I seem to have my fair share of empty bins all stacked together in the garage. So I brought one in and placed it on the floor of the closet shown above. See I told you it was nearly empty! This is now my donation spot for things that can fit in the bin. I wasted no time putting my Wednesday 15 items in.
I'm keeping the baskets. It is a little dangerous to keep them nearby if someone else were to gather the donations and take to the charity, but I seem to be the one in charge so it should be fine.
I find it helpful to have one place in our home where donations go. As I was gathering Wednesday 15, I noticed I had three piles starting to accumulate in various areas of our house. One in the bonus room, one on our desk and another in our bedroom. Eek. That just makes for more clutter!! For families or those living together, it can help if everyone knows where donations and things they no longer want can go. That way everyone can do their own decluttering.
In the past few years since my daughter's have been teens, I would encourage them to declutter their rooms at least once or twice a year. I would provide a bin and a trash bag along with moral support if they wanted it. It was then my job to go through the bin to determine if what they were getting rid of was something our household needed to keep (such as a game, craft supplies) or not. If it was something to keep, then I found a new home for it. I didn't make that their job. If it was something outgrown or not needed, it went to our main donation bin.
The items aren't really gone from your home until you dropped them off at the charity or set out for pickup. This means that you have the ability to check the donation spot for items that you still want to keep that another family member is letting go of. I would caution you to pull items back out sparingly, otherwise, all their decision making is invalidated.
Do you have one donation spot in your home? Do your family members share in contributing to it? Do you drop off your unused items or wait for a pick up at your home?
I tend to do this (though not nearly as organized!). There hasn't really ever been a drop-off that is on the way to anything that I do regularly (as in, on the way to the grocery store, ha!), so I didn't want to go out of my way to drop off a few things here and there. Instead, I would collect items that needed to go, in one place, and when the bag or box was full, it was then time to take it away. And more than once or twice, I've pulled things back out of the to-go pile.
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