You’re a dreamer, that’s why you moved to Bangalore. A city full of young aspirants, entrepreneurs, creatives and innovators like you – a place where dreams come true. And you’re finally on your own, living in a single room PG in Bangalore, feeling like you’re not accountable to anyone. Who cares if you make a mess, leave your bed unmade or forget to organise your cupboard? You already know where everything in your paying guest space is. And you have bigger things to think about. You could be on your way to becoming the next Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg, after all.

But one day you find yourself in desperate need to find that one shirt or book or accessory, and you have to ransack your entire room in order to find it. At that moment, you find yourself wishing that you actually kept your room clean.

Luckily, it’s not as hard as it sounds! Especially with the cleaning tips that we’re about to give you. With these hacks and techniques, you’ll be able to keep your room in tip-top shape and level up the quality of your life. So, let’s get started.

Chunk it up

Do you know why chocolate bars come with individual chunks for you to break off? Because the best things come in bite-size pieces. And there’s no reason you can’t apply that strategy when it comes to cleaning your room too. Instead of tackling the entire place on a weekend and making it seem like a mountain of work (that you’ll inevitably end up pushing off), allocate ten minutes towards tidying up on a daily or biweekly basis. This short duration of regular maintenance will make it so much easier for you to have a cleaner and more organised life in Bangalore. Even if you start with simple steps like making your bed or putting your clothes away into their designated shelves (and not on your chair), you’ll find it’s making your life a whole lot more organised.

Get into the nooks and crannies

What’s the difference between a clean room and one that’s spotless? The attention to detail. See, you may be sweeping your floor regularly, but when’s the last time you ran a duster over your bookshelf or took a closer look at your ceiling fan? There are plenty of spaces that even your tiny PG room in Bangalore can accumulate dust in, and these are the ones that tend to get overlooked. But it’s really easy to keep them immaculate. All you need is a damp cloth and a close eye. Go over the spaces in your room that you don’t normally clean, including your fan blades, the insides of your drawers, any cobwebs that gather near the ceiling or the gaps between shelves with a duster once every two weeks and you’ll be good to go.

Don’t ignore your laundry

Look, your PG room isn’t exactly a palace, so the last thing you want is to stink it up with the smell of half-damp clothes. And we don’t just mean the sweaty ones that you’ve been procrastinating to launder. We mean the ones that you’ve collected from the dryer and then forgot to put away. Not to mention the towel that you’ve got hanging behind your door. These damp materials, whether or not they’re clean, are quick to accumulate a musty scent that can take over your room. Luckily, you can prevent this pretty easily. When it comes to clothes you’ve already worn, invest in a dry laundry basket that you can place in a corner of your room. This will prevent any additional moisture from gathering in your clothes and making them smell. When it comes to your towel or freshly laundered items, it’s best to leave them to dry on a clothesline instead of in your own room. Most hostels and PGs have a common area that you can use for this purpose. If not, make sure you spread them out in your room under the fan to dry completely before you put them away. Now you can say goodbye to that musty smell.

Help your dustbin

If your residence is one that provides you with housekeeping or cleaning services, you’ll have some professional help to handle the upkeep of your room and get the heavy lifting out of the way. But even if you live in the best hostel in Bangalore with weekly cleaning facilities, your dustbin is something you’ll have to regularly maintain yourself. Some simple hygiene tips and techniques will help you make your waste zone an area that you won’t need a gas mask to survive in. And yes, there are tonnes of low maintenance ways to improve the cleanliness and smell of your dustbin so that it doesn’t overpower the rest of your room.

So don’t wait for the cleaning crew, get involved and help your dustbin. Investing in a dustbin with a lid and a pedal is the obvious solution but lining your bin with a bag can also take a lot of the mess out of your room (and make emptying your bin a lot easier). And if you haven’t been in the habit of segregating your wet and dry trash, perhaps it’s time to re-evaluate and improve your habits. This will ensure that your dustbin and your room stay a whole lot cleaner.

And there you go. These simple tips and tricks will make it really easy for you to keep your room spick and span. So, go ahead and give them a try. You’re definitely going to reap the benefits of a cleaner and more organised space and have a much better life.