If lockdown has inspired you to relocate and sell your home, these simple decluttering tips for moving will help you along your way. Clutter is a massive issue for many of us, and it prevents us from having the freedom and flexibility to live our best life. You’re continuously searching around your home for things you “knew you saw just last week!”
Nowhere is the problem worse than when trying to move house. You’d love to be able to move out of your current apartment and into a bigger place in the countryside, but unfortunately, the mess in your abode has different ideas.
In this post, we take a look at some of the top decluttering advice out there from people who have been in similar situations to you. Hopefully, by the end of it, you’ll be in a much better position to up sticks and get out of your current situation.
So what should you do?

Decluttering Tips For Moving:
Be Honest About Your Lifestyle
As humans, we have an in-built desire to hold onto our possessions, just in case we need them in the future. But most of the time, we don’t, and we simply wind up with more stuff than we need.
If you’re moving from a small apartment to a much bigger home, it’s worth bearing this in mind. That blender taking up space in your cupboard might seem like the ideal addition to your new fancy kitchen. But if you don’t use it right now, you probably won’t in the future either. Go through your stuff and create a donate, bin, keep and sell pile. Be honest with yourself.
Invest In Storage
Decluttering in simplified by investing in storage supplies suitable for the task in hand.
Let’s say that you have a lot of papers lying around your home that are taking up room. You can’t just get rid of them, because some of them could be important in the future. In a situation like this, you need to think smart.
Here’s an idea: scan the items and rent some storage space in the cloud. Create a bunch of digital folders online, and then scan and upload all your important paperwork. Afterwards, simply shred all the physical documents you don’t need and pop them in the recycling. Simple right?
Declutter One Category At A Time
When it comes to decluttering, try to do one category at a time. So, gather all t-shirts together, pull them out of every nook and cranny they might be hiding, then sort through the t-shirt category all in one go. Seeing them all together will help you to be more decisive.
There are a couple of reasons for this.
- It’s easier to manage
- You feel like you’re getting somewhere
- Seeing all the same category items will highlight just how many of that particular thing you have been hoarding.
You can start wherever you like, but the best place is usually the kitchen as it’s possibly the least sentimental area. So, if you have 15 serving spoons, gather them together and choose which ones to keep and which to donate. Once you have a pleasant area to make meals, it makes your entire home feel friendlier and more welcoming, it will also motivate you to continue decluttering the rest of the house.
You can then use all the extra energy you have to start in the bedroom or bathroom. Always start small and then build your way up from there.
Store Large Items Outside Of The Home
Sometimes you have large items in your home that are just too big for your current living arrangements. At the same time, you don’t just want to throw them out or sell them. You might be able to use them in the future.
In this case, you could try secure self storage. Renting out a unit provides you with the extra space you temporarily need to get the junk of your home, save space, and make it easier to move, this will also help when staging your current home to sell.
“There is more joy and fulfilment in pursuing less than can be found in pursuing more.”
― Joshua Fields Millburn