How can you have more fun and less stress during the summer? Organize your garage.
With garages getting used more during the summer, if you can’t easily find and put back the items you use, it’s only a matter of time before your garage becomes a disorganized dumping ground.
A disorganized garage will cause preparation time to take longer and may deter you from even leaving the house in the first place. And even if you do get to your activity, you may not be able to enjoy it because you’re thinking of all the work ahead of you to put everything away.
Avoid the summertime blues with these garage organizing tips:
Tip #1 - Make a specific plan. Decide what tasks you want to accomplish in your garage and book a date on your calendar to do them. You’ll increase your chances of actually getting them done.
Tip #2 –Clear walking paths. To be able to walk easily from front to back and side to side in your garage, sort items on the floor into piles of 1) Bigger items that can’t be contained for ex: bikes 2) Items already contained in boxes, bins and bags 3) Items small enough to be contained (put these in bankers boxes), 4)trash 5)recycling 6)empty bins and boxes
Tip #3 – Create zones. Group like items together into zones based on the similarity of use of the the items for ex: sports/outdoors (camping, beach, soccer), holidays, memorabilia, tools/home maintenance & repair, kitchen overflow (aka the Costco zone). This will help you find and put things away faster, which is key to easily maintaining your garage.
Tip #4 – Macro not micro-sort. When doing a first round of sorting, avoid micro sorting items into smaller categories but instead macro sort using bigger categories. For example, holiday versus Christmas or sports versus soccer. This will make the organizing process go faster.
Tip #5 – Use shelving and bins. Shelving will get your items off the floor and bins will make it easier to grab and go. I recommend 5-shelf metal shelving units, ceiling racks and 56- 66 quart sized plastic bins.
With summertime right around the corner, the sooner you get organized, the sooner you can enjoy a happier and more relaxing summer.
Listen to more episodes of The Miss Organized Show.
Get more tips and tricks by visiting my website Miss Organized.
For a more in depth look behind the common reasons why people clutter and hoard check out my book "If Clutter Could Talk....The Stories It Would Tell."
