Traveling light helps on both ends of move

We all know that putting a clean, uncluttered house on the market greatly improves the chances of a quick sale. But many of us just can't bear to say goodbye to the stuff that's been around forever.

Getting the house ready for market is the ideal time to go through possessions and decide what you'll keep, sell, donate, or give to friends before the moving van arrives.

There's no point in paying a mover to transport belongings you haven't used all year; you're unlikely to use them in your next place either, says Dana Korey, owner of Away with Clutter in San Diego.

We know that instinctively, yet we become paralyzed as we sift through cabinets, closets and basements deciding what to keep, particularly when items hold sentimental value.

Linda Collier felt these pangs when she and her husband recently downsized to a town home one-third smaller than the suburban St. Louis house where they had lived for 16 years. “I had to walk outside, psyche myself up that I was moving to smaller quarters and needed to get rid of things,” she says.

She kept sentimental items like photos, but was relentless in taking only furniture she knew would fit in their new home. For the rest, she made donations to charity and encouraged family and friends to take whatever they wanted. She had a garage sale, and she even loaned her baby grand piano to a friend's daughter.

Collier completed her work within a month and felt she was so successful that she subsequently opened her own organization business.

The key to success is focus.

Julie Morgenstern, author of “Organizing from the Inside Out” (Henry Holt), says the first step is to walk through your house and number items with sticky notes: 1) what you know you want to take with you, 2) stuff you are ready to sell, give away or donate, and 3) items you'll weed through later. And start to move those No. 2s. “Make it happen,” she says enthusiastically.

She advocates going through a house methodically room by room rather than “zigzagging, so you feel great progress and don't get discouraged or lose control, which you'll feel if you have piles of books or toys everywhere,” Morgenstern says.

Don't pressure yourself by trying to complete each room too quickly, says Barb Friedman, who owns Organize It in Milwaukee. “If you start six months or so in advance you can invest a few hours each week,” she says.

Friedman suggests having cardboard boxes, plastic bins, labels, a marker and garbage bags in each room you organize. She likes to group items into five categories: Take, sell, give away, toss, and decide later. Once you have your keepers, pack like items together to make unpacking easier. Don't keep too many “decide laters.”

Label every box and make a master list, says Shari Goldstein, a New York businesswoman who moved to a larger home with her husband, their blended family of four children and 216 boxes. “Everyone made fun of me but having the list made it easier when unpacking,” she says. She also realized when she lived from the first 20 boxes for the first month how much stuff we accumulate but don't need, she says.

If the process becomes difficult, hire a pro who's less emotional. “It's easy to get lost in memories,” says Friedman. The National Association of Professional Organizers' (NAPO) Web site, www.napo.net, lists names by location.

Clothing you haven't worn in a year or two should be donated or given away, even if it's part of your “thin” wardrobe and you're convinced you'll lose weight, says Mindy DuQuette of Realestate.com. Donna Smallin, author of “Cleaning Plain & Simple” (Storey 2005), suggests asking yourself whether you could buy certain items again inexpensively if you wanted to.

If you make mistakes, don't reprimand yourself. Goldstein brought along one chair when she moved despite the fact it sat in a hall unused and covered by a sheet to keep off cat hair. “It's now sitting covered in the new hall,” she says.

Other tips:

€ File certain information online and scan photos to reduce the amount of paper you move, suggests Tara-Nicholle Nelson, an attorney and real estate salesperson in Oakland, Calif. File medical directives at www.uslivingwillregistry.com, which medical professionals can access, Nelson says.

€ Return grown children's belongings and let them decide to keep or discard, says Anita Ericksen, with Realty Showcasing Inc. in Alberta, Canada.

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