It's easy to move stuff into a self storage facility and just forget it's there. When it comes time to pay the bill each month, you may have the thought that you should go check out what you have in storage. But, the moment passes and another month goes by. Here is how to make your storage unit more of a staging area for personal items rather than a black hole into which stuff gets sent and forgotten.
1. Make It a More Productive Place to Work
When you're at your storage locker, you may wish you had certain items to make the job of sorting and repacking easier. Keep these items in your storage unit so working there will be easier and more enjoyable.
- Folding table - A square card table that you can set up in the unit or hallway gives you a work space for unpacking, wrapping and repacking items. When not in use, it sits flat against the wall taking up little room.
- Folding chair - There's no reason you can't sit while working on boxes in your storage locker.
- Battery-operated lantern - In case your unit is where light can't get into it easily from the hallway.
- Battery-operate radio - Music and news will help you pass the time while sorting through boxes.
- Packing material - Having these items available will make going through your boxes and repacking them easier:
- packing tape and tape gun
- scissors and box cutters
- permanent markers
- yellow sticky notes
- plain packing paper
- roll of bubble wrap
- foam sheets
- flexible cardboard sheets
2. Rotate Seasonal Items Through Storage
The summer clothes, linens, beach towels and picnic dishware can all go into storage when the cool weather hits. This makes space in your closets, cabinets and drawers for the winter items you'll bring back from storage. When the seasons change, rotate these items again.
3. Rotate House Decor to Keep It Looking Fresh
Keep framed pictures and wall hangings in storage that you can swap out for the items you have up in the house. If you decorate based on the season, put the winter scene photos in storage and put up the colorful spring flower photos when the season changes.
4. Schedule Time to Go Through Those Store-It-Forever Personal Items
You've kept all of your children's report cards over the years in a box. You don't have plans to do anything with them, but you just know you have to save them. Pick a day each year when you will go through those kinds of items. Select a day for each box so you're not going through too many sentimental items on the same day. Put the date on a sticky note on the box and in your calendar. When the date arrives, unpack the box and go through everything in it while asking yourself these questions:
- Do I really need to keep this?
- Would someone else in the family rather have this?
- How can I scale it down to take up less space?
You may go through the items and put them back in the box without making changes. But you may thin the box out over time as you throw out or give away some of the contents.
If you use your storage locker as a place to transition items between storage and your house, you're less likely to leave items there for years without paying any attention to them.
