Noticed a poster for a garage makeover workshop. Bad idea.

I was at the hardware store and saw a big poster on their community wall about a garage organization workshop. They said you could turn a messy space into a tidy one in just a weekend. I tried that last year. Followed a similar plan, bought all the bins and shelves. Two months later, it was a disaster again. The problem is they don't teach how to keep it clean. Just putting stuff away isn't enough. You need a system you'll actually use. Now I ignore those quick fix ads.

3 comments

3 Comments

wesley8082mo ago

Bet they forgot to mention the follow-up class on how to live with a pack-rat family. My shelves just became a fancy backdrop for new piles of junk. Those plastic bins are now just expensive, labeled containers of chaos.

grace5652mo agoMost Upvoted

Read a piece once that said organizing with pack-rats is like shoveling snow during a blizzard. @wesley808, your labeled bins becoming fancy backdrops for junk is exactly what they meant. The whole system falls apart if not everyone follows along, so it just becomes a place to put new piles. I heard some people try regular clean-up times to fight the clutter, but that needs everyone to care. Honestly, it sounds good on paper but rarely works in a busy home.

thompson.christopher1mo ago

Yeah, I saw something similar about how clutter is a slow creep, not a sudden mess. It said the problem is that organizing stuff is a one-time project, but keeping it that way is a daily habit. So you can buy all the bins you want, but if the habit isn't there, it's just staging for the next pile.