I know there's probably plenty of posts out there about this... but I kind of wanted to post my own personal one, so I hope that's not a bad thing...


Anyways, I moved out last year (for college) and got my own apartment. Living on my own is great, and I enjoy the solitude... but I cannot, for the life of me, keep it clean. I hate it. I hate clutter, I hate mess, I hate not being able to move in a straight line without stepping on something.

I can't clean it (yeah, never say "can't," but really)... I look at it, and the thought of cleaning it all becomes mentally exhausting. I've gotten lots of tips, about setting 20 minutes for each room, each day. Or just starting in one place, and working my way out over a week or so. But it doesn't work. I can't keep myself focused on cleaning, and it's just so difficult.
Have you ever gotten it to where you lose all physical AND mental energy just by thinking about doing something? It's overwhelming, and I just started college and ROTC last week and I feel that I'm going to fail miserably if I can't get this under control.

It just feels like a hopeless endeavor...

yep...i gave up on cleaning very early in college...every few months i would ge a burst of energy and do the whole house....and i almost failed out of school....passed the class that wouldv'e failed me out by 2%

I can relate quite a bit. I live by myself, as well, and cleaning is such an ordeal for me. Like you said, CRevKG, I hate the mess and I hate clutter...but you said it perfectly about how even thought of cleaning everything up is mentally exhausting.

If it's something relatively simple like vacuuming, I can usually tackle that without much trouble. But when it gets into clearing up clutter and trying to organize things...yeah, check please! It's always felt like whenever I try, I just end up getting distracted by this or that, or I just can't seem to make sense of my attempts to organize things. My desk is always one of the worst things to tackle, because the clutter there is always miscellaneous papers, bills, letters, etc. Things I am easily distracted by because there's writing on nearly everything, and if I have any hope of sorting it decently, I have to at least read some of it to gauge what it is.

Every now and then, I'll have a day where for some reason or another, I'll suddenly buckle down and go on a massive cleaning spree, and I'll be able to do pretty well. But I can't seem to figure out how to harness that burst of drive to clean so that I can call it up and use it on a regular basis. It's totally sporadic. :-\

just chuck everything out...easy :-)

Traditional organizing methods don’t work for me so I have tried to devise my own and have found a few that work.

Tracy H gives the best advice. Chuck It! You can’t junk up your house if you don’t have junk.
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Don’t say to your self, “I need to straighten up this mess.”
Instead say, “I need to get rid of this mess.”
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Be ruthless. It’s only stuff. Stuff that is negatively affecting the quality of your life. Unless it is an heirloom or something you use regularly, you can live without it.
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Occasionally I go through the house looking for things to toss. If I do this regularly it gets easier to part with things and it feels good.
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My version of “a place for everything” is to put a lot of things in the same place.
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I have dozens of small items (e.g. nail clippers, cell phone charger cord) that tend to get scattered about. I bought a decorative box and throw everything in there. The inside of the box is a mess but the box itself looks nice sitting on my shelf and I know where to find my stuff. Keeping this stuff put is away easy because it all goes in the box.
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I have two toolboxes and a section of shelving in the garage where I keep all my tools. I let that area get pretty messy but all my tools are together where I can find them instead of being all over the place.
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I have a folder labeled “to be filed” where I dump any paperwork or receipts I need to keep. It eventually gets filed but in the meantime I can keep my desk cleared off without losing anything.
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This is not a true organizational system. I haven't really gotten rid of the mess. I have divided it into categories and confined it to certain designated areas. It works. The house is neat and I know where to find things.
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Very familiar. When you live with someone else it adds guilt from them, too. No one wants to be seen as lazy.

There's a whole subforum in the adult add section just for housecleaning. It's that common of an issue. :)

I have little problem with cleaning around the house, but organizing things and placing them into their proper drawers, cabinets, shelves, folders, etc. drives me absolutely bonkers. I can't do it if my life depended on it. :( Anyone else like me, OK with cleaning but challenged with properly organizing things at home or office?