Garages - they are the worst! The junk drawer of many peoples homes where we put things that we don’t know what to do with, attempting to hide it from ourselves; well the hiding days are over!
The yoga world often refers to the hips as the junk drawers of the body - when we don’t know what to do with a feeling or emotion or something that happens to us in our lives, we slot it into the hips which is the reason why the hips end up getting very tight and overstuffed like a junk drawer.
Well personally, I think that the garage can be seen as the junk drawer of our homes. Whenever we have stuff that we don’t know what to do with we may end up shoving these things into the garage. Consider for a moment the following:
We go out and buy a new item that also comes with a large box. We have been somewhat trained to know that if the item, for whatever reason needs to be returned or exchanged, we will need this box to accompany it - otherwise we will be out of luck. So, with the best of intentions, we take this box and put it somewhere in the garage. It seems like a great idea as it isn’t taking up space in our homes but we will still have it for ‘safekeeping.’ Here’s where the problem with this arises - 3 years later, the box is still where we originally placed it. The item that it used to house? Well, it is well past returnable or exchangeable status so that ship has sailed. Essentially, you are now holding onto a useless box that should have been discarded long long ago.
This is just one example of why and how our garages become dumping grounds; the intentions are good but then things go sideways. It is not difficult to turn things around and bring them back on track and trust me your garage will thank you! So lets d(r)ive in to our garages! ;)
I hate to sound like a broken record, but the method stays the course - garbage, give-away, to keep (The Rule of 3). I always like to begin with garbage in the garage because there is often a lot of it (and if there is confusion please know that I use garbage and recycling the same even though they will be disposed of differently). Boxes, junk, rags, broken items…find it all and purge - you may even want to have your garbage and recycling bins right in front of you so you can dispose on the spot. If you have shelves in your garage it may be helpful to empty the shelves onto the garage floor and do it this way, as this will give you an opportunity to clean said shelves.
Don’t overlook hooks or hanging items, they too need to be examined for garbage and giveaway. Recently when I did this I found a child sized sled that my adult children will likely not use and haven’t used for a loooong time, so off they went to another family with young kids who could enjoy them (I love checking the giveaway box). Examine each and every part of your garage and clean and purge. You may also want to give the garage floor a cleaning, because wow does it take a beating.
The other thing that is really fun and satisfying to do is to try to organize the garage in sections - maybe you put sports gear into one area, brooms and shovels can go together as can gardening tools and accessories (ready for use now or in a few months if you live in a colder climate!) It’s a lot of work I know, and you need time to do it, so give yourself permission to make this activity last a few days or even a week. When you are finished decluttering your garage I promise you will wonder why you didn’t do it sooner! I hope you enjoy your glorious new garage, until next time!
