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How To Declutter Your Life With Storage

Storage can be an essential component to declutter your life, gain back huge parts of your home, and even make a little extra money by selling off unused items.

If you’re living in a smaller home, had to downsize your home, or just have too much stuff that’s been accumulating for years, then considering what items can move into a storage unit in Blackpool will be a fantastic investment.

Detailed below are some ideas and steps to implement on how to declutter your life with a storage unit in Blackpool.

How To Avoid Feeling Overwhelmed During Your Declutter

A big issue that people face when decluttering their homes is that it can be a big task the first time they try. You may be unsure how big of a storage unit you’ll need in Blackpool, whether you should throw stuff out, or even whether your items are safe to keep in a storage unit.

To get yourself started, follow these general tips so that you can go through your entire home.

Create A Timeline

While it might sound strange that you need to plan and create a timeline to move your items into storage in Blackpool, you’ll find that the decluttering process is a long one that requires planning and multiple days to complete.

If you step into the process of storage and decluttering, thinking that it’s going to be quick and simple, you may start to feel overwhelmed, which can result in you giving up quickly, and then your life stays cluttered, and nothing gets moved into your storage unit in Blackpool.

Take a quick walk around your home, survey how cluttered rooms are, and consider whether you have items that need to be stored, thrown out, or sold. You can then set up a quick timeline of what you’ll need to do and how long you’re going to give yourself.

It’s essential that you have room for movement if things pop up or you find yourself needing more time to declutter.

  • Which rooms need to be decluttered, how much needs to be done, and estimate how long each room may take to do.
  • Determine if you have a huge amount of stuff to throw out and whether you should be boxing or putting junk in a specific location and then calling a junk removal company.
  • Note any items that you don’t think you’ll want anymore or if you have a huge amount of stuff that isn’t junk but could be sold off.

Plan Time To Work On Decluttering

Set time aside each day to work on the decluttering process, you’re almost certainly going to be overwhelmed trying to cram everything into the same day, and you may make mistakes on what needs to be put into your storage in Blackpool, sold online, or through a garage sale, or thrown out.

You may be able to give yourself 1 hour a day for the week and then a final cleanup process on the weekend that could take multiple hours. It’s heavy going to depend on how cluttered your home is, but remember that once completed, you’re going to have a much cleaner home with offsite storage in Blackpool.

Planning specific time on the decluttering process also sets it as a specific task in your day that you need to do, rather than something you just want to do if you have time.

Divide Up Your Home

Divide your home into sections that you think you can handle without becoming overwhelmed. How you divide may depend on how much stuff you have that needs to be decluttered. At a maximum, you should divide your home into rooms and focus on that room before moving on to other areas.

If rooms are particularly cluttered or large, you can even break rooms into sections, work on a specific closet, or other areas that you feel comfortable with in your timeframe.

Diving rooms let you see a completed room and give you a feeling of accomplishment that helps keep you moving. However, it can be challenging if you’re jumping between multiple rooms and not seeing a dent put into the decluttering process.

You can also set goals for yourself during each session in a room; either one bag of rubbish thrown out every day, one bag of items to sell or give away, and a box of things that you want to move into storage in Blackpool or whatever storage unit you’re thinking of getting.

What To Avoid When Decluttering Your Home

Some people may feel overwhelmed with the decluttering process, while others may feel overly excited about the storage they may soon be getting in Blackpool or other areas. However, it’s important not to make costly mistakes or cause yourself to give up prematurely.

Some basic things to avoid during your decluttering and move to an offsite storage unit in Blackpool are detailed below.

Don’t Buy Too Much Storage At The Beginning Of Your Decluttering

When you first start your decluttering process it may be exciting to get everything prepurchased, and that can include a huge storage unit in Blackpool and even a massive amount of storage containers.

If you pick out your storage in Blackpool before you have a real idea of how much space you’ll need, you may get a storage unit that is too big or too small. Unless you’re really lucky, you likely won’t be able to determine the size of the storage unit you’ll need until you’re further along in the decluttering process.

Buying cardboard or plastic storage boxes will be required so that you can easily store, move, and then pack items away in your storage unit. However, both kinds of storage boxes can be expensive, so buying too many before you’ve sorted things into keep, store, sell, and garbage can be costly.

Declutter and sort items before buying your storage. An easy interim step is to store things in plastic bags, which are also convenient for your garage items.

Quickly Deal With Items You’re Not Keeping

Part of the decluttering process and keeping yourself from being overwhelmed is following through on your plan for items at appropriate times. So if you’re putting things into garbage bags to be thrown away, then throw them away daily. If you’re looking to sell or give away items, then try to do that as quickly as possible.

It may be tempting to leave garbage in your garage or in a room until you want to do everything, and for some larger items, this may be required. But if you’ve got individual bags of garbage, get rid of them ASAP.

The longer you keep items hanging around, the more chance you’ll feel overwhelmed or have less of an idea of what you want to do with them. You may end up backtracking on junk items or items you want to give away.

The only time you may want to store items is if they’re larger pieces that you want to have removed by a junk company, and you can save money by doing that all at once. If you have to travel far to give away your clothing or other items, then you may also want to store those items out of sight until you’re ready.

Make Decluttering A Seasonal Task

Part of the reason that houses become cluttered is that people just put things away and don’t think about them for years. So your initial decluttering and storage in Blackpool should not be the final phase of the process.

You will want to set up a seasonal or at least yearly activity to review what items you have in your storage in Blackpool and what new things you want to store, sell, throw out, or give away.

Your storage unit should also be a rotating seasonal storage room; if you have items that you only use at certain times of the year, but you don’t want to throw out, then rotate them through the storage unit.

As an example most people won’t have to deal with if you have a surfboard for summer and a snowboard for winter, then rotate those items through your storage unit so that your home doesn’t become cluttered again.

Once items stop being used in your home and have sat in your storage unit in Blackpool for some time, then you should also consider when those items need to be downgraded from storage items to garbage items.

What Should Be Stored In A Storage Unit

At some point in your decluttering process, you’ll need to get a storage unit in Blackpool. However, before you can get the storage unit, you need to know how much stuff you’ll be storing, which also means you need to know what you should be storing.

You can store almost anything you want in your Blackpool storage unit, but there are certain items that will make the cost of the unit worthwhile and help with decluttering and organizing your life.

Important Documents

If your house is filled with documents, then you’ll want to sort through them first, and anything that isn’t garbage can be securely and safely stored in a storage unit in Blackpool.

Items such as medical records that you want to keep, tax records may be required for seven years, and anything else that you need to keep for some time but don’t need access to regularly can be stored in your storage unit.

Something to consider with documents is how safe they are. It’s unlikely that your storage unit will be physically broken into; however, it’s possible, just like your home, that a leak can happen. A water leak can mean the death of your important documents, so storing them securely is essential.

Buy waterproof and airtight heavy-duty plastic containers that won’t allow water to get into or for the container to be crushed if anything falls on it, resulting in a broken container.

Seasonal Items

Any items you use only at certain times of year are the perfect candidates for storage in Blackpool. There is no reason that you need to keep things in your home that you use once a year or less and only for a few weeks or months.

Seasonal items that are perfect for storage could include sports equipment (think hockey gear or snowboards), Christmas or other holiday decorations, winter clothing, and outside furniture.

As you’re decluttering, take note of items that take up space, but you rarely use. If selling those items isn’t an option, then storage may be a good solution.

Keepsakes

Childhood memories or family keepsakes can be good candidates for storage in Blackpool. There are certain items that you don’t want to throw out or give away, but if you’re not using them, it’s impractical to keep them in your home when space is at a premium.

You may also find that your kids have grown up and left home, but you don’t want to throw out all of their childhood belongings. It may be for sentimental reasons, or maybe some of the items can be reused once they have kids of their own.

Whatever you’re putting into storage, make sure that it’s going to be safe for long-term storage. The best option is to store things in airtight and waterproof plastic containers.

Unlike your home, you won’t be visiting your storage unit on a regular basis, so if there is a water leak or other issue, you want your things to be safe until you get there.

Things You Want To Sell

If you have a large number of things that you want to sell but don’t have an opportunity to sell those items or they’re taking longer to sell, then it’s worthwhile putting those things into storage in Blackpool so that they’re out of the way and your life gets to be decluttered sooner.

What is essential, though, is that you stay on top of the sales process with items you put into storage with the intention of selling. If you can’t sell or give away items, then you’ll need to consider throwing them out.

Final Thoughts On Decluttering Your Life With Storage

If you’re looking to declutter your life, then storage units in Blackpool or your own city can be a critical part of the process. However, it’s important to remember that moving junk from your home to a storage unit only hides the problem, and you may end up costing yourself money by storing rather than throwing items out.

Carefully consider and categorize items before putting them into storage to make sure they actually belong there.

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