Sorting Through Your Items
Avoid Set-Shifting - Tip 1
This term is from the book "Organize Your Mind, Organize You Life". Although the book is not about downsizing, I believe the concept of set-shifting is very applicable to the sorting process of downsizing and moving. Set-shifting is when your thought process is jumping from one thought process to another, all around, and back and forth. Doing this can be very tiring and reduce productivity. How this can be avoided during the sorting process will be explained in the next few tips.
Sorting Through Your Items
Avoid Set-Shifting - Tip 2
When sorting through your items it is important to avoid set-shifting by first going through the items in the room, multiple rooms, or the entire home, focusing only on the decisions of what to keep and move with you, and what you will let go of. The natural tenancy, after you make that decision about a particular item, is to move to the next phase of decision-making. If keeping the item, 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? Even more distracting are the items you are not keeping: What am I going to do with this item? Does this item have value? Is there someone I know who could use this item? This set-shifting of your thought-process can slow down the process of sorting through your items.
Sorting Through Your Items
Avoid Set-Shifting - Tip 3
When you are sorting through your items, it is important as the first step to stay focused on this question: Is it beneficial to me to keep this item and move it with me, or is it beneficial to me to let this item go? After you make that decision, if you are keeping the item, place it back where it was, where you are used to having it. If you are not keeping the item, start a pile in the room or another room for those items, then move on to the next item with the same question to keep or let go.
Sorting Through Your Items
Avoid Set-Shifting - Tip 4
After you have sorted through a room, several rooms, or your entire home, staying focused on making decisions about whether to keep each item to move with you or let it go, putting your keep items back where they were, and making a pile for the items you are not keeping, now is the time to start asking those other questions. For the items you are keeping, you can start to start consolidate those items or make plans how you want to store them in your new home. For the items you are not keeping, now you consider those items as a lot, making decisions of where and how to distribute those items. Not only does this avoid the drain of energy and loss of production that comes with set-shifting your thought process throughout the sorting, but you can now make better decisions because they are based on the entirety of each category of items.
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.