With spring on the horizon, home organization rises to the top of the to-do lists for many people ready to break out of winter hibernation. Organizing your house, discarding unused items and decluttering can lead to better health and wellbeing and may increase your productivity. Going into your house organization with a strategy gives you a better shot at making sure it stays relatively mess-free in the long run. If you want to organize your home this spring, self-storage can be a convenient solution for tidying and regaining space in your house.

Home Organization Methods

When it comes to house organization, several schools of thought rise to the top of Google searches. One of the most popular organization and decluttering methods is the KonMari Method popularized by Marie Kondo. Others apply a room-by-room approach. Both methods can be integrated with a storage unit to clear the clutter from your house and increase those joyful feelings that not tripping over a garage full of junk brings.

The KonMari Method

The KonMari Method encourages you to keep things that speak to your heart and discard items that no longer spark joy. Rather than taking a room-by-room approach to home organization, KonMari instead encourages you to declutter by category. The categories suggested by Kondo include clothes, books, papers, miscellaneous items and sentimental items. The method can be applied to your own categories, which maybe include sports equipment, children’s toys, clothes, home decor and kitchen gadgets, for example.

storage quote on KonMari drawers

Start by removing all of the items from a certain category and going through them item-by-item and considering if it sparks joy. While this may feel awkward at first, you’ll soon become better at what sparks joy as you go along. In the end, you should have a much smaller amount of items to return to your drawers, ending up with a clutter-free home. Kondo encourages you to visualize the life you want to live and what you need to get there. Anything that won’t help on your journey, doesn’t deserve your space, or you.

Room-By-Room Organization

The room-by-room approach to home organization encourages you to take on one room at a time, rather than the whole house. This allows you to visibly measure your progress, which helps motivate you to continue until the whole house is decluttered. In each room, first throw out any trash and then clean surfaces. You must then decide what needs to go and what needs to stay, you could even take a KonMari approach to this method by choosing what sparks joy. In each room, determine what stays, what can be donated and what needs to go to storage.

Choose a temporary storage space where all of the donation and storage items can be kept while you’re in the decluttering process. After decluttering each room, take donations to the charity of your choosing and move items to your storage unit to prevent them from piling up.

Home Organization Hacks

No matter what approach you take to decluttering, the following home organization hacks can be helpful for taking tidying up to the next level. Many common household items can be used in unexpected ways and small spaces can be maximized.

Use Vertical Space

In your home and in a storage unit, vertical space can be used to your advantage. Install adhesive hooks on the sides of your dresser for additional storage. Hang metal items on a magnetic strip on the wall — from knives to bobby pins and tweezers. Over-the-door shoe organizers can be used to neatly store a variety of items from beauty gadgets to jewelry so they’ll be untangled and ready to use. Plus, these organizers help maximize the space in small bedrooms, closets, dorm rooms and studio apartments.

stacking height in storage unit

Arrange for Frequency of Use

If you use an item every day, keep it in plain sight or at eye level. The items you use most frequently should be easy to get to, while things you only use once in a while can be a little further out of reach. Use shelves when possible and place occasionally used items higher up than those you use regularly. This helps you stay organized and your items out of the way until you need them. This hack applies at home and at the storage unit. The items you’ll need more often should be stored at the front of the unit.

Make Quick Decisions

No matter which approach you take to decluttering, it’s important to be able to make decisions quickly. It can be difficult to determine what stays and what goes, but if you can quickly decide if it fits into the life you want to live, that will make the process easier. Asking yourself if you’ve used an item within the last year may also help you make that quick decision. If you don’t love it, you probably don’t need it.

Use Storage to Organize Your House

After decluttering and organizing your home, you may find that you have certain items that still spark joy, but you’re not ready to part with them or you simply don’t have space in your home. Holiday decorations and seasonal sports equipment, for example, definitely bring you happiness, but they take up space that can be used more productively. That’s where self storage comes in. Choose a storage unit, which can also use organization hacks like taking advantage of the vertical space and arranging for the frequency of use.

customer removes bike from storage for summer

Renting a storage unit helps you when space at home is limited. That fishing boat, for example, brings a summer full of joy but doesn’t need to take up space in your garage or driveway in the winter. When life is in transition and you’re living in a small apartment while waiting for your dream home to be completed, a storage unit allows you to save items that bring you joy until you have the space available in your house.

Find a Storage Unit Near You

After sorting through your belongings, donating unused items to charity and determining what belongs in a storage unit, whether you used the KonMari Method or not, finding a storage unit is the next step in home organization. Security Public Storage offers self-storage at a variety of locations throughout the west coast and the Washington D.C. metro area to meet your home organization needs.

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