3 Tools That Can Make Organizing Your Storage Unit Much Easier
If you're not organizationally gifted, going through and inventorying everything in your storage unit can seem like such a chore. But you also don't want to spend a half-hour or more digging frantically through boxes every time you visit the unit. Here are three tools that can make organizing your storage unit easier and maybe even more fun.
1. Clear plastic storage bins
Using a clear style of storage bin lets you get a good visual representation of each container's contents. This can be a great addition to a comprehensive inventory because it lets you see a lot of what's inside the bin without opening it. (The exception to this is when you're storing items that need to be protected from light.)
You can also use dry-erase markers (or permanent markers, whichever works best for your process) to write or draw on the outside of the bins as you pack them, showing which part of the bin each item is in. This can save time and frustration because otherwise, even if your inventory tells you which container to look in, you might end up having to dig through the entire thing for what you're looking for, and then repack everything else.
2. Color-coded labels
Using color-coded stickers, labels, or even color-coded dry erase markers can give another helpful visual component that makes grouping similar things together easy. Stacking bins with similar items helps you find your way around the storage unit easier and makes it easy to decide where to place any additional bins. You can color code by room, by which child the items belong to, by which season the items are for, or any other way that's important to you.
3. Spreadsheet
If your master inventory is a spreadsheet, you can access it from your computer at home or your phone when you're at the unit. A computer spreadsheet lets you add categories in the middle of the sheet, rearrange the inventory, or add new items to existing categories. And it'll be much easier to find which box something is in when you can just type it into the "find" mechanism instead of hunting through pages and pages of inventory manually.
Be sure to number each box (and label it clearly), then use all the tags and keywords you can think of when describing that box in the spreadsheet so your "find" bar can help you locate, for example, all the holiday decorations or all the sports supplies when needed.
These three tools can help you a lot further down the road to an easy-to-use, well-laid-out storage unit organization. For more information, contact your local self-storage facility.
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