Purge!! You need to first relieve your life of all the excess you have accumulated. Have a garage sale and sell what you can and donate the rest to Goodwill. Get decent storage bins and organize what you must keep. Just do a room at a time and take a week each room if you must but purge each room of the clutter and don’t over think it. If you haven’t seen touched or used it in a year or 2 at the most…get rid of it!

Don’t let things get out of proportion. Spend 10–20 minutes a day tidying things up, and it will never be a huge problem. Unfortunately, you’re gonna have to do an exhaustive cleaning to get it to that point, but in the future it won’t take as much effort.

I turn on my music and clean the crap out of my room, specially the floors they get real dirty for some reason….

Do it on a day where you re organize and clean everything real good, and even move things around.

I threw away a lot of crap that was just sitting around. Oh lift up bed and clean under there HOLY crap nasty was my under bed lol :D

I can tell you how I do it- ymmv.

I agree with @Cruiser, sounds like you need to purge. Do you really need everything that you have? If I haven’t used something in six months (non-decoration) then it goes in the Free Box. If it’s something that I want to keep for sentimental reasons, like a tshirt or some such, I take a picture of it and get rid of the physical object. That way I still have a physical memento of what that item stood for.

So now you have left just what you need- you’ll find after purging that you have tons more space than before.

I make piles. Pile for the kitchen stuff, pile for things to put in a box and file away, pile of clothes etc. Then I put the piles away. Suddenly there are clear horizontal surfaces! Miracle!

The hard part is done- so now for finishing touches. Dust first, then clean the horizontal surfaces. Then vacuum/mop and you’re all done.

Don’t forget to give yourself a reason to clean. It sounds like you’re giving yourself a lot of stick- but no carrot. It’s a lot of work so give yourself a reward. Watch a movie, go out to dinner, whatever is a good reward for you. Try not to make your reward something physical to buy or add to your now clean space.

If I am about to go on a cleaning spree, I try to limit it to the length of one cd. I pick out an album that I really like and I put it on. When the album is done, then my cleaning for the day is over. If your room is a big mess, you may need to do this for a few days.

Hmm, I’ll just tell you how I keep my room “clean” and maybe that’ll provide some insight into how you can too. For the record, I am the laziest person I know.

1. I only hoover once a week
2. I put all the crap I don’t need in storage away from my room. Good places: garage, attic, random cupboard, under the stairs.
3. I put clothes i’ve worn into a wash bin. Keeps them off the floor. However I do throw some clothes that aren’t that dirty onto a spare chair out of the way but it is usually only a hoody and a few tshirts so not that messy.
4. I don’t buy loads of crap so there isn’t much junk littering my room.
5. I hide bits and bobs into drawers. I don’t really organise that much. I have 3 drawers – one for plugs, one for paper and one for letters/notes.

Usually just keeping stuff off the floors, keeping clothes in wardrobes and generally being reductionalist are good starting points. You don’t need to work 20 mins a day to keep your room clean. However if you want to include the whole house that is a different matter.

A cleaning frenzy now and again is a good idea doing dusting and whatnot. A good tip to getting started is just to start with something small. Also using an ipod is a good idea and makes the work go much faster. Just stick an album on and try to beat it. Or work in time to complete when it finishes. Whatever floats your boat.

Dirty & cluttered are two different things. It sounds like you’ve got clutter. There’s a disturbing show on A&E now about people that hoard and the process of helping them. Maybe you can get some ideas there. http://www.aetv.com/hoarders/

I don’t think you’ll get better advice than Ame_Evil’s. And here’s my tip. When I have to straighten up or clean, I don’t think of it as having to do the whole house, but rather, as a series of room, each with its particular chores. I think that would work with one room, too: not to think of it as a whole room to clean, but rather, as a series of smaller, easier chores.

A little at a time each day and then one day you walk in and there is nothing to clean, you get organizational items along the way to improve the room so the mess doesn’t happen as bad again.

I have given up on trying to keep my house neat or clean and I feel a lot better about it. However, the advice that professional housekeepers use is walk in the door, start with everything on the right hand side, then work your way around that direction until you come back to the door, then do the middle.

~Make a list of problem areas. For example, if your desk clutters easily, or your laundry tends to overflow frequently, put them on the list. Every night before bed, spend 15 minutes on one problem area and no more. If you don’t completely finish, save the rest of the mess for the next night (or two nights from then if you have another problem area).Throw a load of laundry in the wash and straighten papers. Alternate areas every day.

~Organize your things. Get a small file cabinet for paperwork, and two laundry baskets (one for colors and one for whites). You can get small organizers for hair and makeup stuff, and utilize space under the bed for storage- Target and Walmart have great flat plastic storage boxes that fit under the bed. You can keep bedding, towels, extra shoes, tools, movies, cds, cables or hardware, off-season clothing, gift wrap, anything that usually clutters your room in these boxes. If you don’t have space under your bed, you can but inexpensive bed risers to make room.

~Make a regular cleaning schedule. If dust is a problem, do it at least every Sunday. If you need to vacuum more, do it at least every Wednesday. If you have a fish tank, clean it the second Tuesday of every month.
~~ Your schedule should include smaller things that you do daily. Do two things in the morning, two things after dinner, and two things before bed. Take one day off per week from doing any work, except for maybe making the following week’s schedule. The more you follow the schedule the more you can customize it and make it work for you. You can water it down once you get into a routine.

This should be fairly easy to do if you only have the one room to keep. Good luck!

Start at one end, get all your oranizing things out e.g. dresser drawers, bookselves, nick-naks. As you start just police back and forth ‘till you’re at the other end of the room.

Star by making you bed everyday, than move outwards looking around and clearing clutter as you head towards your door, you do this everyday and eventually all clutter will be picked up, find a a place to accommodate your clutter. Start with making your bed everyday repeating the drill and soon your surrounding will be cleared of total chaos and remain so try ths fr 30 days and experience the difference you allow your surrounding to be.