Five things pro organizers really wish you wouldn’t do

Think it's high time to organize your closet, declutter your junk drawer, or tame the chaos in your kids' rooms?

Home organization is a worthwhile pursuit — but according to home organization experts, even the best intentions can be easily derailed. Yup, there’s a right way to sort and arrange your stuff, and a very wrong way!

To pinpoint what trips people up, we asked organization pros to share the things they really wish you wouldn’t do — mistakes they see people make time and again that really must be put to rest. Consider this a tonotdo list you should abide by, if you hope to keep your home looking its best.

1. Leaving the bed unmade

Face it: A messy bed is an eyesore, so if you’re not going to make it, you may as well stop picking clothes off the floor, too.

“Make your bed every day as a small promise you can keep to yourself, and start the day off on the right foot,” says Katie McCann, a home and office organizing professional at Haven.

But even the pros hate this daily task, so steal this little tip to make your bedroom appear more organized without having to straighten the sheets perfectly.

“Make sure all of your bedding is the same color, like white, and then even unmade, your bed will look pretty organized and intentional,” suggests Drew Henry of Design Dudes.

2. Cramming too much in a small space

Sure, every pair of footwear here has its own little space, but what happens when you get new clogs?

“You always have to allow room for growth — and if an area is jampacked, then you probably didn’t let anything go in the first place,” notes Julie Coraccio, author of “Got Clutter? 365 Journal Prompts.”

3. Keeping things because they’re expensive

You paid a fortune for that abstract art, so you might feel compelled to keep it forever. Ditto those fancy clothes you got when you were 10 pounds lighter. But in both instances, you’re wrong—and you need to let them go!

Before you do, think of creative ways to give these pricey things a good home, either by donating them to a good cause, regifting those that are nearly new, or selling them online and pocketing the cash.

4. Relying on plastic bins

“I wish people would stop buying those awful plastic drawer units on wheels because they look tacky and break easily,” says Darla DeMorrow, author of “Organizing Your Home With SORT and SUCCEED.”

What’s worse, these bins are simply a stopgap.

“By the time you buy a few of them, you could have purchased a really sturdy vintage dresser that you could enjoy for many years,” she adds.

Frankly, all plastic organizing bins should just be recycled and never purchased again. “Homeowners get them to store things without making real decisions, but putting things in bins doesn’t make you organized — it just moves your clutter to wherever the bins are,” she says.

5. Equating organizing with throwing things out

“Organizing is the practice of arranging things so you can find what you need when you need it, whereas this cycle of purgebuy, purgebuy is destructive to the Earth, our health, and our wallets,” says DeMorrow.

Instead, learn to shop for quality things, repurpose items, or figure out how to do fixes or repairs — or do without, she urges.