now or aren’t prepared to take it now, then that’s the end of the discussion. The item is not worthy.
“This is worthy because of the memory attached to it.” Everything you own has a memory attached to it. Even if an item has a powerful memory linked to it, that alone is not a sufficient reason to keep it. If a functional item happens to be a treasure (it captures a “best, most, or greatest” from your life), then it gets to go with you because it’s a treasure. If not, then acknowledge the strong memory, take a photo of the object if it’ll help make you feel better, and then let it go. You’ll make wonderful new memories in your new home.
For the I-Might-Need-It Items that don’t make the cut to go with you, ask yourself another question: Would anyone else possibly want this thing? Would a stranger buy this if you sold it at a garage sale? Would you feel like you were making the world a better place if you dropped this off at a donation center? If the answer to any of these questions is no, the item is likely trash that you will eventually need to throw away or recycle.
Right now, though, just separate the I-Might-Need-It Items into two piles: what you’ll bring with you and what you’ll let go. Once you’ve done that, you can move on to the next step, which is to figure out whether the treasures and worthy items you want to take will actually fit into your new home.
STEP 4: DO YOUR SPACE AUDIT
You’ll be evaluating whether you indeed have space for your:
Treasures
Worthy items
Creating a space you love within your new home is not unlike beginning a relationship with someone new. You have to honor and respect that home from the very start, just like you would the relationship, if it’s going to be satisfying and sustainable.
If you don’t treat your new home with that honor and respect—if you overload it and push its boundaries—you can never be happy in that space, just like your relationship will be unhappy if you trample over the other person’s limits (which shows neither honor nor respect).
To learn your new home’s boundaries, give it a space audit. Doing a space audit means measuring your new home’s rooms in a specific way so you can better understand how much you can bring.
Below is the method I use. The last time I moved, I was able to unpack and put away almost all of our belongings before the movers left, so they could take most of the moving boxes with them. Talk about starting your new life in a calm, uncluttered space!
You already know which treasures and worthy items you want to bring with you. The space audit is a way of double-checking that they’ll fit, while you still have time to jettison items, if necessary. The audit will also help you plan where you’ll unload your boxes, which will make move-in day easier. Here’s how to do it.
Think of your new home as a collection of spaces. Thinking “I’ll move this to my new home” is an overly broad and general statement that discourages downsizing. So I recommend shrinking your thinking.
This means viewing your new home not as one space, but as many smaller individual spaces, each of which will be used for a specific purpose. Not only should you break your new home into rooms but you should also consider the spaces within each room.
You may have:
A space for your kitchen appliances
A space in the hallway closet for your bath towels
A space on the built-in bookshelf in the living room for your books
This is a bit like planning a week’s worth of meals before you go shopping. If you just throw food into one big space—your shopping cart—you may buy too much of one thing and not enough of another. You also might not have enough room in your pantry or freezer when you get home. Instead, envision the cart as 21 small spaces that you need to fill with components for 21 meals, and your shopping trip will be more efficient, with less potential for overcrowding and waste. That’s what you want with your downsizing, too!
Assess your new spaces. While you’re visiting your new home before your move, walk through the rooms with a tape measure and sketch out all the spaces on paper (plain or graph). Essentially, you’re making a rough blueprint of the home.
Include the storage or display space that you