Lose the Clutter, Lose the Weight (68 page)

Task 1:

CREATE YOUR VISION OF THESE AREAS

Take a close look at all the storage areas you'll be tackling. Aside from being places to stash a large volume of possessions, what else might you want these areas to do
for
you? Other considerations you might want to keep in mind include whether you'd like to:

Make room for a living area in your basement or attic

Provide more open space so you can get in and around these areas easily

Ensure that these areas don't pose health hazards or create threats to your home's value (like dampness in a basement or animal infestations in piles of stored items in your attic or garage)

Create space for valuable items (How much sense does it make to keep your garage or shed filled with junk that you don't really want, while a $3,000 riding lawn mower or a $25,000 car sits outside in the elements?)

Get rid of some of your possessions so you can display and appreciate a smaller number of treasured items

Ideally, would you like to be using your storage spaces differently? Now's the time to make it happen. While you're surveying your storage areas, break each of the rooms down into zones. Each zone could be a corner of the room, a stretch of wall, a space on the floor, a stack of storage shelves, or a cabinet.

Make a note of how you want to use each of these zones and what you'll keep or store in them. Mentally, envision like items in each zone. The physical limit of that zone determines the volume of items that you can place there. If the volume of stuff intended for a zone exceeds the space assigned for it, you know that there's only one thing you can do: Discard enough items so that what's left fits comfortably into the space. Jot down your thoughts on paper to these prompts:

STORAGE AREA VISION

This is what I want
from
my basement:

This is what I want
from
my attic:

This is what I want
from
my garage:

This is what I want
from
my shed:

How I want to
feel
in these spaces:

Task 2:

SORT OUT YOUR MALIGNANT ITEMS

Don't be surprised if your storage areas turn out to be high-malignancy spaces. The stuff you unearth from deep in your piles of possessions is likely to contain things you've avoided dealing with for a long time, which may trigger particularly painful memories.