Before family and friends start packing your house for the holidays, how about getting organized for those crowds? In this Angie’s List Report, Tessa Darlington shows how organizing a garage can be a family project, or one in which you hire a professional to help you.

It's the catch all for family junk: the garage.

"Most of us enter through our garage and end up dumping everything we don't want in the house out in the garage. My house, for example, all the shoes are right at the door into the house. It can be a complete mess. We also have to keep in mind the garage is also the place where a lot of our friends and family enter our house so having it be a disaster is really not a good idea,” Angie’s List Founder Angie Hicks said.

Organizing professionals say the first step to make your garage more efficient is to change the set up, and take advantage of unused space.

"Hang your bikes from the ceiling and it will free up some floor space and make everything more organized. Also consider making zones like you would in a hardware store: one area for the kid's toys, one area for the garden items, and one area for car stuff. That way everything is really easy to find,” Hicks said.

If you have kids, get them involved. Assign one section of the garage for them to organize and clean up. You can also hire a professional organizer to come out and do the job, or you can even do it on your own.

"One of my favorite tips to offer to people is to just spend five or ten minutes every single day, if you can try to establish that habit, to pick one area where you just focused for five or ten minutes. Everyone can find five or ten minutes out of their day,” garage and home organizer, Lori Watson, said.

Cleaning your garage can also be great for local charitable organizations. Hicks recommends donating the items in your garage that you haven't used for two years.