7 Tips on How to Organize and Enjoy Your Bedroom & Bonus: 3 Bedroom Organizing Challenges!

7 Tips on How to Organize and Enjoy Your Bedroom

Bonus: 3 Bedroom Organizing Challenges!

Creating and maintaining an organized bedroom is foundational for good health. The bedroom is a place to restore, cultivate intimacy and to sleep. This sacred room needs to be treated with special care and consistency, especially due to the sensitivity of our subconscious mind as we are falling asleep and waking up. Bedrooms are a place for us to turn inward, to be introspective, and to connect with our loved ones. 

Here are 7 tips to help organize each area of your bedroom to fulfill the needs of this space. 

1. Bed Placement

Ideal placement for a bed is with the headboard against a solid wall. This means not under a window, under a beam, on the same wall as the doorway to the room, or directly in line with the door. If you share a bed, be sure there are equal amounts on each side. 

2. Under the Bed

Do your best not to store anything under the bed, unless there is specific significance to why it is under the bed. I love natural elements, so I will place a couple of carefully chosen stones to place under my bed (or my pillow) as I sleep.  It’s important to allow this space to be as free from clutter and not used as storage. If you absolutely need to use this space for storage, clear it out regularly, and only store bedroom related items under the bed. By all means, please do not store stressful paperwork or mementos from past relationships in this area.

3. Above the Bed

I do not recommend having anything hanging over you while you sleep, like a chandelier, photo, or other decoration. It can subconsciously get translated into a threat or can feel like an invasion of privacy. On the wall above the headboard, if you do choose to hang something up, make sure it is securely fastened to the wall. Even if it’s just a light paper poster, anything coming down on you in the middle of the night could be interpreted as a mild trauma and may affect your sleep.  Choose imagery that will support deep sleep, healthy rejuvenation, and will promote a sense of calm in the room.

4. Next to the Bed 

It’s nice to have a secure nightstand for a lamp, water, a notebook, a pen, possibly a book or two, and any other personal essentials. Keep this area clutter-free so that when you’re sleeping, you’re not sleeping next to a big pile of “to-dos”. Only keep books next to the bed that inspire you or support your well-being. This is not the place to store murder mysteries or psychological thrillers. Many people are negatively affected by sleeping near their cell phones or other technology, yet there are some great apps which can aid in sleep.  Experiment with listening to a guided meditation to fall asleep vs. removing all technological devices from the room. The main thing to avoid is staying up late to surf the net or waking up and checking your email or the news right as you wake up. Use these special times to tune in to your own internal atmosphere rather than diverting your attention to external stimulation.

5. Colors and Textures

Many people recommend using soft, calming, neutral colors in the bedroom. Is that right for you?  To me, the colors mauve, taupe and cadet blue are like needles on a chalkboard. While I am an advocate for “fluffy” bedrooms, this can be accomplished in other ways rather than literal fluffiness. Pay attention to how colors really make you feel, not how you think you should feel based on design magazines. Just as our personalities are primed to prefer different types of people, we are also primed to prefer different colors. You like things because you like them. You don’t need to justify why. If you LOVE bright colors, I say use them in your room! Allow this space to truly reflect your inner style and creativity. When I lived in Philadelphia, I used watercolors to paint my room with stripes of bright blue, green and turquoise. It was beautiful!  I loved every minute of it. Don’t follow rules here. Take some risks.

6. Imagery

Imagery in your bedroom can bring your dreams and goals to real life. The Law of Attraction recommends clarifying what you want rather than what you don’t want to and then thinking of it as if it is already coming to you. Sometimes your desire shifts from HAVING to WANTING. This is an important distinction. Use space in your bedroom to have imagery and/or words that support the intentions you are working on manifesting. Do you want more love, more joy, more bliss? When you feel your gut/bones/vibrations, saying, “yes, more of this please”, distill that feeling down to raw vibrations that can be recognized and experienced immediately. Having a trigger word up on your wall will help you remember to notice these feelings when you’re out of the house too. The best way I have learned this was through the dog training classes I did at Ahimsa. When your dog does the behavior you want, even if it’s just a step towards that behavior, you “click and treat”.  We used LOTS of “yes’s” in those classes.

7. Air Quality

This is a tip that may matter the most. Prioritize having clean and fresh air in the bedroom.  Open windows in the morning to air the room out. Use fans to help circulate the air as needed. Highly sensitive people may need to use a high quality air purifier (with the windows closed) to help combat allergies. Dust regularly and vacuum often. Plants are another great way to promote air purification. Here is a list from the study NASA did on this subject. I am also a fan of burning high quality beeswax candles, as some other types of candles (the wax or the wicks) can be toxic.  Essential oils can also be diffused to help purify the air, but need to be used with caution, especially around pets. Commercially produced “air fresheners” usually contain harsh chemicals, which may counteract any efforts towards purifying the air.

Take a Bedroom Organizing Challenge… or Two… or Three!

Challenge 1:

Creating Space

It can be a challenge to maintain a divine-like bedroom.  One of the major challenges is space. Because the bedroom is a private area of the home, items are likely to get shoved there, out of view of visitors if they don’t have another place to go. Quite often, the head(s) of the household are also likely to sacrifice the purity of their own bedroom for the comfort of the rare houseguest, or for extra allocation of space for the playroom for their kids. What also comes up is the underutilization of public rooms in the home for the preservation of appearances. Newer interior architecture has finally moved away from formal dining rooms and formal living rooms (which were rarely eaten or lived in), yet conventional thought can sometimes prevent home dwellers from allowing themselves to transform main areas of their home to be able to accommodate activities that they truly desire, for the sake of their guests. While I have a lot to say on this subject, I will bottom line it by saying, “get the office out of the bedroom if it is at all possible”.  While I’m not fully a purist to say that you can’t bring a notebook into the bedroom to jot down some thoughts after a meditation, just make sure to return the notebook to “the office” when you’re done. Even if you don’t work from home, everyone needs a personal desk of some sort, to act as a landing area for ideas, to-dos and important business. Due to the volume of information, potential anxiety and likely electronic “noise” an office requires, it is not possible to utilize the bedroom (and reap the rewards from letting it be a bedroom), with an office inside the bedroom. If you absolutely must have the office within the bedroom, do something to create an internal boundary or division of space.

Challenge 2:

Sharing Space

I always think about the episode of Full House where DJ and Stephanie talk about rules of sharing a room. When people share rooms, these rules aren’t always verbalized, and can end in passive resentment. Or one person has a lot less “stuff”, and so the space doesn’t get divied up fairly. While the distribution of space may get rebalanced or allocated in another area of the home, it is important to have a conscious discussion about how the space is shared. For example, if a husband and wife own a home together, it’s worth making sure that both parties feel like they have an equal distribution of space, and an equal say in how the space is utilized or decorated. For truly interdependent partnerships, space must be shared fairly in square footage, “real-estate value” and the responsibilities for maintaining the space. When it’s not, there will be an imbalance of power, which will lead to either bitterness, evasion or resentment. 

Challenge 3:

Allowing Time 

Daily stress and exhaustion can prevent us from allocating the time and energy necessary for maintaining the “fluffiness” of our bedroom. Love is fluffy. Aim for “fluffy”. While this suggestion may sound silly, trust me. Make time to clear clutter, to vacuum, to dust, to clean the cobwebs, to clean and put away your laundry. Wash your bedding regularly. Take out the trash.Don’t let your bedroom be a victim of stagnation. It’s like tending to your garden. Spend time daily (with your partner if you share a room) to contribute to the health and well-being of your bedroom.

Keep an eye out for a post on the importance of sleep (and how to create an optimal conditions for sleep) in a later article.

What do you LOVE about your bedroom??  Send me a message and let me know what you do!

Posted By Jean Prominski, Certified Professional Organizer

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Image Credit: Lindsay Davison