Spring and Fall are the best times to clean garages out. There are neighborhood clean-ups, which makes disposing of larger items much easier.

I recommend setting aside an entire weekend day (or weekend depending on the size of your garage) and get the whole family on board.

Here are my steps for getting a garage organized:

Step 1:

1. Move everything out of the garage into the driveway. Yep, everything.
   1. Start with the bigger lawn tools (mower, snowblower, shovels, etc.).
   2. Group like things together as you go.
2. Edit!
   1. Decide what stays and what goes. This is one of the easier categories to purge because there are fewer sentimental items. The purpose of a garage item is usually pretty clear. 
   2. Stray away from having multiples unless it’s absolutely necessary. For example, snow shovels, gardening trowels, buckets for moving dirt or fertilizer, gardening gloves, hand clippers. 
   3. As you edit put items in a donate or discard pile.
3. Group like things together.
   1. Do this in the driveway. Start to create piles of similar items. This will help you put things back in new homes.
4. Put things back starting with the big items first.
   1. Hang the following items:
   2. Give a clear, designated spot for these items. These need to be super easy to access (flip flop the location of the snow blower and mower as the seasons change):
5. Use shelves!
   1. This is the one investment I would encourage you to make when organizing your garage. Invest in a few shelves for all other garage items. If you or your spouse is pretty handy, then you can build these shelves as well.