Storage-Reset-–-Dealing-with-Overburdened-Storage-Capacity

Storage Reset

Organizing systems are living things. They are not a set-it-and-forget-it phenomenon.

Even here at Restoring Order headquarters at Dream Acres, our storage spaces need refreshing from time to time.

Our office has beautiful, customized cabinetry that I worked meticulously to design with our friends at Closet Factory years back. Our organizing systems have been thoughtfully designed to serve our business and personal storage and filing needs. However, over the years we have run into a common organizing problem – overburdened storage capacity.

As our business and family needs change and expand, our storage spaces and organizing systems must do so as well. If we don’t take the time to revamp our systems, we end up stashing excess items in other places. This happens in homes and offices alike.

We determined that it was a great time to do a full storage reset and cause our storage spaces to really serve our current business and family needs.

The first step of a storage reset is to evaluate what inventory you have.

  1. Make sure you have a large staging area to pull all the items out of the space
  2. Pull everything out and group like items
  3. Tour your space and find like items that have been stashed elsewhere
  4. When you have all like items in one place you can more easily see what storage space you need AND if it would be wise to prune your inventory

This inventory process will not only save your sanity and keep you from searching for items, but it will also save you money! Knowing what you already have (and how much) will keep you from over-buying items in the future.

Sorting Products in our Storage Reset Project Gathering products from around the home for our storage reset

 

 

 

 

 

The next step, once the storage space is cleared out, is to determine what will live there.

We call this “purposing your space.” When your space has a purpose, decisions about what should and shouldn’t belong become easy!

Purposing your space is a critical part of the storage reset process. Get your measuring tape out and really get to know the space!

Compare the storage capacity with your inventory, considering these things:

  1. What are your priorities for the space?
  2. How often do you need to access an item?
  3. What areas of storage have easy access? What access is blocked?
  4. What items do you want at eye level?

As you make these important determinations, it is a great idea to keep like items together in “neighborhoods”. For example, in my storage cabinets I have a “hospitality” neighborhood, a “product” neighborhood, and a “shipping” neighborhood. This helps with ease of finding items and remembering where they are!

Storage Reset Neighborhoods

In our storage reset, we decided to move hospitality items to a lower, less accessible location and move our organizing books and DVDs into prime, eye level location. We love the ease of having our products visible and at our finger tips!

Product Storage Reset

Another piece of advice when doing a storage reset: get your family involved! This is important because you are all users of the space! When all users are involved in the organizing process, they learn the new destination for belongings and take more ownership over ensuring items are returned to their proper “home”.

I hope this has inspired you to look back over your “organized” systems to make sure they are still working for you and your current priorities. That’s what organizing is all about – getting back to the things you love with a space that serves your life.

Watch my segment that was featured on More Good Day Oregon to see the before and after (and my family helping in the process)!

 

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