Containerizing done right.

Yesterday we dealt with the seven most pervasive containerizing myths, not least of which is that clutter control will make you a happier, leaner, cleaner, richer person. In brief, we concluded that stuff management will not save your relationship, make you a best-selling author, save the world, simplify your life or containerize your sanity.

Buy all the bins you want: once your hoarding habits threaten to send you to the loony one, not even Oprah’s organizing guru will be able save you. These solutions, on the other hand, just might.

1. Bin Alternatives

To wit:

“Clear plastic or neon bins carry with them the prospect of an organized life, one in which the bills are always paid on time and days unfold in containable, sterilized batches of predictability…”

Solution: Don’t become Bin Laden. Containerize with old soup cans and buckets.

2. Consume Mindfully

We wrote:

“A garlic dicer will not simplify your life, it will clutter it. The same goes for more storage.”

Solution: stop buying so much crap.

3. Rethink Space

Our suggestion:

“Plastic bins aren’t always the answer; consider shelving in your future.”

Solution: Amend shelving to ceiling storage, the new vertical.

4. Store Creatively, Cheaply

“Who says storage has to be transparent, neon or pretty? It just has to function.”

Solution: Invest in functional, creative and cheap containerization.

5. Containerize Don’t Consume

“Avoiding the Container Store will lead to a debt free lifestyle. Buying less stuff will guarantee it.”

Solution: Repeat #2.

6. Containerize Efficiently

“The reason you haven’t written your first novel is not for lack of desktop organization. It’s because Office Max is selling you too many writing blocks…”

Solution: For this, we turn to the containerizing blog called I’m An Organizing Junkie, to deal with this affliction we’ve all been able to relate to at one point or another. The site asks us to consider process as an anagram: “P” as in planning your attack; “R” for removing items; “O” for organizing said items. But before moving on to “C” for containerizing, add a “Y” for yard sale (see I’m an Organizing Junkie for the rest of that anagram).

7. Don’t Store: Clean

Yesterday’s final myth was: “containerizing will make my space a cleaner place.” Today’s biggest busting truth is this: that is simply not true. Containerizing really just means shuffling an item to a pile and then moving that pile into a box because you don’t know what else to do with all that crap in the pile that is now in a box – which is now containerized for what?

Excessive containerization is like a contagion, a rotten apple, a bundle of bad berries. Bad berries are bad. Bad berries = dirty, slimy goo in an otherwise clean refrigerator. You wouldn’t hoard the berries. You’d compost them. Then clean the refrigerator or the storage container the berries rotted in.

The point is, only cleaning will make your space clean. For everything else, there’s Oosouji.

Images: Rubbermaid Products; The Kitchn; HGTV.com; The Family Handyman; Apartment Therapy;  Kibogaoka

The post 7 Myth-Busting Storage Solutions appeared first on EcoSalon.

A place for everything and everything in its place…really?

An interesting tidbit: not only is containerize a verb (to pack in containers or ship by containerization, of course) but it’s a mid-century word possibly invented to meet the growing popularity of the suburban Tupperware party.

Many promises were made during the heyday of the Tupperware business model of the 50s and 60s: airtight freshness, careers for women, organization for life. In subsequent decades, though, two factors burst Tupperware’s hermetically burpable seal: first, the party scheme was responsible for ushering in the Mary Kay get-together and Amway pyramid (for some, everything is for sale…even friendship); secondly, the myth that the key to familial bliss was an organized cupboard.

The myth is not dead, of course, even in light of today’s marriage statistics. Rather, it has evolved (and multiplied) – out of the cupboard and into our living rooms, bedrooms, bathrooms, closets, medicine cabinets, underwear drawers, and beyond. Perpetuated by the likes of HGTV, the Container Store and Peter Walsh, here are seven myths we’ve come to believe about a containerized lifestyle.

Are you drinking the Kool-Aid? More importantly, is it labeled and color-coordinated?

Myth #1: A New Bin Will Fix…Everything!

Clear plastic or neon bins carry with them the prospect of an organized life, one in which the bills are always paid on time and days unfold in containable, sterilized batches of predictability. If only our sanity could be containerized like storage.

Remember: acquiring more bins than you need will leave you “Bin Laden” and we all know how that story ends.

Myth #2: I Don’t Have Enough Room

Now you’re just being negative. Before overpopulating the housing market in a bid to acquire even more storage space, source out underused nooks and crannys in the house you’ve already got.

Plastic bins aren’t always the answer; consider shelving in your future.

Myth #3: Storage $olutions Don’t Come Cheap

This is why you spend so much money at Target. You could look for cheaper storage solutions at the dollar store (the threat of becoming Bin Laden lurks here too). Or containerize responsibly with reused containers and baskets.

Who says storage has to be transparent, neon or pretty? It just has to function.

Myth #4: My Space is Too Full

So…what: you need more storage?

This brand of optimism is best reserved for glasses of water. When your physical environs spill over into “full” that’s probably because you have too much stuff. Being the optimist that you are, you might have purchased this excess stuff optimistically from HSN.

A garlic dicer will not simplify your life, it will clutter it. The same goes for more storage.

Myth #5: Containerizing Will Lead to a Debt Free Lifestyle

This is related to #4 above, except that you either learned this on a morning talk show or read it in the grocery check-out line. Did you notice the advertisements between the pages and during the commercial breaks?

Avoiding the Container Store will lead to a debt free lifestyle. Buying less stuff will guarantee it.

Myth #6: I’ll Become More Efficient if I Containerize

Stores like Staples and Office Depot exist solely for the purpose of perpetuating this myth. The reason you haven’t written your first novel is not for lack of desktop organization. It’s because Office Max is selling you too many writing blocks (and paperweights, pencil holders, folders, etc.).

Myth #7: Containerizing Will Make My Space a Cleaner Place

Au contraire: containerizing according to any of the myths above will not make your life more organized, efficient, successful, full – not even clean and/or sterilized.

Instead it will turn you into your worst nightmare: a hoarder.

Images: Rubbermaid Products; Baby Center; Krissy Venosdale; Matthew Moss

The post The 7 Myths of a Containerized Lifestyle appeared first on EcoSalon.