The F***-It Buckets

It’s spring cleaning time! Time to dust off the tchotchkes and dust off those organizational skills that we put on hold eleven months out of the year. Time to dig deep and dig yourself out from a lifetime of accumulated clutter into piles of trash, donate, and keep. Scores of self-help books and articles are springing (eh? eh?) up everywhere, ready to help you maximize and simplify your space.

The desire to improve and beautify our home spaces is one most of us share. Even if our social media and streaming sites were not brimming with gorgeous, fresh, minimalist spaces, we human animals just want a pretty, cozy habitat. We also have careers, families, social obligations, and a mountain of stress.

Probably this mountain.

If you are part of the 75% of Americans experiencing moderate to high stress right now, the last thing you need is one more thing on your to-do list. Spring cleaning is for the 25-percenters that are somehow skating by in relative ease.

Even people with laser vision have stress.

For the rest of us, I recommend buckets.

Okay, almost any kind of containers will do, but if you use buckets (or at least adopt the terminology), you can call them F***-It Buckets, and that’s just good fun for anyone. Here’s how it works.

Black Hole Patrol

Look around your un-tidied home. Chances are, stuff accumulates in a handful of areas like star stuff careening towards a black hole. For me, it’s literally any flat surface, but especially the kitchen table, the record stand by the front door, and the dresser in my bedroom. The first step is just to identify two or three of your black holes. Eventually, you'll want at least one container in every room, but start small.

Pictured: My kitchen table.

Introduce to each area a bucket. Some guidelines, the buckets should be:

As small as possible

The container you choose should be just large enough to be practical, and preferably shallow enough to make everything in it easily visible. For instance, in your entryway, it probably makes sense to have a small dish where you can toss your keys, ear buds, and sunglasses, but not much else, otherwise, you won’t be able to find your every day carry essentials. If you also sort your mail just inside your door, you may want to have a tub or wall-mounted pocket to hold any mail you are not immediately handling.

An area where larger things accumulate (the area around my couch is a magnet for shoes, blankets, books, and all manner of craft supplies) will need a larger bucket. A basket or a $4 toy bucket is a great choice.

#Aesthetic

If you pick containers you don’t mind looking at, your system has the best chance for success. If you are intentionally not looking at the ugly bucket, you’ll be less likely to use it.

It's not even there.

I like to collect unique bowls and baskets at thrift stores and antique shops. I also like these, which cost a dollar and can be painted to match whatever the vibe of the moment may be.

Easy to reach

This small and pretty bucket or container or tray needs to be set right there, where you and everyone in your home can see it. Out of sight, out of mind.

F*** It

When you are worn out from another round of endless web meetings and passive aggressive email chains, instead of shoehorning another tidying task into your already crushing day, the system begins. Just take a look around the room for the nearest F***-It bucket, and toss in anything that doesn’t belong in that area.

Fix it.

Then, on a day when you have extra energy to spare, pick one of your buckets and put everything in its rightful place OR in the bucket closest to its rightful place. Take a break. Drink some water. Celebrate yourself.

Fabulous.

Then? Put away another bucket. Get tired or just want to go lounge in a sunbeam like a cat? F***-It, you can put away things another day.

I recommend putting one day on your calendar each week to put away your buckets, just in case. The sunbeams are pretty enticing.

You've got this

The beauty of the F***-It Bucket system is that you give yourself a break, and we all need to give ourselves a break. By giving yourself the freedom to have an intermediate destination for your things, you take the pressure off of “everything in its place.”

Remember, perfect is the enemy of done, and we do not engage with the enemy.