Moving with a Professional Organizer
A great time to get organized is when moving. Taking time to declutter and organize before you move can save time and money!
Before you move, DECLUTTER
Before you move is a great time to declutter. Go through your belongings and decide if each item is worth taking with you. The kitchen, kids rooms and closets are great places to start. In the kitchen, focus on items you use daily. Do you have extra cooking utensils that sit at the bottom of the drawer and never get used? Do you have kids cups that your kids hate? Get rid of them. Then, focus on the less used items. If you haven’t used it in 5 years, you probably won’t use it.
In the kids rooms, focus on clothing that fits as well as toys that are age appropriate. Those are the items that should move to the new house and into their new rooms. Then, have a system for outgrown clothes and toys. Either save them for future children or friends or have a system for donating. Keeping items around that don’t work for your family anymore will just be more items to move.
In your closet, again focus on clothes that fit and you enjoy wearing. Keep those clothes. If you’re in a transition time (pregnant or postpartum), keep only items you’d wear after the transition time is over. If it’s a trendy item, chances are when you fit into it again, it won’t be in style. Only keep it if you love it!
As you continue through the rest of your home, ask yourself if you want to move each item. If it’s a no, donate it! Also, pay attention to items you didn’t even know you had. Is it worth moving that item or should you donate it?
After you declutter, take the time to stage and tidy the areas you’ve focused on. An organized kitchen is more exciting to buyer than a cluttered one. A tidy closet helps the buyer see how the space can work for them!
If you need help decluttering, hiring a professional organizer can help give you the accountability to declutter and get rid of items before you move. This will make the moving process easier since you’re only bringing items into your new home that you want to stay there!
As you move, pack by room and use
When you’re packing, group items first by room and then by use.
Take the kitchen for example, pack the once a year items or rarely used first. These you won’t need before you move. The last to be packed should be the daily items and those should be the first to unpack as well. Take the time to label no only by room, but by use. This way, when you unpack, you won’t waste time on the first day getting items you won’t need for 6 months unpacked when you should focus on what you need now.
When you hire a professional organizer, they can help create a packing system that makes it easier to unpack and get everything in your new house quickly!
After the move, ORGANIZE
After you have moved your items, this is a great time to organize your belongings and decide how you would like to use them. Take the time to think through your items (which you now know what you have because you’ve decluttered) and think through where things should be stored. These decisions are not set in stone. You can move things around as you live in your home but having a starting point will help moving things around easier.
This is when hiring a professional organizer can really help. When I have move-in clients, I take the time to understand how they used their old house and what works well for them. Then, I think about how the systems that worked well can be transferred to the new house and how to create new systems to supplement the old.
Follow-up with MAINTENANCE
A few weeks or a month after the move, take some time to evaluate your new space. What is working and what is not? This is a good time to make changes to your systems to better fit your family. If it’s not working, change it. The whole goal of organizing is to create systems to make things easier for your family, not harder for you!
When I work with clients, I check in after a couple of weeks and see what needs to be changed. For move-in clients, I like to schedule a session just to make any tweaks to systems that need to be changed. This way, my clients find the best systems for them and don’t feel locked into the work I’ve done.
Throughout the moving process, a professional organizer can be there to help make the move more efficient and less stressful. If you’re getting ready to move and would like some support, send me an email at hello@wildelyorganized.com or contact me through my contact form and we can discuss how I can support your move into your new home!
