So what’s the deal… what’s your origin story? Everyone has to have an origin story… right?
Well, right you are. I do have a story, but for that you need to read the book – don’t worry, there’s not a book… yet.
big picture
The longer story is how I always found organizing things and getting the most efficiency out of storage systems fun. It may sound kind of strange, but for several decades I’ve played with storage systems and been fascinated with how to organize things the best way to get things done. It’s a life-long journey and something I can’t turn off.
The short story is that recently my father passed and all his stuff had to go somewhere – and somewhere turned out to be my garage.
When it was clear we had to do something with all the stuff my dad had accumulated, I took on the challenge of clearing out and organizing my mom’s house so she could move on and carry on without constant reminders of the past. It was great to help out and I’m glad I had the skills to make it happen. That’s how this all started.
During the process I realized managing stuff was a passion of mine, but more importantly, I realized it was a skill not everyone has. A lot of people are stuck with too much stuff and fighting the constant battle to bring some kind of order to their stuff and their lives so they can get things done. There are a lot of people out there who could benefit from some of the insights I’ve learned over the years and maybe I could help them out too.
This got me thinking about my personal journey with minimalism and other fads I’ve researched along the way as I continue to look for better ways to manage and maximize the stuff in my life. I realized my skills are learned, just like anything else, and I could share my passion online and help other people learn too. It’s not a journey with an end in sight, so this could make for a regular blog and lots of essays on the topics of minimizing and maximizing stuff.
As mentioned in a previous post, I’ve taken on the challenge of managing a windfall of stuff in my life. That’s the topic to start off this blog and it’s going to be a lot of fun sharing the various steps to take when a monumental thing like this happens in your life. So that’s the origin, now let’s get to the fun part.
story so far
Getting a huge treasure trove of old stuff is not all fun and games. There are a lot of memories tied up in that stuff. And going through everything to move it was tough. It really stretched my stuff management abilities and in particular it was a challenge to stay focused on the goal – helping my mom get her life back on track.
Lessons from minimalist practice was helpful here. There are lots of strategies to use when handling a big mess like this. The biggest problem is you can’t keep everything – and you don’t want to keep everything either. But as you go through the piles of stuff your memories surface and that puts additional weight on the decision to keep or toss any unique item.
One strategy is to take pictures of the item for the sentimental value it holds – that way you have something to look back at later when the mood hits you. Storing pictures uses a lot less space and gives you the feeling of control that you can still have the memory even though the physical thing isn’t there any more.
Another strategy is to focus on the value of each item as the memories come back. It’s nice to remember someone by the notes they made and the files they kept. You really get insight into a person when you go through an exercise like this. But how will we really use all those files and notes and memorabilia in the future? Keeping in mind how useful something will be is a great way to prioritize what to save and what to toss. Take a picture of the papers, a sample of the many many papers, and recycle them so you have more space to store the things that will actually be useful to you later in your life.
It took me two weeks to go through all the stuff and pack it up. This is probably the most important part of the process. It’s where you make the first pass at prioritizing and categorizing all the stuff.
While I packed up the stuff, I was staging it for when it arrived in my garage. Each box got labeled so I know basically what was in it. Each box had as much related stuff as possible in it so it would all go together in the garage at home.
It really helps to have some idea of the eventual landing spot your stuff is going. You want to know roughly how much space you will have, and a general idea how the big items will fit.
Now this is not a paid advertisement, but I have to mention the experience we had with our mover. I used a Packrat Storage Pod (1-800 Packrat) and they were terrific. I’ve never worked with a better moving service, and believe me, I’ve worked with some that have problems. I also worked FOR a moving service when I was a teen so I know a little about packing, moving, and storage space.
To give you some idea of what the process looked like, here are some pictures of the storage pod during the time I was packing it up and the results afterwards…
Well, it made it’s own journey across the country and arrived in my driveway safe and sound. I really was impressed with the Packrat folks. They have incredible machines to get these things moved safely and slowly so nothing gets damaged. I was amazed how well they managed the whole process!
Well, that’s enough for now to get us started. This is a long journey and I’ve got plenty more to share with you as we move along. Next post we can talk about more of the packing strategies that work for a long distance move like this one…