Make Moving Simple

Moving is a great time to clear out that clutter that collects in your home and make sure it doesn’t find its way in to your new home. While it’s easy to focus on getting rid of “stuff” clutter – actual physical things – it’s important to look for ways to clear out other types of clutter in our lives that can also get in our way. One of the big ones that I help clients get rid of is paper – we all have it, we all need to deal with it, and wouldn’t it be nice if we had less of it at our new destination?
Here’s how:

Get rid of what you don’t need
In my experience, people I work with usually have been keeping far, far more documents than they need, or could ever find useful. Paper can take up a lot of space, can get messy really quickly, and can feel overwhelming when it’s stacked and piled all around you. A great way to start reducing your existing paper is by setting some retention guidelines for what you want to keep and for how long. Do you really need your junior-high reports? Probably not. Last year’s medical records? Quite possibly. The government’s information site has some helpful retention guidelines. You can customize these guidelines for what fits your life and your retention needs.

Go electronic
So much paper comes into our lives that may be available in electronic form. For instance, a little-used feature on most computers is the ability to send and receive faxes on-screen, without even printing out a document (check your computer’s instructions for how to do this). If there are documents you want the information from but don’t need the paper version of, try scanning them using a tool like the Neat family of scanners (www.neatco.com).

Do you really need those bills?
I’m thinking bills from cable or satellite TV, your cell phone, garbage bill, and the like. Most vendors are happy to help you go paperless – just visit the website for each vendor and sign up for paperless billing. When your bill comes due, you’ll receive an email instead of a paper notice. You’ll be able to pay online if you so choose, saving you stamps and checks. Less paper all around!

Stop the influx
If you’re receiving a lot of junk mail, use a service like Tonic Mailstopper (http://mailstopper.tonic.com) to do the work of getting you off junk mail lists. If you get catalogs, judiciously choose which ones to receive, and which ones will get the boot. Call the numbers on each catalog that you no longer want, and ask to be taken off their list and the lists of their partners.

Once you’re done discarding your paper, make sure to dispose of it securely and responsibly, by shredding and/or recycling as appropriate.

What are your strategies for getting rid of your paper clutter?

Easily organize your digital photos in 4 easy steps!

When you prepare your computer for your move (make sure to back up your files!), consider organizing all those digital photos that have piled up. Digital cameras make it easy and fun to capture your memories, but the sheer number of photos that can come from one memory card can be a challenge. Managing your digital photos can be easy – and fun – with a few simple tips:

1. Toss the junk
Unflattering photos, bad camera angles, and just plain awful shots can take up lots of space on your hard drive. Before packing up your computer and camera, go through your digital photo collection with a fine-toothed comb, and make sure that you’re only keeping photos that you like. Not only will you free up space on your computer, you’ll make it easier to organize your photos by reducing the number of photos that need to be sorted.

2. Sort and separate
If you’ve been keeping all of your photos in one folder on your hard drive, it can be tough to find the one that you’re looking for. Instead of using just one folder, create multiple folders by month and year, or by month/year and subject or event. Once you have your folders set up, them sort your photos into their new, separated homes. As you take new photos, create folders in the same manner to store your new shots. This will make it easy to find your photos later on when you’re looking for them.

3. Software makes it a snap
Once you’ve set up your folders, managing your photos is easy, using readily available software. On a Mac, iPhoto is the standard, and on the PC, I usually recommend Picasa or Adobe Photoshop Elements. These software tools are designed to make it easy for you to organize, fix, search, and print your digital photo collection. Using software, you can browse your photos in various thumbnail sizes, repair the dreaded red-eye effect, add tags to your photos to make them searchable, and create slideshows to share with your friends and family.

4. Backup for safety
If something happens to your computer during the move, you could lose all those photos and memories – what a disaster! For that reason, I always suggest backing up your digital photos to an external hard drive, CD, or DVD (preferably the rewritable variety, so you can reuse your discs again and again). Many of the software programs used for organizing digital photos have a backup feature built-in, which can make the process of storing you files for safekeeping very easy.

Photos (digital and traditional) are meant to be seen. Once you’ve organized your photos, it’s easy to share those memories in photo albums, prints, and slideshows. Spending a little time organizing your photo collection before you move is not only great organization, but is also a fun way to pack up your memories before you move on to your new life in your new home.

Moving is a great time to organize that bursting closet of yours. With more clothing and belongings than ever before, it can be a constant struggle to find places to put all our “stuff,” especially if you’re dealing with limited closet space. Here are a few ideas for you:

The first step is to get rid of what you don’t need before you move – that way, you can see exactly what you need to find closet space for at your new home. One of the best ways to do this is to take everything out of your closet, and start sorting it into piles. I like to recommend that my clients create piles for “Keep” (things you definitely wear), “Sell” (things that you can probably make money by selling at used clothing stores), “Donate” (things that are usable but that you probably can’t sell), “Trash” (things that nobody will want or be able to use), and finally a “Don’t Know” pile, for things you’re not sure what to do with. The “Keep,” “Sell,” “Donate,” and “Trash” piles are pretty straightforward, but what about the “Don’t Know” pile?

“Don’t Know” is for items that you like, but never wear or use. If you really can’t part with that $300 dress that you never wore, and you can’t bear to give up those soccer cleats for that league you were planning on joining two years ago, put those items into a box, and seal the box with tape. If you haven’t opened the box to use those items in six months, it’s time to sell, donate or trash those items, because chances are you won’t be using them anytime soon.

So how do you store everything that went into your “Keep” pile effectively in your new closet? The key is to maximize every available inch of storage space in the closet. Look up, look down, look all around, and you’ll find that there just might be a lot more potential storage space in your closet than you originally may have thought. I’m often surprised at just how much storage space there can be in a closet – you just have to be creative about how you use it.

For instance, if your closet has only one rod, you can gain 50% more storage space by hanging another rod. Closet rods are available inexpensively at local hardware stores, and if you don’t want to install one permanently, you can get a removable secondary rod that hangs down off of your primary rod (I often suggest these to renters). No space in your room for a traditional dresser? Try some plastic, stackable drawers that you can use to fit in the floor space under where your clothes hang. I highly recommend the transparent or semi-transparent drawers rather than the opaque ones, because it’s very convenient to be able to see what’s in your drawers without having to actually open them up. If you have shelves above your closet rod, you can fold and stack sweaters and shirts, or use the space for transparent shoe boxes, which stack nicely. Don’t ignore the space behind the closet door, which can be a great spot for hanging a shoe rack, accessories organizer, or for installing a hook to hang long items such as coats and dresses.

So if your current closet is on overflow, don’t despair. Use a few tips that I’ve suggested, and your new closet will soon be your friend.