Place Trash Bins Throughout House {15 Minute Mission}

Today's Declutter 365 mission is to make sure you've placed trash bins throughout your house wherever they're needed.


This extremely simple and quick mission is designed to be done while working on the Home Recycling Center & Trash Challenge here on the site, which is part of the 52 Week Organized Home Challenge.

The reason that I have this as a mission as part of a decluttering challenge is that one of the things we often need to deal with, when decluttering, is trash.

Why do we keep trash in the first place? Well, that is actually not a simple question, there are lots of reasons we keep things that are really trash, many of them emotional.

But there are practical reasons we might keep trash as well. One of those is not having somewhere convenient to throw it away, right close to where we are currently standing. I'm not talking here about food waste, typically, but this happens a lot with paper (which could also be recycled), or packaging, etc.

To the extent that one of the reasons we "just put it down for a moment" (that ends up lasting months!) is because we don't have a convenient place to throw it away right around where we are, right that moment, in the house, that will stop today.

Just having a place to throw away trash can really keep the clutter from accumulating in your home because when it is easy to throw something away, you do that, much more often! Amazing, right?

There are two things you need to consider when doing this mission, and I'll address each one briefly below.

The first is to consider which rooms you should place trash cans in, and the second is to decide how large (or small) those cans or bins should be.

What Rooms Should Have Trash Cans?

First you need to decide which places in your home should get a trash can.

I suggest the kitchen (I bet everyone already has a kitchen trash can though, right?), as well as bathrooms, the laundry room, your home office, and all bedrooms. You may also want one in your garage, shop, basement, craft room, or really, the sky's the limit.

Think today about where you often throw away trash, or end up finding trash that later you need to get rid of, and place a trash bin there now if you don't already have one.

In addition, now that you're conscious of the fact that you might need more trash cans than you currently have pay attention over the course of the next week or two, and if you notice anymore places that need one that you didn't originally think of ]go ahead and place one there as well.

What Size Should The Trash Bins Be?

The second thing to consider is how large the trash can should be that you place in these spaces. What you're aiming for is what I call the Goldilocks trash can, which is one that is neither too big nor too small, but just right.

You want a trash can that is big enough to hold the amount of trash generated in that area over a reasonable time period, I suggest over a week time period. The reason I say a week is that many people get their trash picked up weekly, and so weekly, at a minimum, you should empty these trash cans throughout your home (more often if they contain food trash which could attract pests). But in between those trash days you don't want the trash can to be overflowing, so it needs to be big enough.

On the other hand, trash cans aren't typically lovely, and they take up space. So you don't want one that too big either that is an eye sore.

Typically the place you need your big trash can is in the kitchen, and in these other rooms a small one will normally be sufficient for most people. (If you want more guidance about choosing a kitchen garbage can check out my article!)

Below I've shown some photos that readers have sent in who've done this mission to show you how simple it really is.

It will only take you a few minutes but it can save you loads of aggravation and time when you aren't later decluttering trash from your home that should never have accumulated in the first place.

Results When Readers Did This Mission

Here are just a few examples of the photos sent in by readers when they did this simple mission.

The photo above is from a reader, Winnie, who said, "From the Dollar Tree. Perfect size for bathrooms. I only needed one for my laundry room to collect lint and surprises I get out of my son's pockets. 😆I now have all bases covered!"

In addition, here's a photo from Brandy, who showed all the small trash cans she's placed around her home.

Notice that in many of these pictures above the small trash bins have a trash bag liner inside them. You can use plastic grocery or shopping bags for this purpose, and it's a great way to get rid of excess plastic shopping bag clutter you might be accumulating in your house. You can get ideas for even more uses for plastic bags around your home here.

Want To Do More Decluttering Missions? Get Started With Declutter 365 Today!

Once you declutter one type of item in your home I bet you'll want to declutter some more. After all, decluttering gives you a great reward for even a small investment of time and energy.

The Declutter 365 system is designed to help you declutter, over the course of a year, your entire house, with just 15 minutes of decluttering each day!

Hundreds of thousands of people use this proven system to get rid of their clutter, and bring peace and calm back to their homes.

Declutter 365 works to guide you to clear the clutter without overwhelm, focusing on just one small area at a time, and without making a huge mess in the process, so you see consistent forward progress without all that "messy middle" that makes it even harder to function in your home than before you started.

In addition to building a daily decluttering habit, the Declutter 365 program, along with the accompanying 52 Week Organized Home Challenge, teaches you the skills, habits, routines, and mindsets necessary to maintain the clutter free and organized state of your home from now on, so it'll never be as messy and cluttered as it is right now, ever again.

If you haven't already, make sure to get your copy of this year's Declutter 365 annual calendar here (it's FREE!), find today's date, and do 15 minutes of decluttering on the day's mission. Then, repeat again tomorrow, and again and again. Over the course of the next year, if you do this 15 minutes per day, you'll declutter your whole house!

Get This Miscellaneous Decluttering Checklist + 32 Other Decluttering Checklists For Your Home

Right now you're decluttering your home, and there's a lot of items to declutter.

Get your 2 page miscellaneous decluttering checklist, plus 32 other decluttering checklists, to help you declutter your entire home here.

I've done the hard work of breaking down these tasks into smaller more manageable steps for you, so you don't get overwhelmed or worry you're forgetting a task, and you can go at the pace you want, whether that's fast or slow.

In addition, you can tackle these decluttering tasks in whatever order you want when you use these checklists!

In addition, now that you've got all your trash cans in place throughout your home, make sure to adopt a simple trash day routine to get all that trash out of your home regularly!

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