Simplify Your Home This Remembrance Day!

With today being Remembrance Day, it is time to honor those who served.  Why not do so and clean up your house or apartment to boot?  Read on to find out how…

Unless you’re a monk who lives in an isolation cell, throughout life we human beings usually accumulate stuff like metal filings to a magnet.  It’s just what we do. And every few years or so there usually comes a time when we realize that we must slim down the heard; both in order to make more space for the metaphorical grass to grow and also to improve the understanding and appreciation of what we’re lucky enough to have.

Unfortunately, once you have decided to clean up and simplify your home it can often at first seem an overwhelming task.  The best thing to do to get things started is to sort out what you really have in the first place.  It is our humble opinion, here at Central City U-Lock, that most things we have accumulated usually fall into the following four simple categories:

1. stuff we need
2. stuff we like but don’t need around very often
3. stuff we don’t even know if we like anymore
4. stuff we don’t like but don’t want to throw away because it still might have value to us (or someone else) someday

Once you have mentally organized your personal possessions into these four categories it can be a lot easier to decide what to do.  Obviously, the first group is easy to deal with; you need that stuff!  Hooray, you’re already a quarter of the way finished!

Category two, the stuff we like but don’t need around very often, can be a prime candidate for organization and storage.  Depending on how often you use or need some of these items you may want to consider how you can either store them more effectively in your basement or attic, or put them in to (you guessed it!) self storage.  Self storage is quite affordable and can often be the best solution for items that are seasonal, get in the way of life when not being used, or are simply too large or cumbersome to efficiently store in your home.

Categories three and four are where our veterans, or other worthy charities, can benefit.  Once you’ve decided what you want to keep from group three (btw: from a minimalist perspective, if you can’t decide if you like something anymore you probably don’t like it enough to keep it around…) you could donate all these items to a veterans charity of your choice in the spirit of this year’s Remembrance Day!  One great Canadian veterans charity is Friends of Veterans Canada, which can be found on the web at www.fovcanada.ca.

So, what are you waiting for?  Start streamlining your home and organizing your life today by putting seldom used items into storage and donating your unwanted ones to a worthy cause.