A Garage in need of a Parking Space

By James Allen, Inventor of the ACM®Wallet - 

I’ll get to it next week. Week after week the same story, what a mess. A simple reminder of how most people procrastinate in cleaning out their garage.

Cars that are originally intended to slip in easily can hardly squeeze past the piles of stored up project materials. The main problem with this pile-up cluster buck scenario is “I’ll need this for” the famous remark about a fixer-up job in the future. The job that never happens… not because it’s not important... but it’s way down on the list of everyday responsibilities.

One day I entered my garage and stood in the center of what was left of my meager parking space. My eyes scanned the stacks of boxes of odds and ends against the walls… both sides and back… including the ceiling racks I installed. I could hardly distinguish or remember what was in the boxes and started playing a little game with my memory. I smiled ironically as it occurred to me of the many times I cursed as I barely slid into my car my seat because of the encroaching hoard of “important” things I needed to save.

That day was the last straw… no more will the garage be a dumping ground for “someday” but realizing that someday was now.

I installed a sign prominently where I could see it clearly from my drivers’ seat… and the words simply stated… Throw Out if Not Used in One Year!

What a wake-up call… that meant just about everything needed to go… but not the essentials, lawn mower, yard tools, work bench, tool chest, muscle rack for tools, Christmas stuff, and most important of all… sports equipment.

Everything else had to go… oh my god. Spare parts, left-over construction materials, jars of nuts, bolts, old spare tires, things from high school, collage, wood, metal, spare gardening pots, broken chairs, old pieces of furniture to restore…

I was tired just thinking about the monumental list of clutter.

The story gets better. It’s not all my stuff.

Now I needed to convince my better half.  And she was not happy with the idea.

Well, I cannot say I’m proud of what ended up being a long and protracted debate as things started to disappear. Over the next six months I sifted through the “garage junk yard” painfully making decisions on what to keep and throw or give away. Confronted by my wife as she started to look for an odd or end… where is this or that?

I shrugged and played innocent… “I - I - I don’t know, it should be there somewhere.”

Well, I know where it ended up… at the green boxes in town.

Green boxes… they are the containers where we go and deliver our garbage. In rural areas there is no garbage collection. I’ve noticed most people when we throw something away that still can be used (ha ha)  we'll leave it out beside the containers, in that way someone can pick it up and bring it to “their garage” - you get my point!

The good news is, this method of only keeping what you can use within the year is a life saver. I no longer feel displaced when I come home and park my car.  The garage looks spacious and organized. Finding what I need is easy and when I need something that I might have thrown out - I go and buy it!  Much cheaper and painless than inventorying that item and never using it because I forgot that I had it in the first place… mixed in among all the “stuff” I thought I needed.

My garage now has reclaimed 2 car spaces… the good use of expensive Real Estate !!!!