I mentioned in an earlier post about clearing the clutter in my garage in three sections. I’d finished the first section a few months ago and this weekend I finally tackled the second section. This area included my workbench and the shelving behind it. Every horizontal surface was covered in stuff. It just became easier to toss things on the workbench instead of putting them away, because there was no space. So Saturday morning, even though it was 37 degrees out, I took everything off the bench, under the bench, on the shelves, and put in on the garage floor. From there it became my task to put it back in such a way as to be able access everything. My first thought when I finished putting everything on the garage floor? “I’m doomed.”

When I’m decluttering something, I really like taking everything out and placing it somewhere. First off, it is amazing to look at all of the stuff you’ve lived with crammed in that area. It also encourages you to purge as much of it as possible. The simple truth is you have a finite amount of storage area and you physically cannot put more stuff in an area than it can hold. Well actually you can, but that is what got us in to this problem in the first place.

So I began sorting through the stuff on the floor. It was overwhelming, but once you’ve pulled everything out of the area you are cleaning, you really can’t stop until you put it all back (another plus). So I went about pitching stuff I no longer needed, organizing stuff back on the shelves, and trying to remember why I saved the parts of the old ceiling fan that I replaced 8 years ago. I also discovered that I bought the same fertilizer three times because, presumably, I never found where I kept it the other two times.

After about and hour-and-a-half and three trashbags later, everything I decided to keep was in its new home. My shelves looked neat and organized, I can access the tools under the workbench, and the biggest coup of all, the workbench is empty. I wish I had done this soon as now I can work in a much more comfortable environment in the garage.

So now is the time for you to tackle one of the areas you’ve been putting off. It won’t take too much time and you can only be better off for it. Best of luck to you, now I just need to tackle the third section.