Day 3 Purging Tips – Plastic Containers and Lids

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Welcome to Day 3 of the 31 Days of 10-minute Purging Tips Challenge.  How have you done with the past two days’ challenges? Remember that the goal is to clear clutter that we don’t need from our lives and home so that we can make room to better enjoy life. Make room in your life for more enjoyment by getting rid of some of that stuff that’s just taking up room. Today we’re going to tackle decluttering plastic containers and lids. Let’s head to the kitchen and get started.

I don’t know how it happens, but somehow those plastic containers and lids seem to multiply at night in the darkness of a kitchen cabinet. It’s like the Bermuda Triangle of the kitchen – somethings disappear (like lids) and other things appear out of nowhere (like stained containers). If you’re like most of us, before you even open that plastic container cabinet, you know you have too many containers and lids. Too. Many. Keep that mind when you start purging the clutter.

Clearing Clutter – Purging Tips for Plastic Containers and Lids

Let’s head into the kitchen. On your way, grab the free Purging Clutter Checklist and the 6 purging bags you created earlier.  and add a big bag for recycling. Set your timer for 10 minutes and let’s go.

Take All the Containers and Lids Out of the Cabinet- Remember we’re doing this in 10 minutes. Know that you’re going to be making quick decisions here. There’s really no reason to linger because there shouldn’t be any emotional attachments here. As you take everything out of the cabinet, match lids up with containers and set them out on the counter.

Group Like Items Together – Quickly group like items together. Place similar sized containers together. Place similar shaped containers together. Place any containers without lids together. Place lids without containers together in another area.

Evaluate – Look at each group you’ve created. Do you need to keep the containers without lids? Do you need the lids that don’t have matching containers? Do you have too many of one shape or size of container. Do you have containers that are warped or damaged? Do you have containers that are stained?

Purge – The containers without lids, lids without containers and all damaged and stained containers should be thrown out or recycled. Remove items you don’t need to keep and place them in one of your purging bags. 

Put Everything Away – Put the items you’ve decided to keep back away. I recommend keeping the lids together with the containers. 

For tips on how to reorganize a kitchen and plastic containers check out these tips when my friend, J., and I reorganized her kitchen.

We’ve got another day of purging done. You’ve tamed those unruly plastic containers and reclaimed that cabinet in your kitchen. Drop by tomorrow for Day Four in the 31 Days of 10-Minute Purging Tips challenge. Let’s purge and make more room in your home for you.

If you didn’t already, print out your free Purging Clutter Checklist and get ready for tomorrow’s purging task. And if you can’t wait for tomorrow, you can check out all 31 of the 10-Minute Purging tasks right now. 

Find all my decluttering tips, printables and challenges in the table below. You can scroll though the table and look for ideas or search for specific ideas with the magnifying glass in the upper right-hand corner (on desktop). Click on the topic and then click through the specific article.