Tips for de-cluttering your space before downsizing:

1:  Before moving into your new space, get rid of the stuff you don’t need. Don’t let your stuff weigh you down, set the clutter free!

2:  Take inventory of your stuff.  Use post-its to tag big ticket items you want to get rid of.  Depending on the condition of the items, decide whether you want to donate, sell, keep or trash them.  Consider asking friends, family and colleagues first if they want any of the items you plan to give away. If you want to keep items to pass down to family members but do not have the space at your new home, consider off site storage facilities. Knowing where your stuff ends up sometimes helps with the letting go process.

3:  The smaller items should be sorted into four categories:  keep, donate, sell, or trash.  Use moving boxes or plastic bins and heavy duty trash bags for this step.

4:  Immediately move the trash items out of the house. Don’t let them sit in the garage!  Also, start loading your car with the donation items. The goal is to get everything that you are not keeping out of the house as soon as possible.

5:  Now, you can pack and prepare for your move.

Tips for creating your new space:

1: Make your new space work. Downsize to furniture that serves a dual purpose. For example, an ottoman that doubles as a storage space or a coffee table or both. An armoire tucked away into a corner is an attractive solution for storing your home office.

2:  Think vertical. Install shelves for added storage space. This allows for more storage without adding bulky furniture pieces.

3:   Divide and Conquer. Assign a “home” for everything by using colorful bins, plastic containers, baskets, and drawer dividers. Create labels for easy access.

Finally, assess your new surroundings. Your space should give you the confidence that you can accomplish anything.

Gigi K. Miller is a Professional Organizer and Founder of Vision Organizing, an Atlanta based company that provides organizing solutions for your home, office, and life. She may be reached at 404.274.1930 or via her website at www.visionorganizing.com.  For additional organizing tips, follow Gigi on Twitter @organizer or “like” her Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/VisionOrganizing.

Call us for a free phone consultation and start living your organized life today!

Business Owners Understand a Simple Formula:
Revenue – Expenses = Profit

Often times it is easier to reduce expenses than increase revenue. Businesses can utilize self-storage to reduce expenses in a variety of ways. The first, the more obvious way, is simply reducing the amount of traditional office or warehouse space required to efficiently run your business. Even the smallest increase in square footage of traditionally leased space can be several times that of the same square-footage of a self-storage unit. In your functional workspace, there may be items (furniture, bulk office supplies, seasonal items, archival documents, etc.) which are not needed on a daily basis but are essential. For a minimal cost, a business can lease a storage unit on a month-to-month basis and just like an individual user can access the items in storage as often as they need them. For example, businesses often want to take advantage of the opportunity to purchase office supplies in bulk, but lack the office space to store such supplies.

However, possibly more beneficial than reducing clutter in the functional work space is utilizing self-storage to help manage growth. Traditional office space can be very costly and with most office space comes a long term contract. Self-storage on the other hand is typically month to month and offers a secure, climate controlled space with access 365 days a year. Best of all, if your need for space fluctuates seasonally you can upsize or downsize at any time and just pay for the space you need at any given time.

Another benefit of self-storage for business is utilizing self-storage for distribution. Many antique dealers, wholesale food distributors, book resellers, online retailers, event planners, etc. all use self-storage facilities for off-site distribution solutions. These facilities typically have truck height dock access and therefore can accommodate large deliveries. A built-in benefit with this arrangement is that you aren’t required to be onsite to have inventory delivered to your self-storage space. The facility can accept the delivery on your behalf and even have it delivered to your unit for a small fee. It’s also common for facilities of this type to offer special services to their business customers for no or little extra cost – services like accepting UPS and FedEx business packages, accepting pallet deliveries and business mail for you. Often times a business is paying for an employee to be onsite all day to accept a delivery when alternatively you could utilize the low-cost services of the self-storage facility by asking them to notify you when an item has arrived.

A self-storage facility is a perfect solution for archiving your business documents or business records. Some facilities even have ready-built shelving and/or may allow you to put in your own stacking system depending on the individual self-storage facility. The use of self-storage for archiving has proved very popular across various business areas, including: accountants, architecture, doctors, chemists, law firms, sales organizations, etc.

In closing, consider how self-storage could help reduce expenses or improve efficiency in your business. It’s worth checking into.

1. INVENTORY YOUR ITEMS: Make an inventory of what you’ve packed and where it is as you go along.
2. THINK VERTICAL: To increase accessibility, you may want to consider using shelving to maximize the vertical space in your unit. This will allow you to easily access your belongings. If you like this option, Guardian has heavy duty shelving units available for a small rental fee of $5 a month. And we’ll deliver the fully assembled shelving to your unit for you. Our shelving units can hold up to 200lbs per shelf in weight – now that’s a lot of stuff!
3. INSURANCE PROTECTION: Make an estimate of the replacement value of each item you store to help with insurance policies in case of unforeseen damage. In our 17 year history, Guardian has never had an interior break-in or theft. However, as a perk for our customers, many of Guardian’s units include with $2,000 worth of third party insurance coverage.
4. USE GOOD QUALITY BOXES: Invest in good quality, sturdy boxes and packing materials – box strength degrades with use. If you buy boxes of similar sizes it’ll be easier to stack them securely in your unit and will save you space. For your convenience, Guardian sells high quality boxes and moving supplies at a discount.
5. HAVE A PLAN: Plan your storage space. Place those items that you may need to access often in the front.
6. SAVE YOUR BACK! Don’t be tempted to fill large boxes with heavy items such as books as they’ll quickly become impossible to carry and may break. Instead you can use smaller boxes for heavy items such as books. If you do pack heavy items in a large box, consider putting just a few and then fill the rest of the box up with lighter items.
7. A LITTLE PROTECTION GOES A LONG WAY: Fill boxes to capacity wherever possible to avoid breakages. You can use materials such as packing paper or bubble wrap which unlike newspaper will protect your items from ink transference. Guardian sells both packing paper & bubble wrap for a nominal fee. Depending on the square footage of the storage unit you rent, you might be stacking boxes on top of each other and the lower levels need to be sturdy enough to take the strain. Boxes that are only partly filled may tip over or collapse.
8. LABEL EVERYTHING: Label all boxes clearly so you can identify the contents and keep an inventory. Label them on more than one side so you can identify items quickly. Label ‘Fragile’ on any boxes containing breakable items.
9. MAXIMIZE SPACE: Think creatively and you’ll make more space. Plan to use furniture drawers as an extra box (they are especially good for fragile items) and you can use the inside of wardrobes to store boxes as well.
10. SEAL BOXES: Seal all your boxes with packing tape before you put them in a storage – this will help keep dust out of the contents.