Sorting Through Your Items
Individual Steps
Breaking down your thought process when sorting can help keep you focused and working efficiently. While making the decision of what to keep or not keep, it is natural for our thinking to move on to the next phase of the decision-making process. For the items you are not keeping, your may start to think: What am I going to do with this item? Does this item have value? Is there someone I know who could use this item? For the items you are keeping, you may start to think: Where do I want to keep this until I move? Where do I want to keep this after I move? This can make the sorting process start to feel overwhelming.
As you sort, stay focused on the question: Do I want to keep this item and move it with me (yes or no)? After you make that decision, if you are keeping the item (yes), place it back where it was, where you are used to having it. If you are not keeping the item (no), start a section in the room, or another room for these items. Then immediately move on to the next item with the same question.
After you have gone through the entire room, several rooms, or better yet, your entire home, now is the time to shift your thinking and start to make those other decisions. For the items you are not keeping, you can now look at the items as a whole and this can help you make a better decision for how best to consolidate and distribute the unwanted items. For the items you are keeping, you now have a better visual of what you decided to keep and can take a second look or rearrange if needed.
Sorting Through Your Items
Refocus
Sometimes when sorting through items you may forget to refocus to your new and current situation. The tendency may be to look at an item, think about what you did or currently use the item for, but forget to take the next step and look ahead at your new living situation. Refocus and think about how or if the item will be needed after you move.
Sorting Through Your Items
Finding the Right Balance
Finding the right balance of the potential cost of letting something go and the chances you will want to replace it later, against the cost of packing, moving, unpacking, and using storage space for something you may never use again, can be tricky. This can be especially true concerning hobbies. Possibly you have a hobby you have not done for years, but you hope to start again after you move, and have many supplies and tools you use for that hobby. First be honest with yourself, not just by deciding what the chances are you will restart the hobby, but to what scale you would restart the hobby. You may want to let go of multiple boxes of supplies, keeping just a few of the supplies, and risk the cost of replacing them if you do restart your hobby on a larger scale. The opposite could also be true; you may not have done a hobby for years, but there is a related piece of equipment that is small and expensive to replace. This may be worth packing, moving, unpacking, and taking up space in your smaller home if you really want to restart the hobby.