to put
away where they go, but some items in your room are going to
cause you to pause. Maybe you aren't sure if it's if
these items are clean or dirty or if you even want to keep them
at all. Or maybe they go in another
room. Or maybe it's clean laundry and
you don't really have time to put it away just yet.
I do want you to be able to put things on your bed that require
decisions and slow you down so that you get the floor picked up
right away. OK?
I'm a firm believer in cleaning in the order of priority.
Getting your bed made and getting everything up off of the
floor makes a huge visual difference in your room.
So, for example, if you have any trash in your room, you might
want to bring in a trash bag to throw away the trash.
Or if you're like me, you have waste baskets in your room.
Or maybe you want to just grab those few items and take them to
your kitchen wastebasket. Everybody's lifestyle is
different. I don't like to put any food
trash, garbage if you will, in my bedroom waste baskets, but I
have them for other things just to keep my my room from getting
cluttered. OK?
So just depending on what the trash is, you might put it in
your bedroom wastebasket, you might put it into a bag, you
might take it to the kitchen, OK.
But once your bed is made, I want you to look around for any
trash. Often trash is lurking on a
night stand or a desk. OK, let's get that stuff picked
up and thrown away. OK, Whether you keep your
recycling stuff separate or it all goes into one bin, I want
you to deal with any trash. And you might have paper clutter
in your room if you have a desk in there or that's where you pay
your bills. And maybe some of that goes into
a shred pile. Maybe you have a shredder and a
little box by it. Let's just deal with anything in
the category of trash or recycling first.
Once the beds made OK, and some of you needed more time to make
your bed because you've got all these fancy pillows and whatnot.
But others of us keep it pretty simple.
I mean, I don't even have shams right now.
I mean, when I'm expecting guests from out of town,
sometimes I'm putting like the shams on, you know, you've got
your, your pillows that you sleep on with the regular
pillowcases and then you've got another set of pillows with the
decorative shams that match your comforter.
I sometimes do that when I'm having guests overnight or for
the week, which typically happens over the holidays, you
know, to where people are actually going to be walking
into my room at some point. But for every day I I make my
bed with a comforter and you know, she's a comforter and then
just pillowcases on the bed, pillows, all four of them.
So however you make your bed, once you've made it deal with
any trash, once you've dealt with the trash, the next thing
you're going to deal with is shoes and clothing.
OK, clothing either needs to go into the hamper or it needs to
get put away. Sometimes when I'm cleaning my
room, when I have things that are clean that just need to get
hung up, you know, maybe I've draped some sweaters over the
ironing board instead of hanging them up immediately.
My husband tends to drape clothing over a recliner that we
have in our room. That kind of stuff.
You can put it away or you can create a hang up pile on your
bed if you want to put that off to the end of the till the end
of the cleaning session. OK, but you're going to deal
with clothes. They're either dirty or they're
clean or you haven't decided yet and you want to just lay them on
the bed. OK, your your future decision
pile. And of course with shoes they
should go in your closet. For a while.
One of my sons was just lining up his shoes along the wall of
his bedroom and I'm like can't these go in the closet floor?
Like that would look better. I have a shoe rack in my closet
now. Not at all of my husband's.
And my shoes fit in the shoe rack.
Ideally we should get a second one, like have his and hers shoe
racks, but right now there's just one shoe rack.
But you might be thinking, well, why do I need a shoe rack?
If you keep your closet floor super pristine, you could line
up all the shoes. But some of us need to use like
vertical space because we're storing other stuff in the
closet floor and it gets messy sometimes.
Either it gets messy sometimes or we just need to utilize
vertical space. I have a walk in closet, but
it's definitely a small walk in closet.
And I think it would be easier to keep the shoes organized if I
purchased a second shoe rack. You might just need one or you
might have lots of shoes. But another benefit of the shoe
rack is I worry that if I put the shoes on the floor, one of
the dogs might chew them up. So my more important shoes I put
in the rack. There is also a shelf in my
closet. I'm not talking about the one up
at the top, but there's a lower shelf.
But my husband's storing a lot of other stuff there.
So it's not really a good place for shoes either.
But I think maybe it's designed to be a shoe shelf.
So maybe you have a shoe shelf. Hopefully you're putting away
clothes and shoes, but you're also going to come across other
items in your room maybe that belong in another room.
You might want to make a pile for stuff that doesn't belong in
your room. You could put it by the door or
outside the door or on your bed, however you want to do that.
I'm also hoping that you have a place in your closet for stuff
that you want to donate, you know?
If not, you might want to grab a box or container for that.
If you're just in survival mode and your room's a complete
disaster and you're just trying to get everything put away, this
might not be a day where you want to think about donating
items, but you might be doing a little bit of decluttering.
Recently, I've been hanging up a lot more of my clothes, and I've
been hanging up clothes in a hidden corner that are offseason
or just things where I'm not sure whether I even want to keep
them because I want the main part of my closet to be full of
things that I wear all the time. I don't want to experience
decision fatigue when I go to get dressed to where I'm looking
at items and going, oh I I'm not sure if I want to wear this
dress because I don't really like how the waistline hits, but
I can't put a chain belt on it because there's a seam at the
wrong place and then it looks like it's got 2 waists and that
doesn't make sense. You know, these problematic
items might need to go into your donation box or bag in the back
of your closet. Or if you think that something
might look good with an accessory that you might buy
down the road, like this dress would work with a chain belt,
but instead of a gold chain belt, I want a silver chain
belt. You can kind of put those in the
hidden corner of your closet or just off to one side to deal
with later. Sometimes you need to put off a
decision. And I feel like a lot of
decluttering experts are like, no, you need to make these
decisions right now. But I, I tend to disagree there.
It is OK to have some things that maybe you're not sure if
you want to keep, as long as you're able to store them out of
sight and as long as you don't have to rummage through those
items to get to your everyday favorites, OK.
Same with drawers. I think one of your drawers
should be stuff. I hardly ever wear drawer.
Like if you hardly ever put on a swimsuit, that's where that
stuff could be. There was a phase where I was
using swimsuits more often because when my husband would
stay in a hotel on business, we would often go with him and
there was an indoor pool. So there was an era where we
were going swimming year round. But right now, I hardly ever put
on a swimsuit. There's just not a lot of
occasions that call for it. I definitely bring it with me in
my suitcase when I'm traveling in the summertime.
Now, obviously you can take it too far when it comes to keeping
stuff, but I feel like some delayed decisions are OK because
maybe six months from now you'll do a wardrobe purge and be like,
you know what? I don't like this dress with any
belt. I'm going to get rid of it.
I bought a belt and still didn't want to wear the dress and I can
go in the donation pile. So maybe you're putting things
in the donation pile or maybe you're putting things into more
of a long term storage location, like a plastic tub that slides
under your bed or a corner or a side of your closet or that
drawer for the rarely used items.
OK, but what I want you to do is be observant in your room and
make sure that you're storing things out of sight.
Do you have any items on the floor sitting around the
perimeter of your room? Boxes or other random items?
OK, For example, right now I have a pack and play that's
folded up and it's just next to a wall in my room that
technically belongs in the back of my closet.
But I have to reorganize my closet periodically because
sometimes I'm just sticking things in there in a hurry to
get them out of sight. You know, I'm not perfect by any
means, but the next time I reorganize my closet, I'm going
to put that pack and play in the back of the closet because I
don't use it very often. I certainly don't need it
cluttering up the perimeter of my room.
If you know, you know, some of us have a tendency to place
items along the walls, but that doesn't make your room feel like
a luxurious hotel when there's all this visual clutter.
OK, So I want you to be mindful of that.
Yes, you probably need to dust your night stands or your TV
screen or your dressers. Maybe you need to clean a
sliding glass door if you have a sliding glass door in your
bedroom, or clean a window, or clean a window sill, or dust
some blinds. But in this episode, I want you
to first make sure that your floor is picked up and that
you've stored as much out of sight as possible.
OK, by now you've probably gotten your floor picked up
because you put away the clothes, you put away the shoes,
you put away items that didn't fall into that category.
Now you can either put away those miscellaneous items that
maybe you placed on the bed, or if you don't have a lot of stuff
like that, this would be a great time to work on folding and
hanging up and putting away that residual laundry.
OK, that residual clean laundry pile mount fold more, as I like
to call it. That's how I want you to spend
the rest of this episode. And I mentioned that this is a
laundry reset. Maybe you need to set a timer on
your phone to remind you of when your washing machine cycle will
be over. I mean, most washing machine
cycles are anywhere from like 20 to 55 minutes, OK?
So if you're not sure how long your washing machine takes, you
could set the timer for an hour and then that way you'll go back
and put the put that laundry into the dryer and you could
continue doing that for the entire day.
The thing about getting caught up on laundry is you don't have
to stay home. You can go get your groceries.
You can pick somebody up from school.
You can do all the things and just kind of have your laundry
going in the background. You can either set a timer for
when to do the laundry switch or just keep checking on the
laundry in between errands or whatever else you're working on.
Maybe you work from home or you're doing some college
classes online. You turn in another assignment
or you know you've been sitting for an hour.
You know working from home and you want to get up at least once
every hour, you know, to get get your blood circulating and you
know, not get too sedentary. Because my watch tells me how
many times I got up in a 12 hour period with the goal of getting
me to not stay seated too long. So that could be a great time to
do a laundry switch. When I was working a full time
job from home, I typically did a laundry switch on my lunch
break. You know these things that
punctuate our day, whether it's a lunch break from a work at
home job or picking somebody up from school.
Some of you, your kids might already be out of school, mine
are, but you could be listening to this in the future.
During the school year, whatever it is that you do during the day
routinely can punctuate your day and remind you to do a laundry
switch. Or you might literally need to
set an alarm on your phone and put laundry switch.
OK, but part of what's making this episode of Laundry Reset is
I'm encouraging you to get caught up on your laundry today.
Long after this episode is over, I'm hoping you're still going to
be doing laundry switches or maybe just folding and putting
away residual clean laundry. Sometimes I kind of tell myself,
like, don't wash any more laundry until you fold and put
away all those clean clothes that are in the bin.
OK? Sometimes I want to get down to
article of clothing 0. For those of you who have been
listening to my show for a while, you know, I talked about
getting down to dish 0 instead of, you know, washing your
dishes and leaving a couple things in the sink or whatever.
Some of you need to force yourself to get down to article
of clothing 0 in that laundry basket or bin before you wash
more stuff. OK, but you can just keep
resetting a laundry switch alarm on the hour throughout the day
and then just go about your day. Obviously if you're going to go
work an 8 hour shift outside the home for the whole day, you're
not going to do the laundry switch till you get home.
But a lot of you are going to be home all day today, and maybe
you're home all day every day other than errands.
And you can be doing laundry in the background.
OK, so this is your little pep talk about laundry.
Some of you are procrastinating on doing laundry because you
have too much. There was definitely a period of
time before I started the show where my husband would sometimes
go out and buy himself more socks, underwear and T-shirts
because he was running out of things and didn't want to dig
through the clean laundry pile. You don't want to get in a
situation like that where you're buying more and more stuff.
So getting caught up on laundry and tossing items that are
ripped, stained, worn out can help keep the amount of laundry
under control. Maybe you have some old raggedy
towels that could be stored out in the garage for an emergency.
I definitely like to have ugly towels on hand, You know, to
clean up the human vomit, dog vomit, or whatever else.
Or even just to drive the cars with.
When I was a kid, we always put our old towels out in the
garage. We'd fold them and put them on a
shelf in the garage, and those were the towels we used to dry
the cars and whatnot. But I don't want you to have
just this huge inventory of towels in your towel cupboard of
your bathroom or in your clean laundry pile, because then
you're just going to go longer and longer without washing
towels, and then it's going to take you more than a day to get
caught up on laundry. You see what I'm saying?
Some people can't relate to this.
People who are super organized with their clothing do not feel
like they need to have less stuff.
Especially if you fold and put things away right out of the
dryer. Your husband's not having to go
out and buy more socks, underwear and T-shirts.
OK, but if you're in that situation, be mindful of of it
and, and try, try to fix it, try to get caught up, try to take
some older items out of circulation.
Because if he just replaced all that stuff, then he doesn't need
the stained T-shirts or the holy socks anymore or ripped
underwear or whatever, OK? So I definitely encourage you,
if at all possible, to make this a laundry day, whether you're
going to be home all day or you're going to be in and out of
the house. OK.
And there are a lot of bonus tasks you can do in your room.
This might not be a deep cleaning day for you, but some
of you need to dust your TV screen or clean a mirror.
You know, grab some glass cleaner and a microfiber cloth
and clean your mirrors. Clean your TV screens.
I've got a full length mirror inside of my closet hanging on
the closet door and it could use some cleaning.
I've got little grandkids who put their fingerprints on
everything. The other day my teenage
daughter cleaned the sliding glass door in the kitchen and as
soon as the grandkids got home from their dads, it was all
printed up. So some of you might need to
bust out some glass cleaner and a microfiber cloth.
Others of you might want to dust wooden furniture.
You know, grab that pledge or whatever dusting spray you use
and clean those night stands and clean the dresser.
And when you clean surfaces, it forces you to 1st clear those
surfaces. OK, You can't vacuum or sweep
your room until you've picked up the floor and you can't dust off
your desk until you've tidied it up and organized it.
If you do have a problem with paper clutter in your room, you
might need a basket for papers that you're going to deal with
later, kind of an in basket. You might even want to have like
that three tiered system where you've got your in basket,
you're out basket, and maybe a third category for something
else stationary or something. Mailing supplies.
I don't know what, but for me, I just have a basket.
That's my end basket. And typically when I get mail, I
toss the junk mail and I put the bills and other important
documents in that end basket. And then from time to time I sit
down and have kind of a clerical day where I'm paying bills and
shredding, which for me, by shredding I'm just tearing it up
by hand, but tearing up and tossing the bills that I don't
need. I like to keep the most recent
utility bills, but I don't need 5-6 months worth of them.
And arguably most things like that you could print online if
you need to, but I like to keep the recent ones in case I want
to create a new budget and know exactly how much everything is,
you know, how much is my electric bill lately?
Or somebody's going to the DMV and they need proof of
residence. You know, that's another
situation where you're going to want to grab their, you know,
those recent utility bills and mortgage statements and things
like that. OK, but if paper clutter is
taking over your room, you you need at least a build basket.
Or alternatively you might put things like that in your top
drawer. There was a time where we kept
things like that in our our top drawer.
Now we use that for other things.
Anyway, I'm I'm out of time. I hope you got your room tidied
up, your bed made, and you have a plan for getting caught up on
laundry and maybe you folded and put away some items.
I encourage you to sweep your bedroom floor or vacuum it after
this episode. If it's a hard floor, you might
need to both sweep and mop. I feel like mopping happens a
lot more in the kitchen than it does in other rooms.
A lot of times sweeping a room will suffice.
OK, at least sweep or vacuum your bedroom after this episode.
Thank you so much for listening. Be sure to follow Clean with Me
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Thank you so much for listening. I appreciate each and everyone
of you. And as always, happy cleaning.
I'll talk to you in the next episode.