If you’re like any typical college student that comes home for the summer, you probably won’t unpack your clothes (if at all) until a month before you have to move back to campus. Believe it or not, this can actually cause your mind and room to be cluttered, resulting in a few pesky problems.

Even if you live at home full time and commute to college, this can cause an even higher amount of clutter. Students have to split their time between a social life, a job and school work. All three of those compete constantly to get the medal for coming in first.

Once the incoming pile of school work comes to a screeching halt after spring finals, a bit of time opens up for you to pick up a new hobby, volunteer in your community or take a whole day to clean your room, and possibly help clean the rest of the house too.

After a semester or two of clutter build-up, it’s definitely time for a deep cleaning. Doing this will clear your mind and possibly even your allergies, if there ends up being a big ole’ pile of dust on that desk you forgot you even had since it’s covered with three semesters worth of papers. You can probably count the layers of junk just like you would count the rings of a tree to determine the age of it.

Taking on the task of cleaning your whole room may be daunting at first, but you can start off by getting a couple trash bags: one for throwing stuff away and one for donating to help those in need. Go through the clothes in your closet, the junk hidden deep in the depths of it. Afterwards, your bed (maybe by changing the sheets or even getting new ones) and finally whatever dresser or desk you have.

After sorting out what you want, don’t want and want to donate, you’ll definitely feel better almost immediately and that’ll feel like a reward in itself. You just might find something you’ve been looking for since you started this year. More importantly, you’ll have room to clutter up again during the upcoming fall semester.