Commence the purging of your room! It is almost the end of the semester, and, with that, almost time to move out of your lodgings, be it an apartment or a room in a residence hall. Thus, I recommend cleaning out your room while you have the chance before finals. This weekend is the perfect time to clean it from top to bottom to prepare for moving out; that way, when you have to pack, you’ll have less things to sort through and have less dirt to clean.
Take it from me, as someone who has to travel across the country every semester to go home for breaks. Cleaning your room before finals is a big help. That way, I get rid of all the junk that has been accumulating for the past year and have less to clean when I am finished with finals and in a time crunch to pack and clean to move out.
While I’m on the topic, I might as well give you some tips on what you should try to do to prepare for the moving out or packing up for the summer or going to an internship.
Tip #1: Try to clean your room or apartment to about 80 percent cleanliness at least a week before finals. Why? Other than what I have talked about above, you actually feel better living and studying in a clean environment. So when you have to cram for finals, you won’t have the urge to clean because it is so dirty and you can’t stand it anymore.
Tip #2: Before the whole hectic mess that is disguised as finals, bring out your suitcase and start putting things in it that you know you don’t want at school anymore and want to bring home. Packing a little each day goes a long way; it makes it easier to pack everything up to put into storage.
Tip #3: Acquire boxes wherever you can, lots of them. Snag those boxes that are in the recycling bin that people dump after they unbox what they bought. Those will be handy when you want to pack up later. This tip is more for throughout the year versus for end of the year, since not a lot of people will be buying things from Amazon or the like at the end of the year.
Tip #4: Consolidate, sell, recycle, or give away. This applies to everything. Consolidate all your homework, notes, class handouts, and exams; scan all the papers and keep a digital file of them; donate them to Alpha Phi Omega; or pass them along to someone who may have need of them next semester. Do a good thing and help someone out. Sell your old textbooks; you don’t need them anymore, right? Why clutter your new place with useless books? And hey, you’ll get some cash out of it to spend on something else. See if you can recycle anything that you don’t need before throwing it away; it doesn’t hurt to stop adding to the landfills. Give away anything you don’t want anymore if it is still useable. Don’t waste anything! You can donate all the freebie t-shirts you get from events to someone in need!
I hope these tips will help you, fellow reader, in decreasing the stress associated with moving out at the end of the year. Starting early will give you a head start and when you are sick and tired of studying, take a break and do more packing (since the suitcase is pulled out from storage already and waiting to be filled). One last suggestion, though—start pulling out all those boxes and suitcases this weekend. Next week when study days hit, you won’t want to do any of that. You’ll need to study, and when finals start, you’ll be swamped and have pushed the whole packing and cleaning until after finals when you only have one day before you need to vacate your dorm room.