It’s New Year’s Eve and many of us will be taking part in the yearly tradition of making New Year’s Resolutions. For many of us one of those resolutions will to be better organized in the coming year, but sadly for many of us that resolution will go unfulfilled (as so many New Year’s Resolutions do). Here are some home organization tips for how you can buck the trend and keep the promise you’ve made to yourself for the new year.
Over the course of a year, most of us acquire a lot of stuff. Some of it is useful, some of it is sentimental, but for the pack rat secretly (or not so secretly) lurking in each of us…all of it is essential. The best way to keep your resolution to be better organized is to control your stuff rather than letting your stuff control you.
Systematically go through each room of your home. Are you finding items you don’t use on a weekly or even monthly, let alone daily, basis? There’s no reason for that stuff to be taking up valuable space in your home. Get those items you’re using less often out of the flow of your home into bags or boxes. Clearly label those bags/boxes for easy reference and then find an out of the way place to stash them. Now it may be you have room in a closet or basement for storage, but you should also consider renting a storage unit. It’s a convenient way to keep those possessions you use less often without allowing them to get in the way of your daily life and take up storage space in your home.
Items ideal of off-site storage:
• Season Decorations
• Sports/Recreational Gear
• Lawn/Garden Equipment
• Bicycles
• Seasonal Clothing
Some items aren’t geared to stand up to extreme levels of temperature. If you’re storing anything like that (art/antiques, electronics, etc.), you should consider renting climate-controlled storage. By maintaining constant, moderate temperatures year round, climate-controlled storage is better suited for storing more delicate items.
Now self storage will help satisfy your inner pack rat, but to be truly well organized in your home you have to be able to make some tough decisions. Do you really need 3 bath robes? How many sweatshirts dedicated to just hanging around the house are necessary? Every time you bring something new into your home, try to find at least one thing, if not two or three, which can leave. Donate surplus clothing, furnishings, decorations, etc. to local charities and you’ll combine the positive feeling of being better organized with the even better feeling of doing a good deed.
Prioritize Storage Year Round
Don’t make purging/storage a once a year event. When you rotate seasonal clothing, gear or decorations in and out of your storage unit, take a survey of your entire home. You’ll undoubtedly find items that aren’t part of your seasonal rotations that can still go into storage, or get donated to charity, because you’re not using them on a regular basis.
We noted it earlier, but labeling is a key to being better organized. It won’t do you much good to get clutter out of your home, if you can’t ever find anything when you need it. Label boxes and bags clearly before putting them into storage. Similar items should be kept together, either in the same box or the same area of your storage unit. Maintain an accurate inventory of those items in your storage unit. If there really is a place for everything and everything is in its place, it would be nice to know which things are in which places.
Keeping your New Year’s Resolution isn’t easy, but it doesn’t have to be impossible. If better home organization is your goal, let self storage help you accomplish it.