Moving in Southwest Florida: Practical Tips to Declutter, Pack and Reduce Stress

Anyone who is faced with the daunting task of packing up a household and moving deserves the utmost grace, support, and advice. From someone who has purged and packed up a household of 22 years, then moved not once but twice in the same year, I would offer these sage words… don’t do it. All kidding aside, if you are in the throes of a move, here are some tips to alleviate the stress, from someone who has made it to the other side.

Everyone moves, it is your turn

According to the U.S. Census Bureau data, 15 million Americans moved last year. Smile, you are included in this and obviously in good and substantial company.

Fun fact, a little over 550 moved to Florida daily last year, leading to a net gain of about 201,000 people for the year, according to recent Florida migration data. People are on the move, and you can do this, too.

Once the decision to move is made, the time to actively disassemble your household was yesterday. Hence, the first tip…you cannot take yourself too seriously during this process there will be a multitude of emotions and emoting so tinge everything with humor and sarcasm and get to work. As you look around, you must rationally decide you cannot possibly move everything; some things must be purged. Moving provides an unexpected realization that hanging onto things has a very real consequence of burdening you. Once you discard them, you will immediately feel lighter. The process will be filled with ups and downs so, you must proceed with an attitude that is flexible.

For a broader look at why people are relocating, read Sarasota is back in the top 10 U.S. cities people are moving to.

The purge begins

Working with “trash, give away, can’t live without” method, you begin. First tackle your closet and the things you look at every day. I love the idea of if you have not worn it in six months, it must go. It makes it easy to make a huge dent in what you have to move, if you pare down your clothes. From there, the kitchen is a wasteland of unused things. Give up the idea of “one day this will come in handy.” If that day has not arrived in the past 20 years, chances are it won’t and you are free to get rid of all kinds of gadgets and appliances that have been clogging your cupboards. After the momentum from the kitchen, take a look at your bathroom medicines and beauty products. I categorized everything and after seeing several duplicates, it was easy to pick one and donate or toss the rest.

Buckle up and grab the tissues

The next part is the hardest, tackling those sentimental items. What I realized is I had been hanging on to sentimental clothing which included my children’s baby clothes, like two totes of them and they have not been babies in the past 20 years. And let’s not even get into how many boxes of their toys and art projects I had. In the end, each boy had one tote crammed full of their school memories and awards, and I was able to unload some vintage clothing to an excited new mom. I cherry-picked the toys and kept a few, but the majority went to Goodwill, which I probably should have done years ago.

If you are over the age of 30, you have thousands of photographs. Back in the day, as they say, we took pictures of everything. In an age of instant gratification, it may be hard to understand that feeling of having to capture a photo and then waiting days for it to be processed to see if you had “the one.” Of course, you do that ten million times over the years, and you end up with an obscene number of photographs. Since I could not discard even one, I did put all the photos into the same totes with the idea of sending it all in to be digitized in the near future, and if I don’t do that, I will be putting them into photo boxes should someone actually want to see the photos in the future.

Purging is a process

Unless your heart is an armor of steel, you need to purge in stages. What I found is going through the nostalgic boxes, mixed with the emotions of leaving your home and moving somewhere new can be overwhelming. I tried to tackle these items when I was not tired and could clearly see the objective of getting rid of things.

For me that was early in the morning or after a day of physically strenuous packing when lazier me won over sentimental me, and I could easily discard things. You don’t want to handle a trip down memory lane already tapped out so tackle these items in phases.

For another practical approach to simplifying your surroundings, see 7 tips to organize your home during spring cleaning.

Get help

You can have the best moving plan around, but if you don’t have the resources in place to assist, moving burnout will ensue. In our case, professional movers were not in the cards, so we managed the pregame of purge, trash, donate ourselves, as well as packing everything up on our own. We relied on friends with a truck and trailer to cart our stuff to a storage facility and the rest to our new residence on the first move. For the second move, which involved moving out of state, we utilized PODS. What we loved about PODS is you just have to load and unload the trailer; they move it from place to place. We priced out a number of alternatives including renting our own trailer, etc. But in the end, the convenience of PODS outweighed all the other factors.

Some other tricks of the moving game that were helpful to us include trying to use totes whenever possible versus boxes. They are much easier to stack in a uniform fashion, which opens up more space for the oddly shaped items. And if you end up storing the items long-term, you don’t have to worry about moisture getting in the totes like it can with cardboard. Use things like coolers and drawers to pack your breakable items like dishes and to save room. Lastly, the adage “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure” is true. Be sure to offer your giveaway items to friends and on social media; people love anything free, and it is far nicer than filling up a dumpster.

Happy Moving! You have this handled. When some days feel heavy and overwhelming, pack or discard just one box. Give yourself grace, and get back to it. On the other side of a move is calm, excitement, and the novelty of a new home without all the clutter and baggage you’ve been holding onto.

Photos courtesy of PODS Moving & Storage Facebook page