Garage Clutter Remedies

Face it… garage clutter happens.

Fortunately, garage clutter remedies can also happen. Clutter doesn't care who you are, where you live, or what you drive. It finds places around your home to grow, and it especially likes the garage.

In fact, it's no secret that garages are ideal clutter collectors for all things great and small. There are several ideas on how to clean up clutter in your garage. Personally, I prefer the fastest, and least painful.

Here's one of my favorite remedies…

S.T.O.R.M. your garage!

Designed to give you freedom from clutter in your garage, STORM is a step-by-step plan to help you bust clutter. It's a no-nonsense approach for achieving fast results.

Survey

- Effective clutter remedies begin with the big picture. This is the first step. It's kind of like a brainstorming session. It's where you assess all the clutter in your garage. Which clutter stresses you out… an individual piece, a few pieces, all of it? What are some obstacles or hurdles you'll have to overcome in conquering the clutter? What are some ways to overcome them? How much can you do yourself, and how much help will you need?

Time

- Now that you know what you're up against, it's time to figure out when you can tackle it. There are many schools of thought here. One way is to schedule a whole day or weekend to get it all done, yet another way is to work on it here and there whenever you want to… or feel like it! You could also use a combination of a full day in addition to working on it here and there. How to get rid of clutter truly depends on you, your schedule, and how much FUN you think it's going to be. That's right…FUN! Regardless, if you want to bust your clutter, then you have to make the time.

Organize

- Here's where the physical work begins. It's time to put things in piles. The piles should be categorized, arranged, and grouped according to the type of clutter. A key here is to focus on the biggest stuff first. If you get too worried about the small stuff, there's a good chance you'll lose interest all together because you won't feel like you're getting anywhere.

Reduce

- Reduction can almost be considered as one of the clutter remedies itself. We'll talk more about this in just a minute.

Make

- The final step. Make a place for everything that survived the reduction process. No matter what, get it off the floor! A floor covered in clutter is simply a painful mental block in the way of tackling the task. Making a place is the storage part of the plan. Contain it! Put it away on shelves, in boxes, and bins. Use pegboard to things off the floor.

So there you have it. One of the simplest of all clutter remedies… STORM! Now, as promised, back to step 4… Reduce. This is the step where most people get stuck. It's where tough decisions lurk.

Here are a few simple questions you can ask yourself in case you're having a hard time making piles smaller…

• Have you used it in the last 3 months?
• Do you have plans for it?
• Is it sentimental?
• Is it expensive?
• Is it earning money by sitting around?
• Have you used it in the last 3 months?

If you answered YES to any of those questions, then you may want to keep it, but if you answered NO to all of them, then get rid of it! All the clutter remedies I've seen share a lot of common points. Most of them agree that getting rid of stuff is really what it's all about, although letting go is the hardest part of the entire home clutter control process.

Most of the clutter in your garage comes from your house in the first place, so overall home clutter control is very important in terms of giving your garage freedom from clutter. Home clutter control is an ongoing process, and garages are no exception. Fortunately, using quick and easy clutter remedies such as the STORM method will help you take charge of not only your garage clutter, but home clutter as well... not just now, but from now on!