Give Your Brain a Break. Storage is Last.
“Storage experts are hoarders.”
A recent client asked me what my favorite part of the KonMari Method™ is. I had a two part answer: categories and storage. Let’s talk storage.
Storage is last in the KonMari Method™ for a simple reason. Why spend energy figuring out how to organize items you may not be keeping? If you don’t know what you have and why you have it, you find yourself looking at piles, filled with overwhelm. We’ve been conditioned to think that the answer to the overwhelm lies outside of us, that the answer can be purchased. Isn’t that how we got into clutter in the first place? We bought our way here. Or other people bought things for us. Buying isn’t the answer.
I worked with another organizer earlier in my career on a family’s home. (This was not a KonMari style session.) The dad popped in and out of sessions while we organized the contents of a playroom/basement. He was busy assembling various storage solutions for the kids’ toys and for other areas in the home. The area near the front door featured a tower of Amazon boxes partially blocking the door. One car could be parked in the 3 car garage; the rest of it was full of boxes. When we came back weeks later, you could hardly tell that we had been there before. It doesn’t have to be so hard.
How to get started without putting storage first:
Pick a space and empty it. All of it.
You definitely already have what you need to get started. You own some or all of the following: tote bags, paper grocery store bags, plastic bins, wicker baskets. Use these to categorize items.
Categorize the contents of the space. You are likely to find:
Items for donation (sizes that no longer fit, items that are no longer used, former hobbies and interests etc.)
Items that need action (need to be relocated, need repair or return to store or person it was borrowed from)
Take a look at what’s left. Pause before thinking about how to store items. Get curious about why these items are in your home. Do they support you where you are at in life right now? Are you keeping them “just in case?”
Our brains have been overwhelmed this year by reconfiguring our lives. External circumstances have left us feeling a need for answers, some certainty. Good news, you control what comes in and out of your home. Take it easy on yourself by figuring out what you already have. It will take time and a strategy to declutter. You can do it on your own or with support. Book a 30 minute free consultation, and give your brain a break.