5 Favorite Bins for the New Year
When you clear the clutter in your life, you can focus on the things that truly matter to you. However you want to improve your life in 2024, removing the things that get in the way will make it easier for you to accomplish. Don’t spend the year toiling away managing the chaos of owning too many things. Your time is too valuable and could be spent doing something that lights you up!
For managing the chaos in our clients’ homes as well as our own, there are several tricks and systems that we return to time and time again. Let’s jump into 5 different bins that we use to calm the chaos and keep us on track!
Bin #1: The “Wait and See” Bin
Something we use on almost every job is what we call a “wait and see” bin. Its a box or bin we use when decluttering a space that is dedicated to holding items that we aren’t quite sure if someone will miss or not. The wait and see bin allows us to get the items in question out of a space and let the person or family experience a fully decluttered space while also allowing them to hold on to any item they feel like might need to to be used or worn again. This system works well for toys, kitchen items, and clothing. When we pack it up, we often put the date on a piece of tape so we can see when it was initially stored. We advise clients to leave it sealed up if there isn’t a specific item they are looking for….no browsing the box just for kicks and giggles! If no one has asked for or missed something within 3-6 months it's time to let it go. Try to be judicious with the wait and see bin and reserve it only for those items that you are really struggling to let go. We are always amazed at how seldom the items in these bins are actually requested after being packed up.
Bin #2: The Weekly Paper Bin
Incoming paper, whether it be junk mail, bills, school paperwork, art projects, or extracurricular information, is one aspect of our lives that can really get out of control quickly! Before you know it your piles have piles! We advise our clients to open their mail and empty backpacks daily while standing right over the trash can. Trash/recycle anything that can be immediately and then triage the rest of the incoming paper into two groups:
1.) The "Today" Pile: Items that must be addressed before the next day. Obviously this means you need to address it as soon as it is opened or seen and then it is out of your hair and off your to-do list.
2.) The "This Week" Pile: Items that will be ok as long as it is dealt within the next week. All the paper items that you sorted into this group will go into a basket, ideally a beautiful basket, that you don’t mind being visible. Set aside one day per week to sort, file, respond to, mail, transfer to calendar, etc. until the pile is gone.
Batching tasks such as sorting paper enables you to be more efficient because you are focused on just that task. We like pairing paper sorting with weekly planning because there is usually overlap in these 2 tasks. In our homes, we typically deal with paper management with a hot cup of coffee and our planners and start the week feeling up to date and in control.
Bin #3: The “To-Go” Bin
Place a bin, box, or basket by the door to collect all the items that are waiting to leave the home. Things like Amazon returns, the item you borrowed from your neighbor, dishes you need to return to your mom, etc. On your way out the door each day, grab anything you can return to its home! Happen to be driving past Whole Foods? Grab that Amazon return. Planning to see your neighbor at school pick up? Return that borrowed kitchen tool! Megan has also been known to grab the whole basket, pop on a favorite podcast or audiobook, swing through the drive thru for a warm beverage, and knock out the entire TO-GO basket in one swoop. It actually makes for a pretty enjoyable afternoon! Collecting all the items that need to leave your home in one consistent place prevents them from being forgotten and never returned and also prevents them from becoming unwanted clutter on your counter.
Bin #4: The Sentimental Bin
If you struggle with decluttering sentimental items, it can help to have one dedicated bin to store paper items and one to store non-paper items such as special clothing, books, and toys. A memory bin provides a designated spot for the special items, but you’re limited to keep only what fits within those boundaries. It helps you prioritize what’s really important! We often recommend collecting anything you think you might want to save in a smaller box or basket and only going through the collected items once or twice a year. For instance, looking through school assignments, report cards, awards, art, and crafts can be done at the end of each semester so you are ready to start the new semester or year with all their previous work having been reviewed and filed away if it makes the cut. Gathering a few months of materials before filing is helpful in a few ways. It allows you to store your larger sentimental bins in a more out of the way area since you don’t need to access it often and it helps you see your child’s work in the context of all their other work from the same time period. Did they draw 14 narwhals this semester? Do you need to keep all 14? Maybe pick the best one or two to save and discard the rest.
Bin #5: The Donation Bin
This is the simplest and perhaps the most important bin on the list! For a truly peaceful home, every item needs to have a place. The best way to ensure that everything in your home has an easy-to-access place to live is to make sure that as items are coming into your home, they are also leaving it. Our favorite tip for making this happen is to establish a family donation bin. We also love smaller donation bins in each closet, but this shared bin is a great way to introduce your children (and maybe partner) to the idea of inventory limits.
Once you’ve tackled some of these common sources of clutter in the home, hopefully you’ll be left with mostly items that you actually find value in. Because at the end of the day, that is the key to organization. When you are able to edit down your belongings to things that you either find useful or that bring you joy, maintaining order is less of a chore. No one wants to move junk around their home.
When people think of professional home organization, the first thing that comes to mind is often fancy containers. To get organized in 2024, people may think that they need to sort their belongs by color, rack up debt at The Container Store, and nestle acrylic bins within acrylic bins within acrylic bins......within acrylic bins... While we don't subscribe to that model, we do believe a few carefully selected containers and systems can help your brain function just a little better this year. We hope you find these selections that we use daily to be helpful in your life as well.
Welcome 2024 with a few new helpful bins and a heart full of hope. Looking to get some momentum on your 2024 organizational goals and need some professional help? Give us a call- we’d love to chat!
