I Found a Solution for the Bag of Bags
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Despite what thehome-organization industrial complexmight have you think, it’s normal if many things in your home look the way they do through randomness and inertia. You move a plant to dust and it stays in its new spot for months; you leave a book on a shelf and a cluster of small objects accumulate around it. There’s nothing inherently good or bad about these little domesticelephant paths— I find them comforting, a sign that I’m not treating my home like a museum. But there’s one that’s near universal and widely hated: the Bag of Bags.
Nearly everyone I asked about this topic has a Bag of Bags, including 85 percent of Strategist staff, a normally very organized crew. Here’s how it happens: You have to store a bag, so you put it in another bag, then all bags go there from now on. The Bag of Bags prefers to grow in environments where storage space is at a premium, like under a sink or in a front closet. The top third gets used semi-frequently; the bottom two thirds are a rat’s nest of canvas and plastic that you’ll never touch again. It probably contains a polyester Target bag that has pilled and faded to pink and branded neon swag from a long-forgotten 5K. As you inevitably gain more totes than you get rid of, the bag swells, crowding out anything else.
Until recently, I had my own Bag of Bags, shoved into a closet where we badly needed more space. But while working onan article on storage bins, it occurred to me that there might be an alternative: Although the Bag appears seemingly unbidden in so many households, it doesn’t have to stay that way. Everywhere else I store a large volume of soft things — out-of-season clothes, towels, fabric scraps — they’re in a hard-sided container, which compresses the contents and keeps them contained. Why were bags the exception? Perhaps the Bag of Bags should be a Bin of Bags.
To test out my theory, I requested apolypropylene dust binfrom Muji, scaled to the cubic footage I was willing to devote in my closet to bag storage. After sorting through our totes, we stacked and smushed the ones that made the cut into the bin. And it worked. It sounds simple, but this small change has made my bag UX so much better — I’m able to access the things I’ve stowed to the right and left of the bin, and no offshoot Bags of Bags have popped up elsewhere. Although the bin can fit a lot of bags, when it’s full, it will be a clear-as-day sign that I don’t have space for any more — an indicator you can blow past with a Bag of Bags, to your own detriment.
The Muji dustbin was perfect for me, but this could work with any rectangular bin with high, hard sides, anything from a small trash can to afile box. Do a big bag clean out, then enjoy getting your space back.
Some bins for your bags
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