 The work-from-home trend is here to stay, whether it’s full-time or only occasional. That means you need a space to function in a way that supports your vision for your working future. That might be spending more time with family, snagging a promotion, or starting your own business. Your vision should be uppermost in your mind as you design and tidy your workspace at home.
1.Designate a room or space that accommodates your needs. If you are fortunate enough to have a separate room for your office, make sure that other functions don’t overwhelm the space, such as work out equipment, for example. You want as few distractions as possible. If you don’t have a spare room, designate a specific place in your dining room or living room – wherever you can find room – and claim it for your own. Just be sure that at the end of the day, you can put it away or conceal it so you can set clear boundaries between your business and personal time. 2.Gather all supplies in one space. Marie Kondo stresses the importance of keeping like items together, both for ease of finding them and putting them away. If you have office supplies scattered about the house, consolidate them in one basket or container so they are at the ready when you need them. This will minimize distractions and increase your productivity. And you want to maximize your productivity so you can enjoy your time at home! 3.Make your office joyful. Just because it’s an office, doesn’t mean that it has to be all work. Your space should have something(s) in it that speaks to you, inspires you, and helps you recall your vision for you home office. Maybe it’s a picture of a trout fisher or skiing with family and friends – things you will have more time to do when you manage your home office time efficiently. Whether you have a designated space or designated room for your office, your time will be spent more effectively when you follow these tips. Then you can enjoy your time in your home office because it will align with your vision for your work’s future. With a joyful heart, Mrg Based on “Tidying the Home Office,” by KonMari Media Inc. on KonMari.com, last accessed March 6, 2023.
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2/9/2023 0 Comments Finding Joy To find joy and meaning in your life, it’s important to know joy when you feel it, see it, taste it, smell it, and touch it. In the KonMari Method,® Marie Kondo teaches that joy is the standard that should govern your life, from determining what clothing to keep and what to dispose of, to choosing to take a vacation and shopping for groceries. But what exactly is “joy?”
Joy is more than a fleeting happy moment, it goes deeper. At its core it’s a feeling. It’s the feeling you get when you discover a long-lost picture of your child feeding geese by hand at the state capitol all those years ago. It’s the way you feel when you slip into your most comfortable pair of jeans. Joy comes from a deeply personal place in your soul and your body reacts positively to the sensation. Consider those jeans. What if you put them on and they were too tight? What if your ex saw you when you were wearing them? Would you still feel confident and comfortable, or would you be embarrassed and self-conscious? Instantly, you know whether those jeans bring you joy. The more you ask yourself these questions, the better you will become at figuring out what brings you joy. Hone your radar and you will begin to notice those things that bring you a sense of calm, relaxation, thrill, and personal connection. 1/11/2023 0 Comments 4 Easy Steps to Get Organized! With the holidays behind us and a brand new year ahead of us, it seems logical that January should be "National Get Organized Month." Most of us – even professional organizers – have something in their home or office they’d like to have decluttered or better organized. These cold winter days are a perfect time to tackle a new project with a few tips and tricks.
1. Be clear on what you want. Don’t just go out and start buying bins, boxes and baskets to organize things. First, determine why you want to tackle this project. Is it simply to tidy up or is it to, for example, have a mudroom that functions to make your family’s comings and goings more efficient? If you set aside the time to clean the mudroom, you’ll have a clean mudroom. For the time being. But if you’re looking for a space that supports your family’s efficiency coming and going, you’ll have to do things differently if you want a different, long-lasting result. 2. Be clear on what functions to keep. In the act of decluttering, we seek out those things that support our vision and bring us joy, and discard those that aren’t up to the task. Likewise, your space can only serve a limited number of functions well. That mudroom is a great place for coats, hats, boots and backpacks. But if your kids are stashing iPads and other handheld devices there, that is a dangerous place to store electronics and it’s inconvenient, too. How about the dog bowls, leashes, and dog food? It is a logical place with room for that function? If not, find a better suited place for pet supplies. 3. Make it easy to keep it tidy. To the extent possible, store things where you use them – that makes it easy to put items away when you’re done using them. You wouldn’t store bedsheets in the kitchen, but you might store them in a linen closet near the bedrooms or in the bedroom closet so they’re handy when it’s time to change sheets. 4. Enjoy a job well done. Once you’ve decluttered, organized, and aligned functions of your space, you should take time to appreciate the new-found efficiency of your space. That enjoyment or little reward is what reinforces your new behavior and will, over time, create positive habits that support your vision for what you want. Once it’s a habit, you and your family can ‘automatically’ keep your space tidy and save time for activities you’d rather be doing. With joy, Mrg Simon Professional Organizer Certified KonMari(r) Consultant mrg.simon@designed2stick.com 605-929-1493  As a professional organizer, I help all sorts of people take control of the physical items that are overwhelming them in their homes and offices so they can find the joy in their surroundings. Equally important for a well-rounded, organized life is managing your time. We all know time management doesn’t just happen automatically, and most systems focus on efficient use of your time while ignoring whether your career and life is meeting your needs for connection and satisfaction. Focusing solely on productivity and efficiency overlooks the larger picture of organizing your life for meaning in exchange for divvying up your busy day-to-day lives.
To achieve satisfaction and even joy in your life – both personally and professionally – requires a deliberate and intentional effort. Establishing a written roadmap for your year, your months, and your weeks is vital to realizing your ultimate vision for your life. What is the point of being more organized and having more time in your life if you don’t use that time to bring more joy into your life? I’ve developed an annual planning system that helps me get the most out of my life so I can look back on each year with a sense of accomplishment and look forward to the next year of adventures of all kinds. It’s based on the concept of a “bullet journal,” but skips the rules, symbols, and artistic flair throughout that make it feel like just more work. My planner is flexible and useful in more ways than I can count. The basic concept is that your days, weeks, months and years can fly by at the speed of light and if you have taken time to thoughtfully map out that time, it will be well spent and full of memories. My planner is called My Intentional Year: Organizing My Life for Joy and MeaningSM and it depends first on writing down your intentions, commitments, appointments and other events, either electronically or manually in a journal of some sort. For maximum fun and historic value, I use a journal (Leuchtturm brand 1917 or a Moleskin brand 5” x 8.25” with at least 200 pages, available in local bookstores and on Amazon.com) because I do like to draw and use decorative lettering in my book to keep it interesting and to focus my attention. You should use it in whatever way works best for you. I have four areas of focus, five if you count the creative and inspiring bonus material. 1.Your Intention and Vision. As you start each year, you should do so with intention. Establish a theme for your year to keep you inspired month after month. Write your theme on your opening pages to keep it top of mind. For example, in 2022 I adopted the theme “Celebrate more!” At the end of each month, I identified my “wins” and celebrated them. Like a metaphorical pan on the back. Then, at the end of the year, I list them all and demonstrate to myself just how much I have accomplished. That really helps to stave off the end-of-year burnout when I wonder just what I got done in the last 12 months. The beginning of the year is also the perfect place to write down your vision for what you intend to accomplish in your life, on a professional and personal level for the calendar year, including specific goals. Then, be sure to check in with it throughout the year to see how you’re doing at achieving your vision for this year. 2.Future Log. Next, I take a broad look at big events I anticipate throughout the year. I create what’s called a “future log” by bullet journal aficionados. It’s a space to write down each month of the upcoming year (February – January) and identify any special things going on during each month. I use mine to record birthdays and anniversaries, annual events and holidays, and I leave space for future appointments that extend beyond the months laid out in my journal. 3.Monthly Calendar. Next, for those who are into stress relief through drawing, I have a cover page for the month which I often use to establish my decorative theme for the month. Then, I reproduce the calendar for the month as the next page(s) – I usually use a 2-page spread. I like to write on the calendar the recurring activities and one-offs that are on the docket for the month. I also embellish this page to echo the theme for the month (optional). I find it makes my life a little less pedestrian to have my own designs reflecting back at me as I check my calendar while booking new appointments. 4.Weekly layouts. Finally, the meat of My Intentional Year is the weekly spreads. What works best for me is to organize them Monday through Sunday, with the weekend days sharing a space to make for 6 even areas to record my daily commitments and activities. It takes a little getting used to but for me, it mirrors the way I plan my life: my work week first and then my weekends are separate. My weekly spreads are where I intersperse inspiration quotes and drawings. If I know it’s going to be a tough month motivationally speaking, I will find inspirational quotes to hand letter and use cheery colors to decorate them with colored pencils. Then onto where the “bullet” part of the bullet journal got its name. Next to each entry on individual days, there are coded boxes to represent tasks that are started, completed, canceled, moot or rescheduled, along with symbols for appointments and meetings, events, urgent items, email, call, to buy, and just plain notes. These are all items that are fair game for your daily entries, but all those symbols took up more RAM than I had available in my brain. Some days it’s all I have to just jot down a few scribbles. 5.Bonus Material. The real secret sauce for My Intentional Year is in the separate lists that I make to keep track of specific things in my life. In my first journal, I even made a List of Lists! Over the course of a month or a year, there are so many things that you could keep track of such as client numbers, depositions taken, trials conducted, CLEs attended, books you’ve read, movies you’ve watched, exercise log, gratitude pages – the list goes on and on. One I find particularly useful is “The Last Time I ...” where I can record the last time the bar dues were paid, the certificate of compliance was filed, the mandatory training was completed, employee reviews were conducted, or things like when furnace filter was changed, the windows were washed, the car had an oil change ... you get the idea. I even leave room for journaling at the end of each month just in case I want to record some specific thoughts about that month’s happenings. The steps I have summarized might seem like a lot of work. Why not just use a regular planner? Because it won’t prompt you to reach back and look at your goals and your vision. It won’t give you time to pause and think about what brings meaning to your career and your life, and give you more control over what you do instead of letting things just happen to you. Your personal and professional satisfaction is key to making your life at home and at work enjoyable every day. With such high rates of depression and uncertainty these days, we must be proactive, deliberate, and intentional if we’re going to make this next year count! Organize your year for joy and meaning with the “My Intentional Year” approach to planning. P.S. I am creating a focus group to follow the 2023 Intentional YearSM process, complete with printouts for the entire year and occasional Zoom classes to discuss the process, your successes, and your suggestions. If you’d like to be part of this focus group, email or call me before December 15, 2023. Please use the phrase “Focus Group” in your email subject line. Mrg Simon Certified KonMari® Consultant and Professional Organizer 605-929-1493 mrg.simon@designed2stick.com  As the holidays approach, I’d like to focus on an often-overlooked category of organization: hosting holiday guests, including overnight guests. November and December are when we gather more frequently indoors and for longer periods of time.
If you have guests coming over and haven’t done a whole-house tidying, there are ways to quickly declutter your home to spruce up your surroundings and make guests most comfortable. Marie Kondo has four quick tips that will put you and your guests at ease. 1. Do a “Joy Check.” In her tidying tips, Kondo puts joy at the center of everything – it’s a guiding principle that will serve you well in so many situations. Stand at your door and observe the shared spaces with the fresh eyes of a newcomer, going room by room to objectively evaluate whether the things you’ve piled up or thrown in a basket really do bring you joy. If you’re unsure, take time to reflect on whether these items pass the “Joy Check.” If they don’t, thank them and let them go. 2. Decide Where Things Belong. On your journey through your spaces, you likely found some things around the house that didn’t have a home. Seize this opportunity to decide where each item belongs, and make sure your other family members know so they can find things and put them away after use. TV remotes can go in a tray on the coffee table, mail goes in your “pending” box on your desk, coats go in the closet. To maintain all the tidying you do, everyone must know exactly where everything belongs. 3. Keep a Neat Kitchen. The kitchen is the hub of the home and a natural gathering space for guests. Before they arrive, declutter your counters of all the relatively small things that distract from your kitchen and its counterspace. Find a new home for your toaster, your dish soap, and your teapot. Once you’ve done that, wipe down the counters (and spot check the backsplash and cabinets). Then, keep the area around the sink clean – it’s the focus of the room and you’ll have a tidy kitchen that you and your guests can enjoy. 4. Tidy the Guest Bedroom. The holidays can be unpredictable and even if you don’t think you’ll be needing your guest room, it should be ready for guests at a moment’s notice. Do a serious “joy check” around the room and closet. Rather than using it as a room to store seasonal items, creating a welcoming, tranquil, and private space for them will make them feel right at home. Recall your best relaxing hotel or spa experience and try to recreate the feel, the scent, the appearance, and the function of the room. Consider having an arrival basket with tea, snacks, phone charger, and wifi password. Provide crisp sheets and an extra comforter, and stock items for them that they may have forgotten such as toothpaste, cotton swabs or a hair dryer. Collect travel size items and put them in a basket in the bathroom that they can easily find. These four tips can be easily done in just an hour or two. Once you’ve crossed these off your to-do list, you’ll have a tidy home that both you and your guests can enjoy throughout the season. Happy Thanksgiving to all! This article is based on blog posts by KonMari Media Inc. entitled “How to Tidy Before Hosting Guests” and “Fall Tidying Challenge: The Guest Room,” available at konmari.com. Mrg Simon Certified KonMari® Consultant and Professional Organizer 605-929-1493 mrg.simon@designed2stick.com  Halloween has become a huge holiday for home decorations. In fact, each year Americans spend more than half a billion dollars – over $500,000,000 – just on costumes for their pets. And that means a lot of people also are accumulating a lot of home decorations. When November 1 rolls around, you want a strategy for organizing all of those spooky items.
Years ago, we concerned ourselves with primarily Christmas for seasonal décor, and we planned storage for a tree (perhaps), ornaments, lighting, and other decorations in a deliberate way. It’s time to do the same for Halloween. Before you start to take down any electricity-using items, first check to make certain they are still in good working order. Anything broken or ripped beyond repair should be released right now before it takes up valuable space in your garage, attic, or basement. My rule of thumb for lights is if more than 30-50% of the bulbs are burned out, toss them and buy new ones (shoot for post-Halloween clearance sales or early holiday sales next July or August when they first hit the shelves and your selection is best). For all other interior and exterior décor and costumes, consider yourself a year down the road: Will you be excited to put out these decorations, or is it time to toss them? The belief that all your possessions should bring you joy applies to holiday decorations just as much as the items that are out and enjoyed daily. Does each item serve a purpose or bring a smile to your face? If so, keep it! If not, either pass it along, donate it, or toss it. Worn out items that are out of style should be donated or tossed. When undecorating, I recommend that you gather all the outdoor items in one area and all the indoor items in another. After you’ve decluttered your stash of Halloween-themed things, go through and sort each group into categories of items. Costumes and makeup in one pile, indoor lights in another, window décor in a third, and so on. Once you see what you have, compare it to the storage containers you have available? Are they all in good condition with lids that fit? If not, toss them and get new ones. Figure out what needs to be in a watertight container, if any. Once you’ve done this you’ll know how much you have to store, and that is when you should buy storage containers. It’s always nice when everything matches, but there’s no need to buy new if the existing containers work. Finally, label all your containers, unless they’re clear and their contents are obvious. You don’t need to invest in a label maker – a good Sharpie® pen will do just fine. For convenience, label in the same place on (upper left corner, for example) each container and be sure that side is facing out when you are putting them away. You might have a use for some items for other occasions (such as pumpkins for Thanksgiving or costumes for school plays), and this tip will help you locate the desired item quickly. If possible, store all the Halloween décor in the same location in your home or garage. If not possible, then separate them according to whether they’re used inside or outside. Then store the outdoor items in the garage (or other space) to free up valuable real estate in your home for the indoor decorations. Your future self will thank you next October when you pull out your decorations to celebrate another Halloween. And with Christmas coming, think of how much of this decluttering you can do on the front end of the holiday and how it will help you estimate your storage needs for these holiday decorations. The same principles apply to your decluttering and organizing: Your decorations should be a source of delight and in good working condition. It will make decorating and undecorating a joy! Wishing you a happy Halloween, Mrg Simon Certified KonMari® Consultant and Professional Organizer  The urge to get organized can be strong in the fall. September is a great month to tackle your kitchen, well before the holidays stretch you to your limit. Tidying your kitchen now lets you be thoughtful about what you want for your upcoming holidays in terms of the functionality of this hardest working room in the house. For some, tidying the kitchen might seem like a monumental task, but when broken down into manageable steps, it can be a rewarding process that sets you up for success on a daily basis as well as on special occasions.
Step 1: Tools for eating. Remove from your cabinets and drawers those things that facilitate eating: plates, bowls, flatware, glasses, serving ware, tablecloths, placemats, and food storage containers of all kinds. Place them in categories of like things. Then get brutally honest. How much of this do you need to find joy when serving food to your family and guests? If you frequently do dishes, maybe you can get by on fewer than a dozen of each plate, salad plate, cup, saucer, juice glass, drinking glass and wine/beer glasses. If you frequently entertain large groups or have a large family, then keep what you need to serve them, but no more. The real estate in your kitchen is precious and it should only be used for those things it makes you happy to use. If you have a cabinet full of coffee mugs, you probably regularly only use a couple of them. Keep those and a couple others if needed, and let the rest go. The found space will serve you well when it’s time to reorganize. Put aside all of the items you are letting go of for donation or discard. Step 2: Tools for cooking. Clear your counters and make room on your dining room table. It’s time to empty your cabinets of everything you use to prepare and make food. As you take things out of the cabinets and drawers, group them together by category. Pots, pans and lids in one area, cutting boards in another. Keep going until you have crock pots, waffle irons, mixers and other gadgets all out in the open and grouped by category. Then, go through each category and look for duplicates, worn out or broken items, and things that don’t get used much, if at all. You may be surprised to learn that you have 6 rubber scrapers and 3 garlic presses. Do you need them all? If so, great! Now they’re all in one place. If not, pick the garlic press that works the best and is easiest to clean and put the others in a discard/donate box. This will free up space when it’s time to organize and put away everything. When you’re done going through everything, assess whether you need to replace any worn out or lost items that you regularly use. Step 3: Food. Now is the time to go through your pantry, spice drawer, refrigerator, freezer, and any other place you keep edibles to identify anything that has expired or has passed its “use by” date. When it comes to spices and extracts, most sources say that they lose their flavor after 2-4 years. The only exceptions are salt and pure vanilla. If you can’t find a date and don’t recall when you bought it, toss it out. Check expiration dates on everything, from baking staples, canned goods, prepackaged sides and meals to salad dressings, mayo, and sour cream. Don’t buy replacements unless you have an immediate need for an item. If your food suffers freezer burn, toss it out because it’s unlikely to be salvageable no matter how long you cook it in the crock pot or pressure cooker. Add to your shopping list of only those things you have an immediate need to replace. Once your kitchen items have been sorted, focus storage and organization on the ease of cleaning and putting away, not on the ease of finding it (although they can be the same). Before you put anything back into your cabinets, reevaluate where the best location is for each item. Typically, heavy plates and bowls go near the dishwasher for ease in both unloading and setting the table. Pots and pans can logically go near the stovetop if there’s room; if not, again, think of where it’s easiest to put away all of them in one general area. If you don’t bake on a regular basis, maybe your baking pans and mixers can go in the cabinet above the refrigerator or a similar out of the way spot. You’ve got the idea: keep like things together and put them away in a spot that maximizes your effective use of limited storage space and ease of putting them away. This makes maintaining an organized kitchen easier for everyone. Not that there’s any perfect system. I’ve tried to keep the toaster near the breakfast and coffee station, but somehow, it’s usually left out on the counter when breakfast is over. Take your wins where you can! Your final step is to rehome, reuse, donate, or discard the surplus items that didn’t make the cut. Don’t let them set out in boxes for a week, get them out of your home as soon as possible. That way you – or other family members – won’t be tempted to take back a tacky mug, and you’ll begin to enjoy your freshly tidied kitchen even sooner. And you’ll know exactly what you have so you don’t purchase duplicates in anticipation of the coming holidays. I have confidence that by following these steps, you can achieve the organized kitchen of your dreams! If, however, you would like assistance in tackling your kitchen project, don’t hesitate to contact me at 605-929-1493 or mrg.simon@designed2stick.com. Mrg Simon 8/16/2022 0 Comments Coasting into autumn Today, I want you to know that it’s completely acceptable to let slide those last couple summer projects, whatever they are. There are only a couple weeks left of summer and I’m here to encourage you to enjoy them, rather than try to clean out this, organize that, go here and pick up more stuff. Go to that end of summer festival, go for a bike ride, or take a hike. It’s okay to just “coast.”
Instead of trying to do it all, find a blank page in your journal or a random piece of paper. Then, every time you think “I should be doing ...” write down that thought. Each time a “should” or “ought to” comes to mind, just write it down. Don’t do it, just write it down. Scrub the floor? Organize the pantry? Go through all the camping supplies? Get my office in tip-top shape? Keep adding to your list until Labor Day. (You may have to give in to things like laundry grocery shopping, or buying school supplies – just the basics.) And don’t just limit your list to the drudgery of day-to-day living. Include fun things you’d like to do, places near and far that you’d like to visit. Those things shouldn’t be lost in the business of running a household. Your home should serve you, not the other way around. And part of that is giving space for the things that bring you joy to blossom, like making plans to finally visit the Grand Canyon or Arches National Parks or maybe even a local landmark you’ve always wondered about but never took the time to visit. I hope your list is full of a wide variety of things you “should” do. Then, once we’re solidly into September, that’s when I encourage you to go over your list. Are there some things that aren’t nearly as important now or that have just resolved themselves entirely? Great! Then assess the rest of the list you have left and prioritize your tasks. Plan out your autumn, the rest of the year, the school year, whatever block of time makes sense to you at your current stage of life. There’s nothing magical about getting everything done before school starts or summer ends. Evaluate what works best for you. So please, take a moment. Breathe deeply. Enjoy what’s left of August and coast right on into autumn! Soak it in! Mrg PS. When you're ready to tackle your big projects this fall, give me a call and I'll lend a helping hand and objective eye to keep your projects on track!  For some reason, I woke up today and realized that the summer is almost over and there are still get-togethers I want to host! It’s been a pretty busy summer for me, and I expect you’re no different. If you’ve been putting off summer entertaining because it’s such a hassle getting the house in order on top of party planning, let me share with you three quick strategies to ensure your house is presentable and you are relaxed enough to enjoy it with your friends and family. For stress-free tidying, apply these three basic Kon Mari Method® techniques to quickly tidy your home before guests arrive:
1.Do a “Joy Check.” 2.Decide where things belong. 3.Keep a neat kitchen. Do a Joy Check. Because we see our house every day, it’s easy to become “blind” to clutter and misplaced items. Walk through your home the way that guests will with fresh eyes. When you spot a pile of things or miscellaneous clutter, stop. Ask yourself if these items bring you joy. That’s always your first step. If they do, great! But if not, this is good time to let them go and remove them from your space. Decide where things belong. When you decide an item brings you joy, you may realize that it is not where it belongs or, perhaps it doesn’t even have a permanent “home” in your house. Don’t pass over misplaced items. Decide right now specifically where they should live and put them in their home. As organizing maven Marie Kondo says, “If you want to maintain a tidy home, you – and everyone else who lives there – must know precisely where each item belongs.” Keep a neat kitchen. Finally, we all seem to end up with guests in the kitchen – an irresistible gathering place. Kitchens often look messy because they’re home to so many miscellaneous items and they’re the hardest working room in the house. It goes without saying that you should do as much party prep in advance so you can have all your dishes and pans clean and in their proper place. Next, focus on clearing your counters of any non-essential items. “Anything that can go in a drawer or cupboard should be put away,” says Kondo. By keeping the area around your sink clear, your kitchen can look neat and tidy. So, don’t hesitate any longer – schedule that get-together! Following these quick tips should give you the confidence to entertain and focus on time with your guests! Enjoy the rest of your summer with gusto! Mrg This article is based on Marie Kondo’s blog post “How to Tidy Before Hosting Guests.” 6/14/2022 1 Comment 4 Steps to a Carefree Summmer As I write this, we’re finally expecting 90-degree weather: Summer’s here! And when the weather finally cooperates, we want to be ready to grab our gear, head out the door, and soak in the great outdoors! One way to ensure that you can do that without a lot of delay is to declutter and organize your garage now. A lot of what we store in the garage is seasonal or is used on weekly basis or only annually, so it requires a concerted effort to make serious change in your garage. If you do, your future self will be thanking you.
Step 1: Resist the temptation to haul everything onto the driveway and hose out the garage as your first step. You need to go through the things that you have first – many of them may be dirty and full of cobwebs. Gather up all the immediately identifiable trash and get it into the bins. Then, start by removing from their current location one category of similar things at a time. Review everything in each category and discard what isn’t used, doesn’t fit, is broken, or has outlived its usefulness. Start with a category that gets heavy use in the summer such as sports equipment because a win here will motivate you to keep up the good work. Do you and/or your family still participate in this sport regularly? Are all the balls, racquets, clubs, sticks, cleats, skates, etc. in good shape and do you have a complete set? Do you need fresh balls for golf, are your clubs clean, do you need to replace one? Just like when you purge anything else, you should have piles for what you will keep, donate, recycle, and discard. Do this sport by sport. If your kids are no longer in T-ball, maybe it’s time to pass along the T-ball tee to another family with younger kids. Getting through the fishing, camping, and other outdoor gear should go the same way. A word to the wise: the phrases “I might need this sometime” or “I’m planning to start doing that this winter” should be banished. They are merely excuses to put off the hard decisions now. Take the time. Do you use it, do you love it, do you have space to store it? (It should go without saying that off-site storage is only for major machinery, like a boat or RV.) Likewise, gardening should all be put in one area and that’s when you decide if this mower on its last legs is ever going to make it to the repair shop or if it should just be thrown out. Do you have seven pair of garden gloves for 2 people? Pare it down. The same goes for duplicate gardening tools: Yes, there are different styles of rakes, but keep only one unless you’re certain that two of you will be using that same style at the exact same time. Continue through tools, toys, holiday decorations, snow removal equipment, going category by category. If you run out of steam, just finish up the category you’re working on and return to the project the next day. That way, you won’t have drug everything out and now be faced with returning everything with no clear sense of where to logically store things. By all means, though, get this part of the job done as quickly as possible. It should take no longer than a weekend. Step 2: Get rid of the donate, recycle, and discard piles. Gone and over with as promptly as possible. Step 3: Now you can empty your garage and hose it out. Be sure to sweep out cobwebs from the ceiling and wash the windows. If you need more light, install LED bulbs now – it can make a huge difference. If you’re planning to do some painting, now is the time! Step 4: With a clean garage and a clearly defined amount of “stuff” that you are going to make space for in your garage, it’s time to get a storage plan together. Assuming you have limited space in your garage (who doesn’t), look to overhead storage for the least frequently accessed items, like holiday décor. Also, if your family has bicycles, there are a wide variety of storage solutions from wall mounted to ceiling mounted. A lot of the things that go into a garage have specialty hooks that you can install to corral difficult or bulky items, like basketballs and soccer balls as well as extension ladders and brooms. Shelving is also a good idea, if you don’t already have some. Do yourself a favor and go to the hardware store after you have purged to see what storage solutions will work for your space and potential layout. Peg board is your friend, too, because it allows for modifications, comes with baskets and shelves, and is infinitely expandable in many colors. And don’t forget the trusty storage tote and labeler. Use clear storage totes so you can see what is in them when they’re on high shelves and use large labels to denote where each item goes. Because the way to keep your garage organized in the long run is for everyone to know where to put away each item! It's a bit of a job, cleaning out the garage. But getting this out of the way early will make the rest of your summer carefree. You can just grab the, the baseball gear and cooler, and head out! Make the most of your summer! Mrg Mrg Simon is a professional organizer, Certified KonMari Consultant, and a South Dakota lawyer. |
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