Clean Garage, Efficient Workplace
Most people don’t consider a messy garage to be a big deal. If anything, it’s typically considered the best place in the home to throw anything that doesn’t fit inside the rest of the house. However, there are a variety of inescapable downsides to keeping clutter strewn around any space in which you work.
The best solution is to take a bit of time to clean and arrange your garage. before tackling DIY projects. You can also implement a variety of storage and organization solutions that help make it easier to avoid ever having another messy garage ever again.
Messy Garage, Distracted Mind
Scientists and researchers from the Princeton University Neuroscience Institute have revealed some surprising findings relating to how the human brain is affected by a cluttered environment. According to the study they published, entitled Interactions of Top‑Down and Bottom‑Up Mechanisms in Human Visual Cortex, messy, chaotic environments challenge the brain’s ability to focus, which reduces the amount of processing that your mind is able to perform.
Researchers arrived at this conclusion by testing subjects while determining their brain responses through functional magnetic resonance imaging and other measurable metrics, all of which point strongly to the conclusion that the people are more focused, able to process more information and are even less irritable when they have a well‑organized workspace that is free of clutter.
Put simply, the less of a mess that you have in your garage, the better you’re able to follow through on your DIY projects.
Difficulty Finding Key Items
When you’re in the middle of doing a DIY project and you have to stop to go through several piles of clutter to find a specific item, all of the momentum you’ve gathered goes straight out the window. This type of time‑waster is completely avoidable if you’ve taken the time and effort to organize your garage. If you find yourself repeatedly having to put out an APB for missing tools or hardware, the amount of time you’ll save by organizing your clutter will be significant.
Even worse, if the item you’re looking for ends up missing or damaged due to improper storage, your entire project may end up coming to a complete halt. It’s a no‑brainer: a clean and organized garage leads to greater productivity when you’re working on home projects.
Solving Your Cluttered Garage
There are some messes that are so terrible that they require professional intervention. If you take a look at your garage and see a zone of apocalyptic clutter, contacting an experienced organizer may be the best course of action. This type of over‑the‑top garage mess is more frequent that you think. One out of four Americans pack so many items in their garage that they’re unable to park a car in the space remaining.
The good news is that garage storage solutions are plentiful and inexpensive. The walls of your garage may be used as real estate to hang items on hooks or rails, such as bicycles, tall yard implements and odds and ends like nails and screws.
Modular storage racks are inexpensive, sturdy and easy to put together, quickly creating a matrix of storage shelves. The top shelves can be used to store items that are rarely used, while the bottom shelves contain objects that need to be frequently accessed.
Garage storage cabinets offer a more permanent solution compared to modular storage racks. Compared to storage racks, it takes a bit more effort to install this type of storage system. However, cabinets provide you with the ability to customize the dimensions of the storage space, which helps tailor the cabinet to the requirements of your work space.
However, before implementing any permanent changes, the first thing you should do is perform an assessment of the size and scope of your garage reorganization project. Gather all of your items and sort them into groups according to size, type and utility. Performing this assessment gives you a better idea of what you need to do to get rid of the clutter in your garage while making the mess much more manageable.
The statistic behind the science of clutter are alarming. One out of eleven Americans spend over $1,000 a year to rent storage lockers to hold all their extra stuff. A report from the National Association of Professional Organizers suggests that people spend an average of one year of their lives looking for lost items. All of these facts point to a clear conclusion: get rid off the mess in your garage to improve your productivity on home projects.
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