When someone asks if you’re thinking about the future, you probably think they mean things like your life’s path, your love life, your kids… but in this case, I just mean the winter. Are you thinking about the winter? It is, after all, coming our way sooner rather than later. How’s your garage looking? Think about that for a second. If you have a garage, you should probably also be thinking about cleaning it. If your garage is already clean then you’re ahead of the game, but if it’s not, well. Read on.

So, you’re reading on, which means that your garage is a black hole nightmare of leftover summer detritus, junk, and trash. Same, honestly. But since winter is on its way whether we like it or not, we should be working on making sure we can actually fit our cars into our garages so that we won’t have to scrape them off or even leave the indoors to get into them. I hope you feel me on this.

First thing you should do is haul everything out of your garage and onto your driveway or lawn or other flat open area. Sweep or vacuum or wash your garage floor. Separate what you like and want to keep from the actual junk, and then throw the junk away (or if it’s paint or similar, dispose of it safely). Take this opportunity to assess your storage. Maybe invest in some shelves if you don’t have any. Then, get everything back in there. Hopefully you’ve weeded out a lot of it.

You should be able to fit your car in! And that’s really all you need to do to be able to take advantage of your garage the way it was intended to be used. Seriously.