Have you been thinking more about cleaning out your garage now that the weather is getting warm?

In my last article, I mentioned “visualizing” what you want your finished product to look like.  Have you been working on your plan?

When planning what you want the garage to look like, keep in mind that this one place has to handle the storage needs of the entire family.  Remember what usually ends up in the garage is all the stuff that we don’t know what to do with from the rest of the house.  The typical American family has toys, tools, hardware, gadgets, paints, bicycles, sporting equipment, and boxes of who knows what stored in their garage.  There are also the myriad of objects that just don’t seem to fit anywhere else or have not yet been taken for donation or recycling.  In many cases they’ve been taking up space in the corner for months or even years.

You have to be realistic about this space.  When was the last time you used the golf clubs or the bowling ball?  When was the last time you went camping with all the gear stowed in the back of the garage?  Do you have Christmas decorations that are showing their age and that you never use?

Don’t forget when setting aside your spaces for what you’ll be storing, consider electrical outlets and where windows and doors are located.  If you plan to set up a workbench to hold all your tools, where are the electrical outlets?  Are they nearby or would you have to run wires across the garage floor to use your equipment?  Is there a window close to where you’ll be working or is it blocked?   Windows provide a good source of natural lighting during the day.   

After carefully considering the uses of your garage, getting the whole family involved, and setting up your plan, what is the next step?  I recommend that you break the project down into manageable parts. This is a very basic rule that I tell people to follow whenever they are trying to tackle a large project.  Many people decide this project will not take as long in their mind as it will actually take in reality.  They may think they can do the entire job in two hours; but after four hours of hard work, they lose their energy, get distracted and then don’t have the oomph required to finish what they’ve started.  Please break the project down into small manageable pieces that will offer you quick successes.

Make a decision as to how much time you are willing to spend on this project and try to be sensible.  Always add more time than you think you’ll need because it always seems that something unexpected will happen to offset the schedule you’ve set.

Don’t set yourself up for frustration by trying to do too much at once.   Go easy on this project by planning to do two hours every Saturday for a month or involve the whole family and set up a schedule to complete the job in two weekends.

You will see a big change when you start letting some of the stuff go.   When you see space appear in your garage, you’ll have the feeling of success you can use to propel you through the rest of the project.  Finally putting those Christmas decorations away will make an immediate difference in a cluttered space.

Where is the best place to start when cleaning out the garage?  The most important thing is to start – pick up anything and start to make decisions.  If your garage is packed with items it really doesn’t matter where you start – but you need to start.  Choose the starting point based on what looks the most doable and makes the most sense to you.  Try and pick the place to start that will bring you instant gratification so you’ll feel successful and motivated to continue.    If your workbench is a giant mess and the shelves holding the old paint cans really bother you, then start there and make an immediate difference.

Categorization is the next part of the project.  I think categorizing items is simple and easy.  I have come to realize, however, that categorizing items does not come as easily to some people as it does to others.  As you pick up items and start taking them out of the garage, set them in the driveway in certain areas you can designate by using signs, boxes, bags or chalk marks on the driveway.  The easiest items to make decisions on should be those that can be tossed, recycled, sold or given away.  Now is not the time you’ll be spending sorting small screws or fishing tackle.   This is the “Big Sort.”

It is very hard to make decisions about what items you are going to keep if you don’t first know how many you have of something.  You won’t know if you should get rid of the pruning shears if you don’t know how many pruning shears you have. When you pile all the garden tools together, you may finally see that you have 5 pruning shears (you bought a new one every time you couldn’t find it).  Maybe three of those are rusty and two are in good condition.  Now since you know what you have, it is easier to make a decision on what to keep and what to discard.

When you are doing the Big Sort, the situation may look much worse before it gets better.  This is often the scary part to many people.  When you start dragging out all the stuff stored in your garage and scattering it all over your driveway, it can look pretty overwhelming.  Don’t lose heart though – keep thinking about all the space you’ll soon be enjoying.

After you’ve cleared some space – say for your workbench – now you can start to create “homes” for everything that you want, need, use and will be bringing back into the area. Creating homes for items we use everyday in our lives helps to establish a place where they can live – just like we do in our house.  If something has a place to live it’s got a 50-50 chance of going back to that spot.   At least you have a starting point to look for it the next time you need it.

Set up your workbench area the same way they do at Home Depot or Lowe’s.  When you go there and ask about screwdrivers, the clerk does not say, “I think I saw some scattered over here somewhere.”  All the screwdrivers are in one area, neatly arranged.   So think of your workbench as a hardware store and keep all the same items together – screwdrivers, hammers, saws, screws separate from nails, etc.

Have a great day working in your garage, but one word of caution.  If you are going to drag everything out to the driveway to purge, check the weather forecast first to be sure you won’t have rain.  You don’t want to watch your possessions get ruined because of a rain shower. 

Check back soon for the next step in making a dent in the daunting duty of turning your garage into an organized space.

Happy organizing from the Expert in Simplicity!

Develop an organizing plan to change your life.  Simplify and reach your goals with help from S.O.S.   Please check the calendar at www.organizeclutter.com for classes in the area and information on the clutter support group as well as the next scheduled Simply Organized! three hour seminar.

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If you are feeling overwhelmed, frustrated and don't know where tostart, call Stevie Organizing Services today! S.O.S. assists you in creating uncluttered space in your home or office by creating systems and a place to put things. Being organized eliminates the extra stress in your life. Contact S.O.S. for a consultation and discover a peaceful lifestyle where even small changes can make a big difference.
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