Moving is one of the best times to declutter your life. Hold an inventory of your items not only simplifies the process of moving but also sorts out the items you intend to keep or dispatch.
Having a catalog of you and your family’s items is a key part of the moving process and provides three major benefits. First, it allows you to keep track of your possessions, which can help call attention to anything that might have gotten lost or forgotten on moving day. Second, by cataloging all your belongings, you can better judge how essential many of these items are. This can help in your efforts to declutter your life by reducing the number of things you bring with you during moving day. Third, cataloging helps you systematize the moving process, helping you and your family pack and unpack your items.
Doing an inventory of your belongings should be done well in advance of moving day. Having everything ready long before the packing and moving services arrive helps save you and your family time in getting everything prepared for moving day. By then, you would have sorted everything out for ease of storage and sold or donated everything you won’t be bringing with you.
Systematizing the Inventory
Cataloging your home’s inventory should be done systematically to avoid confusion and to be thorough. Items should be cataloged based on the room they are found in. Start tallying the items one room at a time.
Have a central place to track each of the inventoried items, which becomes especially important, come moving day. Your home inventory’s catalog should be available on hand at all times during the movie. You have the option of using either a written list on a notebook or a digital spreadsheet accessible through your mobile device.
Besides making a list of your items, you should also make a video or photo catalog of your inventory (especially of key valuables) before packing. This will give you a visual guide to the items currently in storage throughout the day of the move.
Sorting the List
Moving is one of the best times to declutter your household. The next step toward the inventory is to go over your lists per room and to identify which of the items can you exclude from the things you intend to bring along. The list of items to discard would compose not only of things you no longer want but also of things that are too big to be effectively placed in your new home.
To make this more effective, bring a tape measure and compare the sizes of your current furniture with the dimensions of each room in your new home. Any item of furniture that cannot fit in your new home would need to be dispatched (and replaced, if it is necessary).
Depending on the time of year it takes place, nonessential items you plan to discard can be dispatched physically through a yard sale or online through seller’s websites and social media groups. Anything that you cannot sell, meanwhile, can be donated to charities of your choice (don’t forget the documentation for tax purposes).
Label Systems for Moving day
Once packed, you should label the items appropriately to ensure that they can be identified; this not only streamlines the moving process but also makes looking for suddenly necessary items a breeze. Devise a system to sort out each of the packages so they can be arranged and brought to their appropriate destination rooms with ease. Add markings for the most important boxes so that you can prioritize their unpacking. During the moving day, remind your family and the moving crew to prioritize the most important rooms.
