Is your bathroom cluttered and hard to clean? You’re not alone! People today have
more stuff than ever, and bathrooms have been slow to reflect this reality. Without
enough storage, items pile up. Clutter invites more clutter. No matter what a bathroom’s
size, it can feel too small and be difficult to keep clean. If you can’t speed-clean your
bathroom in 5 minutes or less, it’s time to act!
Clutter assessment. Set aside a few hours or a half-day. Clutter-cleansing often takes
less time than that, but you don’t want to have to stop in the middle!
Start at the sink. This countertop is prime bathroom real estate – Have you or family
members allowed it to become catch-all space? Stand in front of your vanity and go
through the motions of your morning and evening routines. Set aside each item you
use. These are your true essentials.
What about items crammed into drawers or hidden under the sink? On the window
ledge? In the shower? Inside any free-standing “storage units”? When did any of these
undergo serious scrutiny? Pull them out, too.
Time to buy some containers? Hold off for now. It’s easy to fall into a trap of believing
that the answer to too much stuff is to buy or make containers to hold all that stuff. Up to
a point, sometimes that answer makes sense. The internet is full of enticing offers for
cute storage items. But how much is really necessary?
The all-important sorting step. Get 4 boxes, bins, or laundry baskets. Label them Yes,
Yes-but, No, and Maybe. Go through the stuff you just pulled out. Quickly pick up each
item and ask, “Should I keep this?”
Move quickly and trust your snap judgments. (If in doubt, anything marginal that can be
easily replaced for less than $20 can probably be tossed, recycled, or donated.)
Check expiration dates of all medications and cosmetics. Many expire more quickly than
you would think. No matter what you paid for them, toss them out. Your continued good
health is too important to jeopardize in the name of saving a few dollars.
For each item you’ve decided to keep, ask yourself, “Does it really belong in the
bathroom?” You’ll probably be surprised at how often the answer is “I want it, but it
doesn’t need to be here.” Put those items into the Yes-but container.

Don’t get side-tracked now putting those misplaced things where they belong. That will
involve an entire new set of decisions, best done at another time as a fresh project.
Let this Yes-but container sit in an out-of-the-way place for a few weeks. From time to
time, you may need to retrieve items from it. But at the end of that time, anything you
haven’t needed probably won’t be missed. Reassess accordingly!

By the end of this process, you’ll have a straightforward measure of your actual
bathroom storage needs. Knowledge is power. Now you can look for those cute new
containers – you’ve earned them!