Spring Cleaning

Spring, the season of rejuvenation. Flowers, grass and trees in bloom. Time to clean out the remnants of winter and possibly many winters gone by. One of the tasks for this month is planning for that yard/garage sale or flea market that may have gotten past us in previous years.
One of the keys to success is the creation of a "staging area". This is a location where you can put the collections or excesses temporarily till the day of the event. Collecting the stuff you are interested in selling in one place will make it easy to prepare for the sale. This makes your efforts in cleaning out attics, basements or garages more effective. You are less likely to move things back to the same place when there is another location to put them into temporary storage.
Sometimes there are items that we have stored that are intended to go to another person, organization or place. You can create secondary staging areas for items that are going elsewhere. An example: If you have allot of old or expired paper, files or shred able materials, create a spot to collect just that stuff. You may find there are the same type of things stored in various locations that you are cleaning. One of my first 'rules' to organizing is "like items with like items". Sort out what is to stay and what is to go. Find an appropriate storage mechanism for what is to stay and figure out how to make the remainder go. Some items may be of interest on EBay, Craig list or at a consignment store. Remember that anything that cannot or does not sell somehow will be readily accepted by your locale thrift shop.