Every home needs this…
…a donation station! It’s simply a box, basket or bag that lives in a dedicated spot in your home. Its purpose? To be easily accessible for you to fill with things to donate as and when you come across them in your house.
We have a basket on top of the master bedroom wardrobe. This location seems to make sense as the phase of life we are in at the moment, means that we often have outgrown clothes. However, this box is not just for clothes – as I see any item (books, clothes, accessories, shoes, you name it) that doesn’t serve us anymore I will slam dunk it (in quite a skilful and spectacular way if I may add) into the basket. You can keep your box wherever makes most sense to you and where you have space. The key thing here is to make it as easy as possible to access and put things in, for example, a tub with a lid stacked on top of each other underneath the stairs will not work. You wouldn’t want to walk to the cupboard, get the tub from the bottom of the stack, open the lid, put the item in, close the lid, put the tub back and close the cupboard door. No, no, that will not work. The items will just end up on a pile somewhere.
When the basket is full I will bag it up, put it straight in the car and drop it off at a charity shop or at a friend’s house who has smaller children (always check first). Clothes or items that are too tired looking get dropped off at the recycling site closest to my house.
That’s it! If it is not loved, used or needed, the exit strategy is in place and I don’t have to wait for a big decluttering haul to get unused items out of my active space. Before I implemented a ‘donation station’, I would sometimes have little piles of things all over the house; things I’ve pulled out of the kids drawers that don’t fit anymore, or bags of things by the front door that needs to leave the house once full or just be faced with things every day and think ‘I should get rid of that one day’.
Sometimes clutter accumulates because we don’t get rid of it soon enough. The things that don’t have a purpose in our homes keep hanging around and clogging up our space. By implementing this easy exit strategy it helps to stay on top of the clutter and it is easy to make decluttering part of life. As you clean, do laundry, cook, get dressed or just go about your day and handle items in your home, you will be able to get rid of things more easily because you’ve paved the way.
So grab a box, basket or bag (it doesn’t have to be fancy) and label it ‘donate’. You might feel inspired to call it something different like; ‘donation station’, ‘giving box’ or ‘charity’ or fun like ‘another one bites the dust’, but there is definitely power in a label. Place the box somewhere out of the way but easy to access and see how it contributes to having less clutter in your home.
Why not implement it this week and let me know if it works for you?
If you feel like you are constantly battling with clutter in your home, this guide might help. It gives you five quick and easy ways you can start doing today to get your home more decluttered and organised over time. You can download it here!
If you are in the organising phase, you can grab a list of my favourite organising items here. But remember, declutter first ????
If you have not yet grabbed my list of favourite organising items, you can grab it here!
Until next time!
Suzanne
