Organizing and Storing Your Keepsakes

How many boxes and bins of stuff are you storing for purely sentimental reasons? How cluttered are your shelves and cabinets with stuff you’re reluctant to part with because of all the memories they evoke? Whatever your answer, you’re not alone. Keepsakes...memorabilia...souvenirs...whatever you want to call them, are often the most troublesome belongings to maintain control over for everyone, myself included...and I can be downright ruthless when it comes to getting rid of stuff I don’t use regularly. As we struggle to figure out where to start in establishing order over it, more trinkets continue to pile up, making the task at hand ever more daunting.

Organizing your keepsakes is no different from any other organizing project. We begin with three primary goals in mind:

1. Reducing volume
2. Creating easy access
3. Preserving and identifying

In that order. 

Let’s take a closer look.

Reducing Volume
First, decide how much space you’re willing to devote to your sentimental objects. Remember that stuffing them into a storage bin in the back of a closet or the deep recesses of your garage won’t allow them to trigger the memories...and that’s the whole point of keeping them, right? With that in the front of your mind, try some of these strategies to reduce the amount of space they gobble up:

• Eliminate the excess - This is obvious...but also easier said than done. Go back and read my earlier blog post, Controlling Your Paper Keepsakes, about how to become a careful curator of your memorabilia for ideas on how to establish meaningful parameters and make intentional decisions about what to keep and what to let go.
• Make it functional - Save space around your home by replacing some of your mundane functional objects with keepsakes that can be used to perform the same function. Not only will you save space, but you will be bringing your past into your present with this approach. (Read my post about Functional Keepsakes for more on implementing this strategy.)
• Display it instead of storing it - This goes hand in hand with making it functional. Using your precious treasures to decorate your vertical spaces not only saves closet/storage space but keeps those memory triggers front and center where you can enjoy reliving those cherished moments more easily.
• Preserve it in another format - Photos, journal entries, scans, videos...today’s technology offers myriad ways to store your memories without having to keep the actual, space-hogging item itself. 
• Cut it down...literally - If you’re never going to donate it, sell it, or wear/use it again in its current form, you may as well save some space by literally cutting out and saving only the most meaningful portions of it. Make a quilt or collage out of meaningful scraps, patches, logos and designs you’ve cut from larger, unwieldy items.

Creating Easy Access
Let’s be honest...how likely are you to dig out those big rubber storage bins and old cardboard boxes from the crawl space in your attic and spend hours pouring over your kids’ old artwork? Yeah...that’s what I thought. So why are you keeping it? While most people neither plan to nor need/want to devote time to regularly reviewing their scrapbooks and photo albums, those options offer the ability to more easily find and share precious memories as long as they are stored within easy reach. The less you keep, the easier it is to create easy access to your memories so that you can pull them out when the mood or opportunity to share them strikes. And you don’t have to be a crafty scrapbooker to do it. The key is to reduce the volume enough that you can store them in an easy-to-reach section of your living space rather than in the basement, attic or garage. Imagine Cousin Sue comes over for lunch and you get to reminiscing. How easy will it be for you to pull out that stack of old letters she sent you from summer camp when you were kids? Make it so.

Consider some of the storage methods below and select the ones that work best for you and your family:

• Scrapbooks
• Photo albums/portfolios
• Keepsake boxes
• Labeled files
  
• Shadow boxes
• Hope chest
• Apps/Electronic storage options

Preserving and Identifying
Most people keep some combination of memorabilia they’d like to pass along after they are gone and items that carry meaning for no one else but them. Do your loved ones a favor and differentiate between these two categories to make their job easier when faced with the daunting and emotional task of going through your things after you pass. I know it may sound morbid, but knowing you have done your part to make that process a little bit easier for them will ease some anxiety for you now, while also ensuring that you will be leaving them precious memories instead of just more stress to add to their grief. Here are a few loving steps you can take to achieve this:

• Keep together in one box the items whose meaning you know they won’t understand or appreciate. Include a note giving them permission to discard the entire box upon your death. 
• Label/caption your photos, especially if you are one of the few people who will recognize who/what is represented in them.
• Attach notes explaining the significance of particular artifacts, or make a video of yourself with the item telling a funny or meaningful story that reveals why you chose to keep it.
• Pass along heirloom pieces to specific individuals now, or create a list of who should receive certain items after you pass.
• Use archival/protective storage containers and materials to preserve your precious items from moisture, fire and pests. No matter how much your family loves you, they won’t want the unpleasant task of dealing with your moldy old keepsakes and stuck-together photos.

Of all the items you make space for in your home, your keepsakes are really the only ones that can’t be replaced. If they are worth keeping, they are worth devoting some time and effort to preserving with care. While it can be overwhelming to think about that huge stash of old papers, photos and trinkets stashed away in your attic (or wherever), tackling it now and making some intentional decisions to transform it into a more manageable storybook of your life will be some of the most enjoyable and thought-provoking work you’ve ever done. With these three stated goals and the creative, yet practical strategies I’ve laid out over the last few blog posts, even establishing order to your keepsakes can be easy peasy.

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