Garage Needs Help
Image source: C.Cass
Here is a photo of the adult children of a mother—who shall remain nameless— now residing in Florida. I know personally that this particular Mom is a total sweetheart, but she’s apparently had difficulty coping with “too much stuff.”
Her adult twins, pictured here looking pretty overwhelmed, were poised to tackle the problem as, perhaps, the greatest Mother’s Day present of all: cleaning out her garage and the rest of her home stuffed chock-a-block with the accumulations of a lifetime.
Before Rightsizing Garage
Image source: C. Cass
The pair had flown down not just to clear the clutter, but to sort, cull, edit, recycle, and responsibly dispose of the myriad items the older woman no longer needed, wanted, or used (and this was just their mother’s garage!)
It’s the classic story: this lovely lady was widowed and moved from her family home, which she sold, to a second home, which became her primary residence.
Her problem, as it is for so many of us, was that she brought most of her possessions from her former place and tried to shoe-horn them into her New Nest.
And like like the rest of us, she continued to buy things and save things, while not winnowing and discarding as she went.
Finally, the situation reached a crisis point, and the older woman could hardly move freely within her own residence for all the “treasures” she hadn’t the heart or the strength to get rid of.
Fortunately, her son and daughter came to the “rightsizing” rescue:
After Rightsizing Garage
Image source: C. Cass
What was their method? The same one I espouse when helping someone else cut the clutter: first encourage them to select only what they love AND use…and then figure out what to do with what’s left.
It’s that simple…and that complicated.
Ask yourself—or anyone you’re helping: what is your life like now? What makes sense for you now? As you consider each item and whether it goes in the “keep” or “toss” pile, ask the famous four rightsizing questions:
Do I love it?
Do I use it now?
Is it sentimental?
Is it beautiful?
Make sure each item falls in at least two of the four categories to be a “keeper.”
Follow this simple plan, and you, too, will find liberation from the burden of—in the immortal words of commedian George Carlin—too much stuff!
Do it for Mom….and yourself.
Tags: Clutter, Culling and Editing possessions, New Nest, Rightsizing, Simplifying Your Surroundings
