A Simple Trick to Get Rid of Toys

Are you tired of telling your kids to pick up their toys? Do you have too many toys?? I have discovered a simple trick to get rid of toys!

For years I felt like I was constantly telling my kids to pick up their toys. I was constantly threatening to throw them all away. (Please tell me I’m not the only one!). Once I got hooked on the Marie Kondo Netflix series I thought I was ready to solve the toy problem for good.

My kids had watched a few episodes of Tidying Up With Marie Kondo with me, and they’d seen me tackle the clothes and papers in our house. I read her book and joined a few Facebook groups. My confidence level was high. Together the family was ready to purge and organize the toys…or so I thought.

We spent an entire evening sorting through all their toys, but their purge or donate pile was still very small. Everything was sparking joy for them. I didn’t want to force them to get rid of their toys but I was beyond frustrated. Something needed to change.

Since the KonMari method wasn’t going well with my kids I decided I would just spend a day cleaning the playroom up myself. I worked all day and the room looked wonderful. I knew we still had too many toys, but since they all had a home I was happy. At least I was happy until the kids came home from school and went to play.

In less than 24 hours they had totally undone my beautiful hard work. Of course, I reacted exactly opposite of how I should have. I pretty much threw my own tantrum threatening to throw everything away if they didn’t get it all cleaned up before bed. I was ready to totally get rid of all the toys.

As I watched them really trying to clean up, I noticed a problem. There were just simply too many toys. They were not capable of remembering where the toys should go. The kids needed to put the toys away exactly as I had in order for them to fit. Some toys belonged on shelves that they couldn’t even reach. That’s when I had my major “aha” moment.

The toys on the floor are not the problem. The problem is what is left on the shelves.

I realized my kids could not put away their toys because the shelves and bins were filled with toys they no longer played with. Yes, all their toys spark joy when they hold them, but there were so many they never played with. These toys were taking up valuable space on the shelves and in the toy bins.

For the next 2 weeks, I decided not to ask them to pick up anything. For 2 weeks I did not yell. The kids totally destroyed the playroom. I could hardly walk in there as you can see from the picture above! Then the magic happened.

One day when they were all out of the house, I bagged up all the toys left on the shelves and in the bins. These were all the things they hadn’t touched in 2 weeks. This freed up space for all the toys they DO play with.

I was able to quickly put all the toys that were on the floor onto the shelves or in bins. Similar toys were grouped together but did not stress over getting things organized perfectly.

I kept the bag for of toys for about a month just in case they really missed something, but it’s now been 2 months and they still haven’t noticed anything missing!!!

Does the playroom always look perfect? No.

I still have to remind them to clean up their toys, but they can clean the room in about 5 minutes when they work together. The “cleaning” is typically just shoving everything onto the shelves and into the bins… but it’s all off the floor and out of site!! The picture below is what the playroom looks like after the kids cleaned it up themselves this week. Is it perfect? No. But I’ll take this over what we had before any day!!

So next time you’re ready to get rid of all the toys on the floor away, don’t. Focus on the toys that are put away. These are the ones your kids don’t play with.