Not all storage is created equal. Some storage is thoughtful, temporary, and intentional.
Other storage is stress, avoidance, and postponed decisions, just packaged neatly in bins, closets, garages, and storage rooms.
In this episode, we’re unpacking the difference between stalling and storing, a framework first introduced in Episode 114, and taking it deeper, specifically through the lens of storage spaces.
You’ll learn how to spot when storage is helping you—and when it’s quietly holding you back—plus one small, realistic action you can take to interrupt the cycle without diving into a full organizing project.
In This Episode, We Talk About
- The difference between intentional storing and stalling disguised as storage
- How stress, life transitions, and decision fatigue show up in the way we store things
- Signs a space has shifted from “holding” to “avoiding”
- The most common “I’ll deal with this later” patterns professional organizers see
- One small action you can take this week to break the stalling cycle
- How progress in storage spaces builds momentum and lowers stress, even when life is full
Mentioned in This Episode
- Episode 114: Stalling vs. Storing
- The ongoing Storage Series
Review full show notes and resources at https://theorganizedflamingo.com/podcast
Review Transcript:
Hello and welcome back to Organize and Cherish. I'm Stephanie, your host, and today we're talking about storage, storage rooms. But not in the way that you might expect. And if you're brand new to the podcast, you know exactly what I'm talking about because we're not talking about the storage, like a storage bin or one drawer.
We're talking about storage rooms all year long. It can be the attic, the basement, or the guest room where you keep storing things. And it was a guest room at one point, but now it is a storage room, uh, where you shove everything in there. So it could be a closet as well. Anything in in between that has to do with storage.
In this particular episode, it's called Stalling, avoiding and Delaying the What Storage Reveals About Stress, because I want to talk about the difference between stalling and storing and as a professional organizer. I want to start by saying this really clear though, before we continue, that not all storage is bad, and not all storage means you're doing something wrong.
Some storage is thoughtful and some storage is temporary. Uh, some storage is exactly what makes life work. In a busy season, maybe you have a change of lifestyle, right? Or a chapter of your life, but sometimes storage becomes something else. It becomes a pause button. We never quite unpause. It's like a way to delay decisions we don't have the capacity for yet, and a place where stress quietly lands when life feels full.
I've seen this all too much with fellow, just people that I know, and of course the community and clients that I work with and from the outside, stalling and storing can look identical. Very, very similar. It's the same bins, it's the same shelves, it's the same closets, the garages, basements, and storage rooms.
And you think, well, you know, it came with the house. This is the storage room. This is what it's meant to be. But on the inside, they feel very different. Back in episode one 14, I did introduce the idea of stalling versus storing, and then today we're actually going to go deeper into this conversation.
We're pulling that framework directly into the storage spaces because there, that is like the space where I see it show up the most with people. Um, storage areas just often tell the truth before we even know. So the show was, we're overwhelmed where decisions feel heavy and where we've said, I'll deal with this later and later, just doesn't come.
Here's the important part before we start the episode. Stalling doesn't mean you're lazy. It could mean that you're stretched. So in this episode, we're going to talk about how to tell the difference between intentional storage and avoiding in disguise, and we'll walk you through one small, realistic action that you can take.
To break the cycle without launching a big organizing project and give you that momentum that we talk about here at the organized flamingo quite a bit. You need that momentum to keep going. You need to be able to trust yourself. If you're helping someone else do this, they need to trust themselves. So hopefully this will give you some inspiration on how to do that so they can start making the decisions on their own.
No pressure, and there's no purging sprees here unless that is the avenue and the path that you want to take. It's all about progress that actually lowers stress. If you've ever opened a storage space and immediately close the door again, then this episode is for you. So let's get into it.
Welcome to the Organized and Cherish podcast with the Organized Flamingo. I am your host Stephanie, your compassionate and efficient professional organizer. Whether you are part of the sandwich generation helping a loved one declutter, or just trying to simplify life, this is the place for you. Together we will tackle those overwhelming piles of stuff, uncover purpose in what we keep.
And let go with dignity and care because it's not just about throwing everything away, it's about respecting memories and simplifying life. Sound like a plan? Let's jump in and get organized. Okay, so before we go any further, I like to talk about something and the reason why storage becomes the default, and I want to normalize.
That if you have a storage space that you haven't touched in months or years, that you're not alone and it's perfectly okay within reason. And what I mean by that is there are storage rooms and situations as to why you haven't opened them. It could be because of trauma. Because of safety reasons. There could be other outside outstanding health related hazardous reasons why you're not opening that storage room.
And within this whole series, we're not really going to the extremes of those cases. Okay. So I just wanna kind of talk about that. Because when I talk about why storage rooms become the default, I'm talking about kind of for the most of us, you know, for the majority. I am generalizing because I don't know your particular situation unless we work together, unless I know kind of the background a little bit.
So these podcast episodes are meant to be generalized. And then you can dig as deep as you need to go. If you feel like this is the level that you're at, and this is the help that you need. Perfect. If you feel like this has been something you've tried over and over again, and you're still in a vicious cycle of being in a hazarded situation or a loved one is just not able to resolve organizing, decluttering, and figuring out what to do with that offsite storage unit that they're paying hundreds of dollars for every month, then let's talk about that a little separately.
And seek the assistance and help and resources that you may need. Okay, so these are more generalized situations that I have seen, and to let you know that you're not alone. If you are more of the generalized examples that I talk about in these episodes or you are more of an extreme situation, you are not alone.
I promise you. And this happens, but the whole goal of these episodes is for you to gain some momentum and some trust, some self-trust so that you can make some kind of action and that will propel you forward and make, have boundaries, and make decisions about your storage spaces. Okay. So most people I work with are highly capable, thoughtful adults who are managing full lives.
You know, they, they have careers, they have kids, they have, they're caregivers, they have aging parents. They're aging parents, like they've already raised their families and they're perfectly capable. What happens along the lines of, of living, I mean, they, they've maybe have had grief or health challenges and transitions.
They have seen things and, and been around the block a few times. So when storage becomes overwhelming, it's rarely about the inability within themselves to not be able to tackle this because they've tackled other really hard things about life. So if this is you, or this could be you, not just they, but you, you could be a perfectly capable person, but the capacity is just so overwhelming.
It's not always about the actual stuff, the physical stuff, because the physical stuff itself has no meaning until you give it meaning. But the capacity to deal with it is a lot. And from a professional organizer's perspective, storage spaces often become what, what I think of as a decision buffer there where things land when life moves faster than decisions can be made.
Emotional energy is already spoken for. There's no immediate consequence for postponing. So for instance, um, you know, life, you've got school started, you know, like the calendar school, um, for your kiddos has started and that is moving fast. They've got their homework, they've got their lives and their activities that are going on as well as your career.
And it's moving and it's moving what feels like really fast. And making the decisions that can keep up with what to do with the schoolwork, paper, with the projects starts to get overwhelming. So then you just start putting all the homework pages and the artwork that they bring home. You start putting those in a chest in a box for the later, right?
And then that starts to pile up. Literally and figuratively because life is going much faster. There's also the emotional energy that's already spoken for actually was messaging a friend the other day and we were talking about how at any given moment these, this list like we made, I think each of us made a list of like 15 things that are happening all at once.
We're lucky if we can pay attention, like full attention to two or three at a time in a given day. The rest is just emotionally. The capacity to deal with all that is just too much. Like it's just, it's just a lot. So then you don't deal with it. And this comes into play with physical stuff when it comes to when you inherit something.
If you've inherited boxes from your loved ones, there could be a lot of emotion attached to that and the emotional energy that it takes. It's already spoken for with your everyday life, especially if you're going through really hard moments in life that occupy that emotion and those emotional, uh, that emotional state for you, then you don't have room to deal with yet.
Another really heavy emotion of dealing with your loved one. Stuff that could be be bringing up memories, trauma, uh, and all of the above, right? And there's no immediate consequence for postponing. So if you shove everything in the storage closet and your storage room in that guest bedroom, there is no one coming over to give you a big X or fail or report card right there.
Nobody is policing it. Nobody is monitoring it. So there's, there's probably no immediate consequence for postponing and storage works at first, right? It feels responsible, it feels contained. It feels like you're being practical. But then over time it can quietly turn into stalling. And this is where knowing the difference between storing and stalling is really important.
I hope that this is an exercise, this is kind of like the first exercise of today's episode. Um, but knowing the difference for yourself. Be honest with yourself. I know that could be a little more of a blanket statement and you might say, well, sure I'm not, or, um, you might need a friend or a loved one or your mental health practitioner that can do this for you or can guide you towards figuring out if you are just storing yes, you are storing stuff because you're just not able to, to conquer it right now or to face it right now.
Right? Or are you stalling? Like are you stalling a bigger feeling? There's this framework that I talked about over an episode one 14, and we talked all, you don't have to go listen to it, but for the seasoned listeners, you might recall this from that episode where we talked about how storing is intent, needs to be intentional, it needs to have a purpose, even if it's temporary, so it's completely valid to say.
This storage room is the place I am putting everything while I look for a new home, a new sit, you know, a new living, um, situation while I figure out my work, am I going to move or not? So this is, this is somewhere where I'm going to rent for the next 12 months while I figure out my next living situation.
That is intentional. That's also okay to, that's why they exist, like the storage room exists, but it's temporary and it has a purpose. Stalling is avoidance. It delays the decision without a plan. So you, you, you receive things. Let's say you inherit some things from your loved ones, some boxes, maybe your old high school trophies or your parents, uh, loved and prized collectibles from their trips, like their holiday ornaments, right?
You really don't know if you like it or not. You're not even sure. So what you end up doing is you just shove it in the storage facility or in your basement. Without any plan. Like there is no timeline. There is no, oh, you know what? I don't know if I like this, but I will, I will think about this. I will see if it fits in my lifestyle by this summer, by, you know, March 1st, by December 31st, like there is no plan.
You just, you just grabbed it. You said, yes, I will take it, and you shoved it in the closet. The distinction I want you to remember is that storing supports your life. Installing quietly drains it. And again, it's not about judgment, it's about noticing what your storage is doing for you or is it doing something to you when you're starting to feel that heaviness of, I haven't tackled that area, and it's because.
You just don't even want to face what's in there. That is a good signal that you might be stalling decisions and not just storing because there is a goal or a system in mind. Hi, cherish friends. Life can get overwhelming, especially when you're juggling caregiving, clutter and everything in between.
That's why I created the Organizing Cherish Weekly email that goes out every Wednesday straight to your inbox. To help you keep the momentum inspiration going with tips and reminders of our upcoming events, all you have to do is head on over to organize and cherish.com and sign up for the email newsletter.
It's free and you can up subscribe whenever you'd like. It's my way of helping you simplify your life and respecting memories along the way. Now back to our show. Next up, let's talk about intentional storage. So what, what does intentional storing sound like? So intentional storage could sound something like this.
I'm keeping this for now because Do, do, do. Okay. You might be saying something because you, you, there is a, an actual reason there in a feeling. Maybe I know where this is and I can get to it easily. This is like a big part of a plan, even if the plan is flexible, but this will sustain me. This will support me in what I'm trying to be or do in life.
So here are some examples. I see quite often, um, seasonal items that are rotated regularly. It supports your lifestyle. You are a decorator, you're a designer, you're a creative, you love putting your stuff up. You're a maximalist. We love maximalist, right? Like it's just so fun and beautiful and you get to display it, but you rotate it and you clean it and you, you know, where it is or where it goes.
It doesn't have to be perfect, but it certainly has a rhyme and a reason. Documents being kept for legal or timing reasons. Everyone thinks that they need to go paperless. Oh my gosh. I don't know if right now in, in the year 2026, it's as predominant, but I remember, you know, two thousands, um, 2000 tens, people just started to say that they were going digital only paperless.
Great. Love that journey for, for you, if that's where you're. I get it. Paper has a lot of weight. We actually have entire episodes devoted to this. I personally don't organize as much paper anymore because it, it, I've used to organize like archives and archives. It can be daunting and, you know, may I even say like traumatizing, the, the paper cuts, the looking for that document you need amongst the endless stacks of paper.
Uh, it can just traumatize you, but there are certain documents that you do need to keep for legal or timing reasons. And that's it. End of story. So you need to put 'em somewhere in the storage room. Another reason, items waiting for a move. Um, like a renovation and family handoff. I kind of talked about that a little bit.
That's another really specific example. It just has to happen. You just need to place a holding space. End of story. Memory items intentionally set aside until someone is ready. And this is a big one for if you have kiddos, family members that are not quite ready to adopt or inherit those items, you might be waiting for them to turn a certain age or a certain size.
And so you know, you wait for when that they're ready. Big example of this is wedding attire, celebratory attire, um, milestone type of attire that you'd like to pass on, like right before or when somebody gets engaged or somebody is having a baptism or some kind of something that you and your family and culture celebrate and you're waiting for that moment, so then you know you're storing it for that.
This kind of storage feels very neutral. It's supportive, it supports your life, and you don't dread opening the door. You know why it's there. That's a really good signal as if you're feeling that way, then it's, you're doing a great job. Keep it up high five. Now, what does stalling look and sound like? It could sound like this.
It's heavy. I'll deal with this later. I don't have the energy for this right now. That's a big one. I don't know what to do with it yet. I just need more time and let be very clear that those thoughts are reasonable. When later never gets scheduled, storage becomes that holding pattern. And the most common stalling zone that I see are the garages that stop fitting cars like you can't put in your car there anymore.
And again, and it's not because you, you're using your garage as a workshop or art room or if you sell stuff out of your, you know, like, um, steal stuff online and a lot of people, or not just online, but just you have like an e-commerce type of site. That's not it. I'm talking, you have so much stuff that you're storing aimlessly that you can't even park your car or, um, go into your garage.
Guest rooms that never host guests. You're embarrassed to have people over actually. Basements that quietly collect past versions of life. That's a big one. A lot of, uh, items from past relationships get held in there. Storage units paid for month after month for the, just in case I need it. And you're not a professional collector or even like a hobbyist collector, like you're just kind of keeping things just because nothing here means that you failed necessarily at all.
It's just that usually it means that you've been prioritizing everything else. So what storage reveals about stress is that storage spaces are very honest. They're the one space that shows us where decisions feel emotionally loaded, where guilt, grief, or obligation live, where protecting ourselves from overwhelm.
And as a professional organizer, I don't see storage as a mess problem, but I do see it as a stress map. The more avoided the space, the more weight it usually carries. That's why forcing a clean out almost never works. You can't muscle your way through emotional backlog. And I'll be totally honest, I know I have an entire basement that I have been avoiding and you know, it's, it's half avoiding half.
I wanted to make content for all of you like visual content, so I kind of started to just aimlessly leave stuff out and, and kind of create what avoided decisions could look like. I took it too far, um, because I wanted to film me going through this, I could show you firsthand, visually, like what it could look like and what to do about it so that I, I didn't have to use an actual client's house because when I'm at your house, by the way, if you're a client or anybody that wishes to work with us.
I'm devoted, like we're there, we're focused, right? And we really don't have a lot of time to be, um, filming a TV show on the side or content. Like that's not what we are, what we do. But I also understand that people are very visual people, so I'd like to give you some examples. So I thought, well, let me just do that to my own space and create that chaos, which was quite frankly half true chaos.
Like it wasn't making it up, it wasn't staged chaos. It was very real. The other half that was intentionally me leaving it be, and then it just got outta control. I got a little too comfortable. Okay, so I'm in the same boat and I will be tackling this as this year progresses. Um, so just know that it happens, but that doing that forced clean out will, then you will come right back to the same habit.
So we don't wanna do that. So now let's talk about a small action that breaks all of this cycle that we've been talking about. I wanna give you. That one action that I think doesn't require a whole organizing session. You can start small, but effective and actionable like you can actually see. Progress being made, because I think a lot of times when we take these inspiration posts or we take a class on how to organize or something like that, it's very idealistic.
It's all about the idea, it's about the plan, and we get stuck in step one, which is come up with a plan like, what's your mission? What's your goal? Very important. We actually have a whole seven steps of organizing almost anything for this reason, because that step one is super important. But when you get stuck there, you get stuck in idea mode and Pinterest board mode, and then you never move out of it.
And that in itself will become an extra think. You're thinking about now you're thinking about what you haven't gotten done even though you came up with an idea. And that in itself will be overwhelming. So we don't wanna do that, we want to avoid that. So here is a, an action exercise that I would have for you.
Choose the storage space that you enter the most, not the hardest one, not the most emotional one, the one that you already touch, like you're in and out of it. Pretty often you're going to tackle that one first. You're gonna ask a question, you're gonna ask yourself, what is one thing here that no longer needs to be stored?
Right? Like either one thing or one section. If it's a whole section from there. You will go ahead and do a timer. So for some people it's the 10, 15 minute Pomodoro type of method. Works really well, but choose a short amount of time and do sprints and see how you're feeling about it. Like does, did that work?
Like did you get momentum or did you get overwhelmed or was that those 15 minutes, 10, 15, 20 minutes of you. Tackling an area, and when I say tackling, what we're going to do is we're going to create your immediate nose. So what is something that you no longer need to store and can actually be thrown away, donated, sold, like what is the next step for this item?
But it at the end of the day, doesn't need to be stored in that storage room anymore. We're going to tackle the immediate nose, the very easy, low hanging fruit. In a short amount of time in the area that you work in and you're in and out of the most, because that's the one that is fresh in your mind, you know, if you use it or not.
You know, the last time that you, you know, you, you've touched a lot of this stuff, so that will be a really easy one. From there, we will build upon that. If you're starting to feel overwhelmed, if you're starting to feel like you're getting tired physically, mentally, or if you're helping a loved one, you feel like they're getting tired physically or mentally.
Then we're going to ask for help, and this is the, the help piece. We will, we will build upon this because yes, you, of course you can hire somebody, pay them. Uh, you can also call in your relatives or family or friends or neighbors that have offered their help or just ask them, Hey, can I borrow an hour of your time in exchange for a delicious lunch?
Or in exchange for me doing it for you, you know? So it doesn't always have to be that you pay someone for their services, but that is also an option. But if you're starting to get overwhelmed already, then I want you to ask for help. If those 10, 15 minutes are feeling good, like, oh, you know what I, ah, okay, I got, I got energized.
I can keep going. Then build upon that 15 minutes, one day, 30 minutes. The next day, 45. Once you're feeling comfortable and you get to about a good hour where you made progress, you felt good about it. Then start building from that, like make it a bigger timeframe, maybe a schedule like a Saturday, Sunday, a day off that you have, and tackle that, that storage room, and then go from there.
The key things here are choose the storage space that you enter the most. Not the one that has your family heirlooms, that if you were to open it, you would get really, really sad, or you past relationships you would get really mad. You know? No, just the areas that you, you're in and out of, uh, out of the most.
So that's one, two, tackle it within, um, the 10, 15 minute timeframes at a time. Start building momentum in that room. Like, make small steps. Start trusting yourself and build upon that. From there, you're going to see how you're feeling with those small sprints. If you're feeling overwhelmed emotionally and physically in a space that you're in all the time, you can only imagine how hard it will be to tackle the rooms that are emotional drain, emotionally draining.
So we're going to ask for help. If you are feeling good and you're trusting yourself, build upon that. Have bigger time chunks or days that you schedule to tackle that room, we then, you know, we'll go from there. I have other tips on you, like, what, what bins should you use? What, um, should you sort first or did you clutter first?
We have like a whole episodes on that, so we're not tackling that today, but those are the decisions I want you to make. Okay. This works because familiarity lowers the resistance and completion builds the trust within yourself. And that's what we want to work on. We wanna work on that first before we start tackling the really, really hard spaces, the really dirty spaces.
There are, maybe there is no trauma emotional heaviness involved in some of those, but sometimes some of those spaces you haven't been in for a long time are really dirty. That is also very heavy, and you might be avoiding that piece as well. So I want you to go into a room that is not as dirty as untouched and start trusting the process, and then go from there.
Again, momentum comes from completion, not perfection. So it interrupts the avoidance. So like this, this exercise will allow you to start interrupting that avoidance pattern that you're, you're giving yourself mentally. It reduces stress, it resources, confidence. That's how stalling turns back into storing, and then storing unintentionally creates clarity and we're going for that.
If storage is feeling heavy right now, I don't, I want you to avoid a couple of terms before we end this episode. Uh, many of you will, some of these terms will come up, which are like the, what's wrong with me type of mentality, questions. And um, I want you to say instead, what season of life was this storage created for?
Has that season changed? Because if you can step outside for just outside of yourself for just a second and not blame yourself, but realize that maybe when you stored those boxes, that area, that room, that you were in a different place in life, that might help you move forward and know that you're not there right now or anymore, and give you that confidence that you need to move forward so that that question starts to open those doors.
Storage is not about the space. It's not just about the space, it's about that timing. It's the capacity. It's the area that just needs a little bit more intention than other spaces because we're not in and out of it all the time. And if this episode has helped you see that your storage spaces just a little differently, that's progress.
A lot of us just treat storage rooms like they're your everyday living room, and it's not. It's a different process that. Needs special attention. I hope that this episode was helpful. We'd love to know your progress, cheer you on, and send you a little surprise your way. If you send us progress of your storage room or how you're feeling or, or just give us an update on you decluttering, organizing, downsizing your storage rooms over at hello@theswimminggo.com.
Or you can also tag us at the organized swimming go on social media. Wishing you all the best. I'll see you next week. Thank you for listening to the Organized and Cherish podcast with the Organized Flamingo. If you enjoy today's episode, I'd be so grateful if you left a rating and review on your favorite podcast player.
It helps others discover our show. For full show notes, resources, and more organizing inspiration, visit www.theorganizedflamingo.com/podcast. Until next time, happy organizing.