Clean Your Home Out with a Storage Unit
Spring cleaning doesn’t just have to take place in spring.
In olden times, people typically did a spring cleaning to get out into the air and sunshine, and to rid their homes of the soot that would accumulate throughout winter months.
Today, we have much less soot and grime to deal with, but we can still struggle with carving out the time needed to keep things tidy and organized.
That’s where your storage unit comes in.
A storage unit can be a helpful tool in your fight against clutter and stress. When you incorporate your storage unit as part of your cleaning and organization process, you’ll be able to dedicate time and space to the project you want to complete, which in turn, makes it easier for you to work through them.
1. Give Yourself a Set Time Frame for Making Changes Happen.
When you decide to secure a storage unit to help with your organizational project, you know you have a set time frame on the contract. Use that time frame to your advantage and plan to work on your projects within that set time limit.
It’ll give you a chance to schedule your cleaning upfront, rather than just doing it whenever you can get around to it. Make sure you’re also allotting time to get to and from the storage unit, so you’ll be able to maximize your visits.
2. Keep Your Daily Chores and Big Organizing Projects Separate.
When you try to sort and organize in your home, there are a million other little items that inevitably crop up. On a regularly scheduled day of cleaning, you’ll probably want to do normal household chores to make room for your organizing.
Then, once you drag your boxes out, you’ll probably remember that you need to put in a load of laundry. After you put that laundry in, you’ll probably remember that you wanted to prep dinner and put it in your Instant Pot.
Once you do that, you’ll probably need to tidy your kitchen up again. It’s a definite “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie” situation.
When you work on your cleaning and organizing projects at a remote location, like at your storage unit, those daily tasks and to-do items can’t encroach on your time. You’ll spend less time context switching and getting distracted, and more time getting down to the business of cleaning out your things.
3. Move your items categorically.
Tidying guru Marie Kondo recommends pulling out everything from each category of possessions - all your clothes in one fell swoop, all your papers in another, and so forth.
While this approach can be very effective, it can also quickly become time-consuming and frustrating. If you take out all your clothes and make a giant pile in your living room, for example, there’s a low likelihood you’ll make it through them in a timely manner.
Instead, you may find yourself walking circles around the piles for days or weeks while you try to make time to get back to them. If you want to take a categorical approach, a storage unit can be a great place to make that happen, especially if you choose a climate-controlled storage unit option so you can manage the sorting process there. Start removing items by group to the storage space.
Appliances that don’t get regular use
Definitely keep the coffee maker plugged in at home, but you might consider taking the veggie spiralizer, the panini grill, and the mandolin slicer over to your storage unit to be evaluated.
They’re still useful items, but not ones that you use on a daily basis, so you can move them, decide which ones are still useful to your family, then bring them back accordingly.
Linens and towels
Again, leave the things that your family uses regularly, but consider doing a quick sorting and folding exercise for your extra or out-of-season sheets, your stack of blankets and quilts and your beach towels, fancy guest towels and other items.
When you pull these out of your house, you can more easily take time to organize, launder if needed, check for wear-and-tear, or figure out ways to repurpose. You may even find that you’d rather store the flannel sheets at the storage unit during the warmer months, freeing up additional space in your home for other things.
Books
If you’re a book lover, the idea of sorting or getting rid of a single novel can make you feel a little anxious. However, sorting your literary collection away from home can make it easier for you to determine which books you truly love and which ones you might be able to pass on to a family member or friend.
Just a note on this - books are heavy! Don’t overestimate your ability to transport them; make sure you’re packing the appropriate amount in each box and don’t be tempted to overstuff them. You’ll pay the price in discomfort after too much heavy lifting.
4. Figure Out Easily Whether You Can Live Without Something.
One of the best things about using your storage unit as part of your cleaning and organizing projects is the fact that you can get some of your items out of sight, out of mind.
If there are things you don’t use often, box them up. Seasonal items that are only brought out once a year don’t count and should be itemized separately.
Make a note of what you put in the box and the date; you should track this list both electronically and in paper form on/in the box itself.
Then, just see how long it takes you to need something from the box. Set a calendar reminder to check over your list after a month and see whether you used, missed or even thought about any of the items. If you didn’t, you’re probably in the clear to help some of them find new homes.
When you’re working on cleaning, sorting and organizing, it can seem like an insurmountable task. That’s why your storage unit can be so useful; it forces you to break your big tasks into smaller, more granular pieces, so you can get more work done more effectively.
If you’re planning a big cleaning and organizing project, a storage unit could be a perfect option to jumpstart your efforts. Contact us today to learn more about the units we offer, and to choose the one that’s right for you.