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Is your storage random? - 21st April 2021
Is your storage planned?
Or is it more haphazard?
Does it enable you to easily store and then find your possessions?
An effective storage system is one where it is easy to find and retrieve any item you need. In other words, it is not just about making your home look tidy. Being tidy is a cosmetic benefit but we also need our storage to give us practical benefits.
Many clients have little or no organised storage. Sometimes they panic a bit and end up buying plastic storage boxes in huge numbers. However this alone can never be an effective solution. Storing your clutter in plastic boxes, or anywhere else for that matter is not especially helpful, although your home might look a little more tidy. It's highly unlikely if you adopt this knee-jerk solution that you will have the faintest idea of where to find anything. That's not a storage system.
Remember the definition of clutter!
The dictionary states that clutter is a "disorderly heap of objects". So in order to declutter you need to reduce the size of the heap AND install some order. If all you do is declutter, then you still have disorder, in other words, muddled possessions. You then store these away out of sight. When you consider it like this it's not surprising you can't find anything, is it?
This MUST work, surely?
"A place for everything and everything in its place." An old adage, and one my clients quite often mention when they describe how they want to transform their homes. It sounds great, doesn't it?
Well, it does, but it has distinct limitations. Unless you add in another important factor you still might struggle to find your stuff. Why? Because although each possession has a specific and dedicated home it needs you to remember exactly where you put every single thing in order to find what you want. How good is your memory? Mine is not great, so this is not the system I use at home.
So what DO I need then?
You need what I call Logical Storage! This is not random or haphazard. Nor does it rely on you having a memory like an elephant.
At the heart of logical storage is the understanding that all your possessions can be categorised. This needs to happen before you plan your storage. Sorting items into categories also aids the decluttering process. When you look at a particular category and notice lots of duplications, that is the time to do more decluttering. Because items are stored in categories and by association it makes them easier to locate when needed. You simply think to yourself, what I want is in the category of "holidays" and you know where that category is stored. Categories will often have sub-categories, but if this sounds complicated - don't worrry! The beauty of this system is that it will originate from your own personal logic and be in harmony with your lifestyle.
When I work with clients helping them to create logical storage systems I don't tell them how and where to store everything. Not at all. Instead I quiz them about how and when they use this thing and that thing and get them to tell me how they associate certain kinds of items into categories in their minds. The trick then is to make their storage fit their logic!
Want to know more?
I have just created a Logical Storage Workshop which takes place on Zoom for up to eight participants. I will be expanding on the process outlined above and giving participants the tools to create their own Logical Storage systems to suit their own logic! No more time trying to find lost things. No more repetitive tidying. Logical Storage means you can put things away and find them again in a matter of a few minutes.
Transform your home!
Here's the link to the workshop on 4th May 2021. If you are reading this after the event, please message me to enquire about the next date.
Keywords: storage
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