My honking and screeching brakes didn’t phase him as he swerved directly into me and ran me off the road. Afterward, another driver pulled onto the median behind me to check if I was okay, and the lunatic in the Jaguar just kept barreling down the road, totally clueless.

I have seen some truly horrible forms of clutter — time, physical, mental, behavioral — and texting while driving is the second worst type of clutter I can name in the behavioral clutter category (drunk driving is definitely the worst).

If you’re someone who thinks that it’s completely safe to text while driving, I’d like to suggest you play an eye-opening game in the Technology section of this weekend’s online New York Times.

Gauging Your Distraction
New studies show that drivers overestimate their ability to multitask behind the wheel. This game measures how your reaction time is affected by external distractions. Regardless of your results, experts say, you should not attempt to text when driving.

How did you perform? As expected, I was dismal. I didn’t even see the people on the road.

The Toolbox Book: A Craftsman’s Guide to Tool Chests, Cabinets, and Storage Systems by Jim Tolpin is a fantastic resource for any woodworker looking for ideas on how to store and organize woodworking tools. In addition to providing a number of designs for a variety of different tool cabinets and totes, it also provides helpful tips to efficiently store tools.

If you want to lose the next hour of your life looking at some amazing pictures of custom-made tool cabinets online, check out the entries that have already been posted in Fine Woodworking’s Tool Chest Contest. We particularly like the inside of this hanging cabinet, submitted by one of their community members:

After you clear the clutter from an area, if it is poorly lit, I recommend putting in an adhesive LED Puck Light ($14 for a 3-pack). They require very little energy, can be used with rechargeable batteries, and help the spaces to stay clear of clutter going forward — just be sure to put the light in a place you can easily reach.

How has better lighting helped keep clutter out of your home? Is there a space where better lighting could help you? Tell us about your experiences in the comments.

It seems like a great way to save space in your garage or shed, but $230 seems a bit pricey for a wheelbarrow. The Amazon reviews are overwhelmingly positive. We would love to hear from any readers who might have one of these, and can comment on whether they’re worth the cost. We would also love to hear about any less expensive alternatives you might be using. A folding wheelbarrow would be a nice way to save space in the garage.

Do you have any suggestions for outdoor storage of sports equipment. We have a variety of balls, frisbees, and discs that right now just get put into an open bucket. It’s not great for the equipment and doesn’t look great either. Any suggestions?

Sporting equipment is rarely simple to store. Your bucket idea actually sounds better than most of the equipment storage I’ve seen people using in their garages. But, I agree, it can be an unsightly solution. Since things like bats and balls have rigid sizes, they take up a lot of space and they always seem to be in places they don’t belong.

My first choice is to recommend that you create an area in your garage or backyard to be your sports center. If you can make this space in your garage, I recommend a sturdy storage system that can hold more than just sports equipment. Elfa and Ikea both make excellent products for holding pretty much anything you would store in your garage. (Be sure to check out the components individually. Ikea’s Broder has sports attachments.)

If you’re not in favor of putting out the money for a full system, here are some additional options for your sports center:

• Ball Claws: They attach to your walls and hold onto basketballs, soccer balls, and footballs.
  
• Frisbees and discs can be stored in a nice bag on a shelf in the garage. I like this Prostyle bag, for instance.
• You can use a baseball and bat storage system over fence tops or on a rod, like this holder:
  
• A large barrel might also be nice to let air circulate around your sports equipment.

I’m interested in hearing from our readership on this question. What do you use to store sports equipment in your home? Let us know your solutions in the comments.

Thank you, Jesse, for submitting your question for our Ask Unclutterer column.

Do you have a question relating to organizing, cleaning, home and office projects, productivity, or any problems you think the Unclutterer team could help you solve? To submit your questions to Ask Unclutterer, go to our contact page and type your question in the content field. Please list the subject of your e-mail as “Ask Unclutterer.” If you feel comfortable sharing images of the spaces that trouble you, let us know about them. The more information we have about your specific issue, the better.

This week’s entry isn’t a workspace in the traditional sense, but I can only imagine that this area sees a lot of work. As per our site motto, there is a place for everything, and everything is in its place. Before the weather gets warm, you may want to take Jake’s lead and get your garage ready for summer use. Thank you, Jake, for creating such an inspiring space.

Want to have your own workspace featured in Workspace of the Week? Submit a picture to the Unclutterer flickr pool. Check it out because we have a nice little community brewing there. Also, don’t forget that workspaces aren’t just desks. If you’re a cook, it’s a kitchen; if you’re a carpenter, it’s your workbench.

This advice is perfect for garden and air hoses and extension cords that are ready to be stored for the cold months. There are three methods described in the article: a looped bundle, a loose chain, and a reverse coil.

If the pictures in the article don’t provide you with enough information, check out the instructional video that accompanies the article.

Also, I recommend that you take a few moments and check out the whole site — you can find many more helpful how-to solutions for your home on FineHomebuilding.com.

(via Apartment Therapy: LA)

The silly thing about the chore was that we hardly ever threw anything away or donated stuff to charity. I can still remember wheeling the wagon filled with old baseball equipment out to the yard and then right back into the garage again. Figuring out what needs to be trashed or donated is the first step to organizing your garage. With the car taking up so much real estate, you need to be organized with the space you do have at your disposal. 

Using the walls for storage is key. You could easily go for the quick and cheap project with some strategically placed heavy duty hooks or you could go the storage system route. It probably depends on how much stuff you have or how much you actually use your garage.

A guest post by Lauren Halagarda over this past summer has some excellent tips that should help you out immensely. The garage is one of the most common areas for clutter to accumulate and it needs to be kept under control before the car no longer fits into its spot.

As the weather cools in the northern hemisphere, bringing your car into the garage is a more attractive idea than it was in warmer weather. The threat of early mornings spent scraping ice off of your windshield can be a great motivator to finally getting your garage into tip-top condition.

If you’re looking to improve the level of organization in your garage, you might want to check out the following storage solutions. Their prices vary, but all will help you to get your garage organized. A simple Google search with the phrase “garage organizing” will also yield many local companies that specialize in systems to tidy your space. The pictures are also great inspiration for how you can create your own systems for your garage if you aren’t interested in purchasing an out-of-the-box solution.

• The Elfa Utility Garage Systems
  
• The Ikea Broder System
  
• The Gladiator System available at Sears
  

And if you missed it when it ran, be sure to check out our recent post on steps to take to organize your garage. Good luck!

The Great American Yard Sale is the brainchild of Bette and Rudy Krueger. What started out as your regular old yard sale has now become a sprawling 60,000 (!) square foot behemoth. All the proceeds go to six organizations providing services to homeless people in DuPage County.

My wife and I had a fairly successful yard sale last year and I thought we had tons of stuff. It was tiny in comparison to this yard sale extravaganza. I’d be curious to know if any of our Chicago area readers were able to attend or donate items? Heck, many people apparently flock to this thing from bordering states, so maybe someone from a Midwestern state can give us a firsthand report? From the ABC 7 report:

Over the years, the sale has generated such a reputation that shoppers attend, not only from the Chicago area, but from as far away as Florida, Tennessee, Iowa, Wisconsin and Indiana.

It sounds like a bargain hunter’s dream, and a great way to get rid of things you no longer need.

As we head into the dog days of summer, it’s a great time to organize the garage. It’s amazing how much stuff gets put in there, isn’t it? The garage was originally designed to store one family vehicle. Now, we often have more than one family vehicle, and, more often than not, none of our cars fit in the garage. It can appear that a garage is used to house everything but a vehicle! Consider yourself lucky (and organized) if you are actually able to park the car in your garage.

I am not making any guarantees that you will be able to park your car in the garage by the time you are done taking this advice, but I do promise some helpful tips for organizing it better.

First, determine what activities you would like to occur in the garage or what types of things will be stored in this area. For example, is your goal to park your car in this space or simply to park your lawnmower? Do you use it as a workshop for home improvements or does it need to serve as a laundry room? Do you wish to store your gardening supplies or your woodworking tools or kids toys and sporting equipment in this space? Make a list and write down your goals for this space. By going through this exercise, you will be able to identify zones for your garage that work for you and your family.

Next, set aside some time to start sorting small areas or containers within the garage. Break this one seemingly endless project of organizing the garage into small, manageable tasks. Set a timer for 15 minutes or an hour, whatever works for you. I highly recommend against trying to do it all in one day, so that you don’t yourself up for failure. (An exception to this would be if you have help.)

As you sort through your things, ask yourself questions. Do I love it? Do I need it? When is the last time (or how frequently) I used it? Is it outgrown, broken, and otherwise obsolete? If I donated it to charity, would someone get good use out of it?

Store items off the ground. The garage can be damp, and accidental spills are possibilities. When you get to the organizing stage of your project, protect your belongings by storing them off the ground.

Use Vertical Space. When you can’t expand out into the room, try expanding upward. Use the walls for storage. Learn about slat, grid, shelving, and cabinet storage systems to help you make better use of your wall space.

Be kind to the environment. Be sure to dispose of paint, chemicals and other hazardous materials properly. Check out your local recycling guidelines.

Assign items a home. Now that you have sorted items into their prospective zones or categories, try to store them accordingly. Also, store items conveniently. Children’s toys should be stored within their reach. The easier it is to put something away, the more likely it is to get done.

Create Toolkits. Use various-size containers or buckets as toolkits. Home improvement stores sell jackets for buckets to store different types of tools efficiently and you can pick up your “Fix it” bucket and take it where you need it. You can create a: “Car Wash” bucket with soap, sponge, towels, wax, window wipes; “Wall Repair” kit containing a drywall knife, spackle knives, tape; “Electrical Repair” kit containing wire clippers, an outlet, switch, etc. Don’t go crazy and create one for any and every job around the house, just the tasks that you perform on a regular basis.

Label Everything. Do yourself and your family a favor and label everything. Not only will this help you and others identify what is in boxes and containers, but labeling shelves and cabinets can also help encourage others (and yourself) to put the item back in it’s home.

Use the ceiling. There are many tools on the market that utilize the assistance of a lift mechanism, whether it is a bike rack or shelving unit. These can be raised when not in use and lowered to provide easy access.