What is one of the biggest problems I see in my clients’ home offices? No recycling or shred bins! Sometimes no trash bins either. This is one of the main reasons paper piles are such horrible problems in many home offices: There is no convenient place to dump all of the unwanted paper.
You can spend a lot of money on a shiny, metal, 2- or 3-compartment bin at The Container Store. Or you can go super cheap, yet highly effective with these two ideas (below):
In the above pic, I just took a big box, covered it with paper, and made 3 signs that say “Recycle,” “Shred,” and “Trash.” Inside the box, I placed 3 brown bags, the kind you get at the grocery store. That way, when the “Recycle” bag is full, I simply lift the bag out, dump the entire bag and its contents in the recycling, and then put a new bag in the box. So easy. And so inexpensive!
In this pic, I used two baskets from Ikea (sized to fit in the KALLAX unit). The kind of baskets I used here were key: Each basket is straight-sided so they can snuggle right up next to each other, making them more space efficient. Round wastebaskets are a waste of space. Get straight-sided baskets instead.
Again, each basket is lined with a brown bag or garbage bag, making dumping the recycling or trash super easy. Oh, and note the honkin’ huge labels! These are essential if you are sharing your home office with other family members, and you don’t want your bins filled up with randomness.
Setting up recyling/trash bins is definitely the unsexy part of organizing a home office, but it is CRUCIAL to keeping the paper chaos under control.
Happy Organizing, Everyone!
