How to Organize Your Garage

Before you focus on how to organize your garage (or any room, for that matter!), it's so important to declutter first.

Seriously.

In my opinion, organizing before clearing out the clutter is like waxing the car before you have washed it.

In other words, it just doesn't make sense.

In fact, when you clear out the clutter first, organizing is pretty darn easy.

So get on some clothes you don't mind getting dirty, roll up your sleeves, and let's clear out your garage.

First, before you even start going through all of those dusty boxes, decide what you will do with the stuff you decide you aren't going to keep.

Yes, that's right. Will you be donating items, selling them, having a garage sale, or throwing them? Or maybe a combination of all of the above?

You need to know up front, because otherwise it's easy to get stuck half-way through and get frustrated and overwhelmed.

Most of the stuff that people store in their garage ends up there because they don't know what else to do with it. They aren't using most of that stuff regularly, otherwise it would likely be in the house, playing an active part of their lives.

Things that legitimately have a home in the garage are:

• your CAR :)
• tools (that you actually use)
• parts for the cars (the ones that you currently own, not parts for cars that you owned 10 years ago)
• bikes and related gear
• holiday decorations (that you DO use at the holidays)
• yard tools and equipment (again, that you USE)

If you find any of these things in your garage, they are probably clutter:

• lamps that you're not using
• boxes of clothes that don't fit
• boxes of anything that you haven't opened in a year or more
• furniture that doesn't quite work in your current home
• old lawn furniture
• anything broken that hasn't been fixed in over a year
• old phone books
• stationary bike
• anything you can't remember what it is

In other words, most of the stuff people put in their garage is clutter. Organzing it won't help much...but getting rid of it will!

Once you have cleared out what doesn't belong in your garage, isn't it lovely? Look at all that room you have in there! The car will actually fit now, right?

So learning how to organize your garage can be much easier than you think...it mainly takes a good hard look at what is actually in there, so you can let most of it go!

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