We’re one full week in to the New Year and if you’ve made a New Year’s resolution you’re probably still on track and full of enthusiasm. But how long will that last? Many gym memberships bought in January get no use after February; exercise classes get smaller and smaller between January and April.
Whether you’re doing the dry January thing and giving up alcohol for a month or setting more long term goals one thing to remember is that your goal must be realistic and achievable. If not, then you’re destined to fail. For instance if you’re trying to lose weight set small weekly or monthly targets, not that one huge one that will always seem so far away. Want to get fitter? Don’t start by trying to run a marathon – do a little at a time and build up. Better still, find something you really enjoy doing or want to do and see if it can help with your fitness efforts. Ever wanted to learn to dance? Now there’s a way you can learn something you’ve always wanted to, have fun and get fitter, all at the same time!
If your resolution is to finally get around to sorting the loft, garage, or just clearing out the same thing applies. Maybe you want to redecorate a room, but can’t face clearing all the clutter first. Do a little at a time and be organised about it. You can do it all at once but you need to put everything somewhere while you sort through it and the chances are you won’t get it done in a day. If you really want to do it that way, that’s where people like us come in. You can rent a self storage unit, bring absolutely everything in leaving you with a clear space at home to take things back to. You can even reduce the size of your unit as you rehouse or get rid of things.
However, most people will want to do things a bit at time so here are our tips for keeping that resolution and having a good clear out. Things will inevitably look a little worse to begin with as you start pulling things out of cupboards but once you get one room or section done, it will improve.
Do things in small chunks
You may well be tempted to empty every cupboard in the kitchen or bedroom out onto the floor. Don’t! Chances are you’ve got way more stuff in there than you thought. Putting it all over the floor will probably overwhelm you and you’ll also probably run out of time because you may well get distracted by trips down memory lane with certain items. If that happens, there are 2 dangers
- You’ll shut the door on it for now and never get back to (not really possible if it’s the kitchen but very likely if using a spare room as the sorting space)
- You’ll just stuff everything back into the cupboards when you need to go and do something else
Be Brutal
And be realistic. If there’s something you haven’t used for many years, don’t keep it just because it ‘might come in useful’ at some point or because it was given as a gift. I’m sure your aunt or gran would be happy knowing that someone else is actually getting use from it (whatever it is).
Empty one cupboard at a time and sort your things into 3 piles
- Keep
- Bin
- Pass on
Passing on could be giving to family or friends, donating to a charity or selling on at a car boot or on eBay. Once you’ve made the decision to pass it on, make sure you do – don’t be tempted to put it back for now saying you’ll deal with it later – you know you won’t!
Organise
When you’ve got your keep pile, make sure you have a place for everything. Decide whether it belongs in the same cupboard or on the same shelf in the garage or whether should be somewhere else. And put it there. Don’t just put it all back in the same cupboard if it doesn’t really belong there. As you work your way through you may find yourself coming across things that you’ve moved from somewhere else, but don’t worry. You already know you want to keep it and that it’s in its rightful place.
Small bits of clearing out at a time work best, cupboard by cupboard, but if you really want to clear a whole room or garage in one go and don’t have space to spread out, then a small self storage unit will be the easiest way to do it. You can see what you have without having to worry about getting it all back in overnight or whether it’s going to rain. Find the ‘keepers’ take them back home and put them in their rightful place and then work through the rest. But make sure you do work through the rest. Don’t just go through identifying all the keepers and then leave everything else in the unit – out of sight and out of mind. You may be able to make some money from those things, possibly even enough to cover your short term use of self storage. Or perhaps someone else could be making use of them if donated to a charity. If you do nothing, one thing is for sure, they will be costing you money for as long as they’re in the unit.
If you’re in our area (Bristol, Gloucester or Stroud) and want to go down the route of using self storage to help you achieve your clearing up / out goals but aren’t sure what size unit you’ll need, get in touch. We’ll be happy to advise you and you can also visit our sites to see the different unit sizes available.
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