Minimalist Moving Tips – Simplify your Move!
While normal moves can be stressful, moving internationally across borders or for long distances can be even more difficult. This is especially true given the more stuff that you have. It is incredible how our possessions seem to multiply. Add kids and pets and it can quadruple before your eyes. You may move somewhere with three suitcases one year and end up with a whole truckload to remove the next. Moving can be an excellent time to declutter your environment, reducing the amount you have to bring with you and limiting your overall stress level.
First Figure Out What You Really NEED!
Before you get too far into planning or packing, spend a brief moment considering the extreme. What would happen if you sold everything you owned? If you got rid of it all? A long distance move can be expensive, and reducing what you bring with you can help save some of the costs. Consider if the price of transporting the item is worth it, or if you could replace it or save space on the other end by not paying to move it at all. Giving away things you can’t sell to friends and family can also earn you a lot of goodwill, and it feels pretty good to give old items a new home where they will be loved even more.
Use the Rule of Halving – Cut down by Half!
Okay, so giving up all of your stuff isn’t the ideal for everyone. But you can get pretty far by using the halving rule. For example, if you have 100 books, you’re only allowed to bring 50. Have 20 shirts? Pack up 10. If you want to get into hardcore minimalism, when you’re done, halve it again. While you’re doing this, have a ‘packing box’ and a ‘donate box’ handy. Add a ‘to sell’ box if you would like as well. The most important part though is sticking to this rule: once an item is in the sell or donate box, it can’t come out again!
If those ideas sound too intimidating for you, then start with getting organized. You can do a lot to minimize clutter simply by piling things together and seeing what no longer belongs. A really good example of this is electronics. Simply by gathering your chargers and their bigger partners together means you can start to weed out the extras. They seem to multiply, extra chargers, and if you have them all in one spot the excuse of ‘I don’t know what this goes with so I should keep it’ starts to be less of one! The same can be said for clothes. If you gather all your clothes together, and you haven’t worn something in over six months (and it isn’t a seasonal item), out it goes!
Ask yourself, Does it add Value to My Life?
With sentimental items, ask yourself one simple question. Is this item adding something of value to my life? It’s so easy to hang on to things that remind us of a time that once was. And there is definitely a place for those items! But there is a difference between photos from your wedding day and a letter you wrote to someone you don’t speak to anymore from the third grade. Let your heart be your guide. A good way to do this with sentimental items is to give yourself a one box limit, and once its full, its full.
Finally, set a goal for a number of boxes you want to fill and stick to it. When you are filling them the week of the move or evening before (because you got rid of everything you can live without, right?), keep asking yourself if you can live without the item you are packing. If you didn’t use it during the last season it was intended to be used, then you probably aren’t going to use it during the next one.
One final tip to help you keep your minimalist zen as you unpack, make sure you that you label all the boxes with their contents, and in larger writing, the room that they are going to go in. That way, when you’re unpacking you’ll be able to find the most important items first and put them where they belong before unpacking the rest.
There are Many Benefits to the Minimalist Approach
The benefits of minimalism are widespread. Not only will you not have to worry about the nest you created for a monster to live in under your bed or in your closet, but even decluttering your home by 10% can give you peace of mind and clarity to start anew. Additionally, a little extra cash will be in your pocket to go out and help you create new memories in your new home. Do you have any minimalist packing tips? We’d love to hear them