By Greg Gunderson
USE COLORED DOTS, STICKERS, OR POST-IT NOTES TO IDENTIFY ITEMS IN A HOME.
Whether it’s a chair, a painting, or a lamp on a table; use colored dots or stickers to identify the decisions you’ve made in a home. This way everyone (including yourself!) will know what decisions you’ve made about which items.
Literally, put the sticker (test to be sure it’s removable) or post-it note on the piece of furniture or on the frame of the picture or on the wall right next to the picture. It sure beats making a huge list in a legal pad and then never being able to connect the list with the actual items in the house.
We at Gentle Transitions, use colored stickers that coordinate to a stop light:
- Green for “go”, things to move to the new place
- Red for “stop” – things that do not move
- Yellow for “undecided” and we’ll come back to later
Post-It notes work great too and often are sold in multi color packs.
SORT EASY AND OBVIOUS AREAS FIRST
When sorting in preparation for the move, sort easy and obvious areas first!
Sorting in areas that are obviously moving or obviously NOT moving will allow you to see progress and accomplishment. A rarely used room might be a good place to begin the sorting process where few items inside the room will move to the new place.
Sorting in difficult areas will take time, be cumbersome, frustrating, and leave you with the idea that you could never finish the whole house.
Note the pictures here.
Where would you begin the sorting process? The living room? The stack of paperwork?
Start the sorting process in the living room. In a reasonable amount of time, you can make decisions about furniture, coffee table books, wall hangings, and knick-knacks and you can say, “We’ve done a whole room already.”
However, start with the stack of paperwork, you’ll spend two hours only dig two inches into the stack and then say, “There’s no way I can do the rest of this house!”
Sort easy and obvious areas first.
