5 Steps For How To Clean A Messy Room Quickly
Daily life is messy, especially daily life with young kids. Having a messy home is inevitable. Unless of course, you’re a super human who has found a way to do it all. Or maybe you have help. But many of us experience messy rooms. AND there comes a time in everyone’s life when one must clean a messy room quickly. After many years of speed tidying and cleaning, I’ve come up with a system for how to clean a messy room quickly.
Sometimes we need to clean a messy kitchen before company comes over for dinner. For others, the laundry room is a mess and you’re desperate to throw in a load of laundry but it’s an intimidating task until you clean it. Occasionally, you want to tackle a DIY project in the primary bedroom but the room feels like a disaster.
For this post, I needed to tidy and deep clean a kids’ bedroom because a set of bunk beds were coming over and we wanted to assemble and move them in right away. Alternate title, how to clean a messy bedroom.
So take a deep breath, grab a garbage bag and your cleaning cady, and let’s get to work cleaning. I’m going to clean this messy bedroom.
Before We Begin: The Mental Health Check
Cleaning a super messy room can be a daunting task so before you begin, check in with yourself. I know I need a good, solid mindset to keep the task from being overwhelming.
The hardest part is often getting started. Once I start going through the steps, the small tasks snowball, and before I know it, I’m done.
It’s a good idea to focus when going into and cleaning an entire room. Focus on that room only with the most important thing to finish. It does not have to be perfect, just done.
You also don’t have to clean the entire messy house, just the one room you’re focusing on. That one room alone is a step toward a clean house.
Phases Of Cleaning A Messy Room
There are two distinct phases for cleaning a messy room with simple steps for each phase.
Declutter Phase
The first thing is to work through the decluttering and tidying phase. It’s nearly impossible to clean a cluttered room.
This phase includes removing all the trash, removing items that don’t belong in the room, tackling any dishes or laundry, and putting everything away where it goes.
Cleaning Phase
The final phase in the how to clean a very messy room process is to tackle the cleaning tasks.
Every room is different and requires different levels of cleaning. But in general, this phase is all about gathering your cleaning supplies including a vacuum, and stepping through the tasks.
This phase does not take a long time once you’ve stepped through decluttering and tidying.
Now, let’s go through the five-step process.
Step One: Take Out The Trash
I am a lazy, procrastinating cleaner. If cleaning is hard, I won’t do it. So the first step is the easiest. Start by removing all of the trash. It is an excellent starting point and builds momentum quickly.
Grab a trash bag or your trash bucket (I stole the canvas electrical bag I use for trash in my craft room) and go about the room collecting obvious trash.
For this messy bedroom, it looked like shredded pieces of paper, used floss sticks on the floor, dirty paper towels, and bandaid wrappers. Why oh why do kids go through 8.2 million bandages every single day without throwing ONE wrapper in the trash?!
Once you’re done collecting the trash, take it out to the bin immediately. Do not pass go, do not collect $200, and do not stop in the kitchen for cleaning snacks.
Step Two: Remove Things That Don’t Belong
The next step is to remove anything that does not belong in the room. These things are taking up space and creating clutter, and it’s time for them to head back to their rightful place.
I like to take all these wayward souls out of the room and make a big pile by the door. Then I’ll sort them by location and take them to where they go.
So for this space, I had a pile of things like a heater and fan that belonged in the attic, a bunch of things the kids raided from my in-progress donation box, some sleeping bags to return to the storage cabinet downstairs, and some larger toys that belong in the playroom.
But if you’re cleaning a living room full of toys that don’t belong, grab a tote to collect all the playthings to be sorted and put away. Or if it’s a kitchen cluttered with your latest crafting endeavors, put all the things that go to your craft room in a tote to deal with later. Just try to corral like-minded items that belong elsewhere together. It makes it easier to ultimately put them away.
Keep in mind that you don’t have to put all those things away now since the goal is to get this one room cleaned as quickly as possible. But if it’s quick, just do it as you move it.
Step Three: Gather The Laundry And Dirty Dishes
Next up is time for another Super Market Sweep…I mean…sweep of the room, but this time it’s for all of the dirty clothes and dishes. Occasionally there are some clean dishes too but when dealing with the kids’ room, I always assume any dish I find is dirty.
I’ll often start by grabbing all the dirty dishes and taking them to the kitchen. If I have time, I’ll either wash them right away or put them in the dishwasher. If it’s a crunch-time situation, I put them in the sink with the other dirty dishes to do them all together later.
Then, grab a laundry basket and go through the room collecting all the dirty laundry. Then take it to the laundry room and throw those dirty clothes right into the washing machine. Done. You’ll soon have some fresh laundry.
By now, the room should be feeling quite a bit cleaner and a little less cluttered. You may be able to see the floor!
Step Four: Put Things Away
The next step is a big one and often takes longer than the previous steps. Everything that remains in the room must be put in its proper place.
This looks like clean clothes folded and put back in the closet or drawers, small kitchen appliances placed in the cupboard, stacks of work documents in a home office filed away, etc.
Take your time and try to go category by category or zone by zone until you’ve worked through the entire room.
At this point, you should have a clutter-free and somewhat organized room. Most importantly, there should be all kinds of room for giving the space a deep clean.
This leads me to…
Step Five: Deep Cleaning
And now for the fifth and final step, give your space a good cleaning. Now with the clutter out of the way, you can focus entirely on cleaning. And (in theory) it should go so…much…faster. The biggest hindrance for most with cleaning is getting past the clutter. Now that it’s been eliminated (ish…some of it is delayed clutter) cleaning is more easy breezy.
Since each space has different cleaning requirements, I included deep cleaning as its own step. Below are some of the common cleaning categories to step through. If one doesn’t pertain to the space you’re cleaning in your messy house, move along.
Flat Surfaces
Cleaning flat surfaces is a great place to start. Grab your favorite microfiber cloths and multipurpose cleaning spray and start cleaning.
Step through kitchen counters or open shelves in a kitchen, desk and bookcases in an office, dressers and shelves in a bedroom, and coffee tables and side tables in a living room. Scan the room and look for all flat surfaces to clean and wipe them down.
Wash Windows
For rooms with windows, grab the glass cleaner and a cleaning cloth and give them a quick cleaning.
Don’t just clean the glass, also wipe down the sash, grills, and even window sills in your efforts.
Scrub Tubs, Toilets, Sinks
If you’re working in a kitchen or bathroom, the deep cleaning is a little harder since you have a number of fixtures and appliances to work through.
In a bathroom, give tubs, toilets, and sinks a quick scrub. Don’t forget, the name of the game is a quick deep clean so do the best you can but don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. We’re reclaiming a space on a time crunch.
For the kitchen, quickly wipe down the front of the refrigerator and dishwashers, the cook surface and front of the oven door, and a super quick wipe down of the microwave.
Sweep And Vacuum
Now it’s time to attack the floors. Sweep your tile or wood floors and vacuum those rubs.
While you have the vacuum out, this is a great time to go around the edge of the room and vacuum any cobwebs in the corners and dust on the baseboards. I always give the room a quick pass with the vacuum first since it makes it easier to clean baseboards.
Don’t forget to find those pesky dust mites under the bed. If you can, slide the bed out since the room is clutter-free and give the space behind the bed a quick clean.
Clean Floors And Baseboards
If you have hardwood floors or tiles, clean them too. If you’re a die-hard tile floor steam mopping champ, go for it. If you’re a Swiffer person, that’s cool too. Just do what works for you and your floors to get them clean.
In the bedroom I’m tackling, the old wide pine floorboards are unlevel and have gaps. The only way I clean them is by hand with a damp rag on my hands and knees. It’s hard work but worth it to keep the slice of history in our home pristine.
While you’re cleaning the floors, be sure to wipe down the baseboards. It’s a place we often forget to clean but makes a big difference once we do it. Enter exhibit A: dirty baseboards and floorboards behind a bed.
Also, you should have seen how many MIA stuffies I found back here when I pulled the bed away from the wall.
Make Beds
In a bedroom, finish off your cleaning session by making the bed. Bonus points if you put the bedding in the wash earlier and now have warm, dry, cozy, and clean sheets to put on the beds. It may be my favorite thing to climb into a freshly laundered and made bed.
And this concludes our clean-ish session. Wrap it up by putting away all your cleaning supplies.
Bonus Step: Give It A Quick Styling
If you’re anything like me and you have the time, play around with the room’s styling. Dip into your attic decor stash, switch out a vase, or fluff a bed.
While not a necessary step, this is like the reward for me after cleaning up a messy room.
After I finished deep cleaning the girls’ room, I reset their bookshelves and restyled the top of their wardrobe. I didn’t want to do too much because our quick cleaning purpose was to make space for bringing in and assembling bunk beds for the girls.
More Quick Tips For Cleaning Messy Spaces Fast
If you step through the above steps, you’ll have a decluttered, clean, and presentable room. But if you want to take it to another level of cleanliness, orderliness, or speediness, I’m sharing some of my favorite tips and cleaning hacks to clean a messy house quickly.
Tackle The Clutter All At Once
This tip depends on the state of the clutter in the room. If it’s Defcon 5, can’t see the floor, or even step through the room, disregard this tip. It’s likely not for you.
If the room is medium-level messy or below, the most efficient way is to go through the decluttering phase is all at once.
For example, when I was cleaning the girls’ messy bedroom I went through the room with a tote for trash, a box for things that didn’t belong in this room, a laundry basket for dirty laundry, and a box for things that do belong in this room but aren’t put away correctly.
Here are some of those boxes and other containers.
For this room, I had multiple baskets for toys that go to the playroom, collecting American Girl Doll accessories in one basket, games and puzzles in another, etc. to help put things away where they go later.
In the smaller room, I kept these vessels in the middle of the room and worked my way around them clockwise. I picked up absolutely everything that didn’t belong, from dirty laundry to stuffed animals in a desk drawer, and put them in one of those containers. Larger items like the space heater, I just took out into the hallway to be dealt with later.
After the room was decluttered and all things in their respective totes, I dealt with each one on their own. The dirty laundry went downstairs and into the washing machine. The box of things that didn’t belong took a trip through the house room by room, with each item getting rehomed. And so on.
This is the most efficient way. Honestly, it took me about an hour to declutter the kids’ room AND deep clean it because of this system.
Enlist The Help Of Family Members
Sometimes asking for help is good, sometimes not so much. If it’s the week before Thanksgiving and our entire house is a mess, I’m for sure asking every member of this family for help.
But other times, I just want to get the task done without spending much time on it.
And I know it’s important to include children so they learn how to clean and why it’s important. While you can give older kids a quick checklist to work through, often it’s double the effort to include younger children in the process.
If I’m in a rush, I clean solo.
Don’t Underestimate The Power Of A Well Stocked Cleaning Caddy
This has been on my “must-do” list for too long. Set up a cleaning caddy to make cleaning easier.
Right now, I grab a bucket then go to the various spots around the house where our cleaning supplies are stored and grab what I need to clean the space I’m working on.
But wouldn’t it be dreamy to just grab a caddy preloaded with EVERYTHING?! From microfiber cloths to multipurpose cleaning sprays to scrub brushes and more.
Not All Vacuum Cleaners Are Created Equal
I said it and I’m going to say it again. Not all vacuum cleaners are created equal.
There’s a stark difference between cleaning with a heavy, corded vacuum compared to a cordless stick vacuum.
We bought a Dyson V11 Animal stick vacuum four or five years ago and we love that thing. Not only is it powerful and lightweight, it’s easy to maneuver around the house AND all it’s attachments are stored on a clip attached to the stick. My vacuuming frequency has skyrocketed since trading in the old, large plugin vac.
Make Daily Habits Of Tidying And Cleaning
While this won’t help you in the process of cleaning a really messy space in the moment, it will help prevent the room from getting to that level in the first place. The best way to achieve and maintain a clean home is by doing a little bit of cleaning and tidying every day.
There are so many potential habits to build around this and that’s another post for another day. But find little ways to make cleaning and tidying part of your daily routine. This is a great place to involve family members, especially young kids.
Kitchens Are The Hardest Room
Give yourself extra grace if the room you’re tackling is a kitchen. Kitchens are the hardest rooms to clean, clean quickly, and tidy.
Since kitchens are the heart of the home, they also tend to be the drop zone for all kinds of things. From mail piling up on the counters, to school backpacks, empty lunch containers, and more. They’re also the hardest working home in the house.
To achieve a clean kitchen, it’s going to take more time than a bedroom. But put in the hard work, give yourself realistic expectations, be consistent, and you’ll get there.
The One Minute Rule
The one-minute rule, which I first heard about from author Gretchen Rubin, is life-changing. I talk about it a lot when doling out decluttering tips.
The general idea of the one-minute rule is to tackle things immediately if they take one minute or less.
For example, instead of tossing the junk mail on the kitchen counter, take a minute to put it in the trash or recycling. Instead of placing the new extra bottle of shampoo on the bathroom counter, take a minute to put it away where it belongs. One more example, instead of picking a book off the floor and setting it down on the nearest surface, shelve it appropriately.
Happy Cleaning
How are we feeling? Ready to tackle a messy room head-on?!
There was a time in my life that cleaning a messy room or our messy house felt too intimidating and overwhelming. Then I wrote down these steps in my planner. They seemed so easy, just five steps to a clean space.
I still get overwhelmed when tackling the mess but these steps keep me grounded and focused on the task at hand. Sometimes, getting started is the hardest part and as long as I have clear and concise steps to work through, I’ll be fine.
With that, I bid you happy cleaning.
Sneak peek of the girls’ bunk beds which I currently have thoughts on I need to share. But I’m happy to share that I got their room cleaned up in about an hour which was the amount of notice I had that their new beds were en route. Huzzah!
Pssst…How do you like to clean? Do you have a favorite tip (or two) to share on how to clean a messy room fast? Feel free to share in the comments!
