My room is a mess. Yep, you read correctly. I'm fully and completely owning up to the state of disarray in my room (sad as it is).

If any of you are like me, you've realized some very poor choices leading to unavoidable clutter:

You're a pack rat. You've accumulated far too much over the course of the school year. Whether it was bushels of clothes relocated from home to your room at school (multiple times) or those items you thought you'd invest in to spruce up the place and make it seem more "you," we come to a point of realization, once it's all amassed in your room back home, that the pack-rattery has gotten a bit out of hand. The steps to reconfiguring these miscellaneous items into appropriate containers while downsizing at the same time is as follows:

1. Come up with a plan:

If I unpack this first and then organize this and throw this away and put trash here... Yeah! That's exactly what I'll do! Good work! (gives self pat on the back)

2. Lug everything up to your room.

It'll be easier, of course, to go through if it's all in one place.

3. Begin unpacking Right away.

Get everything out in the open so you can see it. Clear out those drawers over there, they might have things we can get rid of. Start a few loads of laundry.

4. Stop to look around after the first hour or so of the process.

5. Realize that deciding to unpack those first few days was a poor life decision

(I for one haven't seemed to have caught onto the "little-by-little" or "one-step-at-a-time" approach). You realize you're completely burnt out; school was tough, finals tougher, sayinggoodbye to everyone- draining.

6. Clear a small space to exist.

I have a tendency to just shove random items aside and clear a small space on the floor.

7. Re-evaluate your choices thus far in the unpacking process.

8. Attempt to alter your plan slightly.

9.Find yourself completely overwhelmed and assume fetal position for a few minutes while you stare at all of your belongings.

10. Procrastinate.

Pick bobbles up and play with them, try on jewelry, clothes, shoes. Go through old notes, sketch books, pictures.

11. Pep-talk yourself.

You can do this. You just need a little break and then you can get right back into the swing of things! It'll all be fine!

12. Avoid mess and repeat steps 4-12.

So, as you can very plainly see, I find myself in a bit of a jam (That's punny if you know me). I'll eventually get it all cleaned up and put away, just as I'm sure anyone in similar situations will. But, heck, we've got ALL summer to get around to it, I think I'll try again tomorrow!