Spring is a great time to move because of the milder weather and it coincides with the spring cleaning vibe. Moving is the perfect opportunity to purge your living space of unwanted stuff that has accumulated over the seasons and the years. Flushing your home clean of clutter will make the physical move easier, and it will simplify unpacking and setting up your new space. Why move garbage and recyclables back into storage and into the dark corners of your fresh new living spaces? Below are a few tips on getting organized for an efficient purge that will move you to a better place.
To tackle this efficiently, you’ll need a literal plan of attack. Make an actual list of your rooms and what needs to be done in each one. Start with a broad task for every space like taking out the garbage/recycling and then move to the specifics. Check off the tasks as you go. It might sound silly: but the feeling of accomplishing things one-by-one offers small bursts of satisfaction that will motivate you to keep going. Moving from room-to-room tends to make us lose track of what we were doing. Having a list that you can add to and tick off means you won’t forget anything.
Through the process of cleaning and packing things up, consider each one. Start with: Do I need this? How often do I truly use the object I’m holding? How likely am I to need it again? Does it have a space to go in my new home? Be completely honest with yourself. It’s best to look after your own things in this regard and to not do it with every single item of your partner’s or kids. Once you’ve been through this process with your personal things, it will be easier to have productive conversations with others about shared things. Then decide if you can give it to someone for reuse, sell it online or in a garage sale, or recycle it. The garbage is always your last resort and sometimes never appropriate.
Out-of-date files and old electronics should never be thrown in the garbage. The risk of identity theft is too high, and you can recycle both. If you have old tax information, out-of-date receipts, and stacks of accumulated papers(because they seemed important at the time!), these should all be shredded first. If you’re in the GTA or the surrounding areas in Southern Ontario, you should learn about paper shredding services near you who can also guarantee they will be recycled. A reputable company like Absolute Destruction, in North Toronto, also has data destruction services. This means they will safely and securely crush your old hard drives, discs, tablets, phones, laptops, etc., at your home with your visual verification. They’ll give you a Guarantee of Recycling for extra peace-of-mind.
You should try to donate anything you can like old clothes, toys, books, and electronics that don’t contain any personal information. Even if you think you’ve wiped or degaussed your former phone, laptop, or CDs, the data can still be retrieved, so it’s unsafe to give these away to anonymous people or even friends and family. They might carelessly toss it away or sell it when they’re done. In addition to electronics and paper, clothing can be recycled too, and you should see if your area offers clothing pick-up in bins around your neighborhood.
An organized and planned purge before a move will give your new spaces a clean slate and help keep you safer and more secure as an added benefit. Preplanning with lists and bringing in extra help from experts will allow the process to go smoothly and move you to a better place.
