Has it been years since you’ve done a deep dive into organizing your life? Do you have a stack of papers and documents you dread to filter through stacked under the table in your office?
We hate to admit it, but everyone gets to this point. Life gets busy and organizing becomes a second thought in everyday life.
When moving to a new home or relocating to a new city, this is the perfect time to get serious about organizing all the mess you so secretly hide away in each guest room closet. Our favorite life hacks when decluttering and getting organized will help the transition from one place to another much easier with an orderly system.
Create a Filing System
- Review all of your paperwork and discard any unnecessary documents
- Categorize your remaining paperwork (i.e. Home, Birth Certificates, Vet Info)
- It’s 2021 – time to make everything digital! Scan everything into a hard drive and organize the online system just as you would in a filing cabinet
- Hold onto your paperwork until everything has been scanned and saved in two different locations (your hard drive and a back-up flash drive). Time to discard everything except those important items such as your social security card, birth certificate, marriage certificate, etc. When discarding, make sure you use a paper shredder to keep your documents private
Summer vs. Fall Clothing
- Pull all of your clothing from your closet and drawers into a common area of your room
- Take each piece of clothing and determine if you are to keep or donate
- For everything you are keeping, categorize that clothing into summer or fall
- Pack accordingly and unpack your items into your new closet based on the season
Expired Food
- Similar to your clothing items, pull out all of your non-perishable food items from your food pants, spice cabinet and anywhere else you might store food
- Filtering through your food is easier than your clothes, as the expiration date for any food item is an automatic decision factor for you – discard any and all items past or closes to their expiration date
- Now decide what food you want to bring with you to your new house. Anything you don’t want to bring, consider donating that food to a nearby food pantry or homeless shelter
- Pack up all of your food by categories which will help you unpack your food into your new pantry. It may help to determine what storage baskets and labels you need as you pack up your food before you move into your new place.
Happy Moving!