There's nothing wrong with being a slob. As long as you can find your stuff in your dumpster of a room, who is your messiness actually hurting? (Your mom doesn't count). Besides, with a pandemic going strong, it's not like you have to worry about someone coming over and witnessing the pigsty you live in.

Research has actually found that there are some advantages to being messy (look it up yourself, I'm not enabling your laziness). However, for the sake of personal development, here's how my somewhat unwilling transformation from slob to neat freak went.

Day 15 of Quarantine: The desk could do with some cleaning. After all, HSC will take place soon. A clean desk might prepare me for the boatloads of studying I'm about to do (ha, ha). Three hours later, the desk actually resembled a desk and I felt like a new person. Sounds hard to believe but I actually found exam scripts from Class 8 in there. Throwing them out was pretty satisfying, I'll admit.

Day 32: My designated clutter space, a.k.a the top of the cupboard, is starting to overflow with random items. I should probably keep the clothes inside the cupboard instead of on top of it. Might free up some space to keep other junk in. So, the designated clutter space turned into an organised clutter space full of neat piles of books, papers and art supplies. All the clothes obscuring the furniture have been unceremoniously stuffed where they belong.

Day 41: There's no point in doing things half-way. Might as well organise the inside of the cupboard. Thanks to Pinterest, I already had a couple of organisation tricks up my sleeve. No more losing my mind trying to find a specific article of clothing. On closer inspection of the room, the bookshelf would look much nicer, arranged according to colour and size. It still wouldn't be Instagram-worthy, but much better than its current set-up.

Day 65: The messy cables near the TV are starting to look like the electric poles that glamourise the Dhaka skyline. Better tie 'em up. It seems like a good time to experiment with minimalism. Anything that hasn't been used in the last 5 years goes in the trash and anything unused in the last 5 months will go to the storage room. It would be tough for a hoarder like me, but there is no success without sacrifice.

Day 73: There's a pen on the desk. On. The. Desk. Not in the pen-holder where it's supposed to be. It's ruined my day. 

Ziba Mahdi is your resident pessimist. Cheer her up at www.facebook.com/ziba.mahdi.735