Although most people do not give it much thought when they are moving their possessions into a storage unit, keeping everything organized in storage units is essential to being able to find anything when it is needed or when the entire storage unit is moved to a new location. If there is no organization, the possessions in storage become a large jumbled mess of furniture and boxes. No matter how hard a person might try to remember what was in each cardboard box, it will become more and more difficult as time passes. As the saying goes, "Out of sight, out of mind."

Organizing a storage unit starts with the first box of possessions that are packed. To prevent the future frustration of trying to find certain items, the person that is packing should do several things. First, they should organize the items that they are packing by the room where they belong, such as putting only items from the bathroom in a box together. Second, as the items are placed in the box, it is advisable to quickly jot down some type of name or description on a piece of paper. Placing this inventory list on top of the contents before sealing the box will prevent the need to root through the contents when they want to retrieve a particular item. Finally, to help keep the storage unit organized, the person should use a permanent marker to write a short description on the top and several sides of the box to identify the contents. An example would be to say that the contents came from the left set of kitchen drawers.