A single-speaker YouTube how-to showing a five-step method to declutter and organize a child's toy/play area. Steps: (1) set goals for the space (reading nook, art table, accessible storage), (2) clear everything out and make piles, (3) set up trash/recycle/donate collection, (4) sort and pare down (remove broken items, duplicates, unplayed toys), and (5) put items back deliberately so everything has a designated, age-appropriate place. Practical rules include limiting book volume to fit specific cubbies, minimizing miscellaneous bins, leaving a spare cubby for new items, and photographing the finished setup as a visual standard for the child.
I used to struggle keeping the toy area clean, but I found the magic solution, and it's super easy. I'll walk you through five steps to tame the toy clutter. For step one, capture a set of goals on what you want to achieve with a space. For example, for this space, I wanted to make sure we had sufficient book storage because our little one likes to read some somewhere to read that's comfy. She has an area to sit down and do art and color and all that fun stuff. She has toy storage that's easy to get to, and she has space to play. That's what I wanted out of this space. So think about what you want to get out of your toy area. For step two, you now need to clear the space. And I like to clear everything out. And I do take an opportunity, kind of gather, like, things together, some of the bigger groupings, like all the stuffed animals. I like to get all of the books because this little one has a ton of books she loves to read. And I gathered them up and actually, it didn't look too bad. I thought it was actually a decent amount of books until I noticed I missed some. So I kept going, grabbed more books. But I. I just created a bunch of piles of, like, items so that I'll be. It'll be easier to go through them later in the next step. Steps. Here's the empty basket. So now I move on to puzzles. And again, she loves to do puzzles, so that's another key area for her. And then I move on to just everything else. It's just a bunch of stuff, some trash, and just miscellaneous toys that need to come out of the space so that we can organize it. So I got caught. This little cutie found me going through her toys, and instead of getting upset, she just started helping. Just love. For step three, you want to have a designated area for trash, recycle and donate. So whether you use bags, bins, whatever you want, just make sure you have those areas and designated and then start to fill them up. Okay, step four, this is the tedious part, but this is where you get the big payoff. What you want to do is start to go through all of the little bits and toys and everything that you have, and again, try to do some groupings wherever you can. So here I put all of her toy pan, pots and pans together. She's got some toy food. She has some blocks, fan toys. I just kind of make little piles, and you want to make sure and pull out along the way anything that's broken, anything they don't play with that. You can donate to another child who might like it. Anything that's a duplicate. You know they don't need seven pans, right? Maybe they only need three or four, right? So go through and declutter and do your best to pare things down so that the things that you are left with and that you're going to organize in the next step they truly love and want to play with. Okay, the hard part's done. So now the space is empty. Now we're on to step five, the fun part where we're now going to put everything back. Okay, Remember our goals. So the first thing was we wanted to make sure that we had a table and chair set up so she can do art, that she had an area to store her books and read. So that will be in this back corner on the left. I'm going to put some toy storage over here in some bins and some open shelving and she'll have open space to play. The key rule that cannot be broken here is that everything needs to have a place so that everything can be stored in its place. This is a non negotiable if you want to be able to keep the space clutter free. So we need to make sure that as we put things back, that everything has a designated space. And that will be easy for the child to put it back or for you to help the child put it back. As I start putting back some of these larger pieces, I really question whether they're needed and if she wants them. The pink item on the left is a kind of princess castle and she loves it. And because it breaks down nicely, we'll definitely store it. She loves to do her grocery shopping and her little shopping cart. And the tunnel breaks down nicely. So all three of these things will keep. Each one of these items now has its designated space where it should be stored. I just keep repeating the process with everything that I pick up. So the stroller, I think she'll play with more. She gets a little bit older and it folds down. So we'll keep that. She loves the ladybug. She rides around on that. So we'll definitely keep it so we find space for those two items. And the third one, the dog, we're not going to keep. We're going to donate that so another kid can enjoy it. She just doesn't play with it enough. And we don't have that much room for storage for the books. We went through all the books, got rid of any that were torn or damaged, and we kept the ones she wanted to keep. And we are going to limit the number of books that can fit inside these three cubes and only that. So. So we cannot grow beyond this amount. And if we do end up with more, we're gonna have to go through them and pare it down so that it fits in these three cubbies. I know that sounds really harsh, but if we want the area to stay clean and decluttered, that's the type of stuff that we have to do. And I think this amount of books is very reasonable for one kid. Okay. We started putting away all of her art supplies, her coloring books, her scratch paper, her pens and her crayons, and get her little art nook set up for her. It's a perfect little place for her. This is really starting to come together. I like how it's turning out. We decided to display the stuffed animals on top. We pared it down and put them up here. Normally I'd probably put them in baskets, but because she's only two, it is hard for her to probably get to them if we put them in baskets. So we'll just help her keep them organized on top. And when she gets a little older, we can put them in baskets if we want. She loves puzzles, so we designated one cube out of the six cubes here just for her puzzles. We repurposed her bear basket, and we used it to store kind of bulky, tall items over here in the corner. And we just kept filling up the different cubes, being very deliberate about what we struggle stored where, thinking about easy access for her, because again, she's young. We want to make sure that things aren't too heavy for her to move and that she has easy access to them. So we're gonna fill up the cubbies. I do recommend trying to keep miscellaneous bins to a minimum. We ended up with two for her. One that had kind of these blocks and some of her little play food items and things like that. And another one that had some foam toys and other items. But only these two bins are kind of the ones that are kind of miscellaneous because otherwise they can just be a dumping ground. So try to keep that to a minimum whenever you can. Here's a tip. Definitely resist the urge to fill every space. This one last cubby, I left a little bit of space in there so in case she gets a new gift or something, she'll have somewhere to put it. Remember this? This was our before shot. I think we have completely transformed the space and made it a relaxing, fun to be play area that we're going to enjoy ongoing and should be easy to maintain and easily pick up. One tip is to take a picture and have it on your phone, or even print it if you want. You'll be amazing. If you show that to your toddler, they'll want to continue to keep it up. And if you have a picture, it helps remind them how it's supposed to look in case they forget or they need help. So that's a great tip that you should give it a try. As for our goals, we were able to check each one of our goals off. I believe we exceeded expectations and the thing I feel confident about is that it'll be easy to maintain because we have a realistic amount of stuff. Everything has a place and everything can easily be kept in its place. I hope this video helped you. Please like and subscribe and join us next time. See you later.
