All The Decluttering Mistakes In The Storage Room

I have made so many decluttering mistakes in the storage room that it’s going to take a few weeks to fix it.

Once I have it done again, I’m going to make sure that I don’t make these decluttering mistakes again!

1. Not Having a Plan

Things were just thrown into the room in Nilly Willy fashion. Nothing has it’s own place. It’s place is on top of something else that doesn’t have a place.

This time, I need to make sure that there will be certain places for different things. Clothes in the closet for example.

2. Letting Anything and Everything In

This room became the stash and dash dumping ground. Since it was the emptiest room in the house at the time, I figured I could put EVERYTHING in there. I didn’t even worry about whether they were things we wanted to keep or not. I just shoved them in there to get them out of sight.

I’m going to make sure everything in there is something that we really want or need to keep.

3. No Actual Storage Spaces

The storage room had nothing but a few towers of storage bins in it. I’m not sure what I was thinking by not putting the storage bins on shelves or anything even remotely resembling shelves.

Yes, you can probably fit more in the room without the shelving units but there’s a few disadvantages to that. One, you end up keeping way too many things because you can. Secondly, you have no way to get to anything you did keep. And thirdly, it’s impossible to know where anything is.

It’s just a bad idea so don’t make this mistake.

No More Decluttering Mistakes in This Room!

The second time around, I’ll be planning out the room before refilling it. I will think about a real purpose instead of just a “storage” room. It might have to remain a storage room a little longer until I can get to the basement or attic to clear out some space in one of those areas, but it can still be organized a little better.

While looking around on the internet the other day, I came across this FREE awesome little 2021 in 2021 Yearly Decluttering Challenge by Rachel Jones.

*Disclosure: The chart is completely free but if you do happen to purchase anything else on that site, because there’s a lot of good stuff, I may earn a small commission.

I can’t wait to start filling it out later today!

Do I want to do a diagonal rainbow across the page? Or solid squares? Or maybe even quilt square style? However I decide to do it, I can guarantee it will be colorful! And it’s certainly not going to take all year!

Here’s what it looks like now, taped to my desk:

I’m still in the process of counting items and packing them up to take to the donation center. Once I’m done, I’m going to start coloring in the squares. I’m hoping to fill up both sheets in the storage room.