If you want to simplify your life and maybe enjoy some of the reported benefits of a minimalist lifestyle without adopting a minimalist lifestyle, you may be asking yourself (or Google): “Where do I start?”

Inspired by an article from the LA Times published in March 2024 in which professional organizer Regina Lark claimed that the average US household has 300,000 items, we thought the easiest place for some to start is there – with the excess, the unused, the damaged, the forgotten, the just-in-case from 20 years ago. We think this approach is valid even if in all likelihood your home, like ours, has far fewer than 300,000 items inside.

The relevant point is finding simplicity in less. From the clutter and chaos, you can gain clarity as to what 'stuff' matters to you, a theme near and dear to us here at Artifcts. You can reduce time-consuming decisions you make every day, too. If you have 5 pairs of pants to choose from, how hard can it be for you or your kids to get dressed in the morning? And just maybe you’ll also stop yourself from spending money on things you already own but can’t find, like items number 78 and 83 in our list below.

We invite you to take a stroll around your home with this wildly varied home decluttering list to see where you find opportunities to simplify by reducing the volume of stuff that’s claimed a place in those drawers, closets, and shelves. Here and there we’ve added some commentary where we simply couldn’t resist. Like anything, decluttering takes practice, like building up a muscle. Enjoy, and good luck! 

108 Objects to Declutter from Your Home

Why 108 objects? Author Jeff Greenwald, in his book 108 Beloved Objects: Letting Go of Stuff, Keeping Our Stories, explains, “The number is deeply significant in Eastern spiritual practice, and beyond… the number of prayer beads on a malla (a Buddhist rosary), the number of yoga postures in a full cycle,” and so on. Because of the deep global resonance of this number and the efforts here at Artifcts to help change our relationships with our ‘stuff’ and each other, we think 108 is the perfect number for our decluttering list.

We’re breaking away from a room-by-room approach with our list. In doing so, we hope to unleash creative and unexpected freeform association of items that might help you declutter items that did not make the list or have been very much “out of sight, out of mind.” 

Ready? Here we go!

1.     Lightbulbs – You don’t even have a socket for that one anymore! 

2.     Boxes, the cardboard variety; and no, it doesn’t matter if it’s a “really nice box” 

3.     Bins, the plastic kind this time

4.     Rugs 

5.     Fidget gadgets 

6.     Suitcases – If your kid isn't even a teen yet, and you think they are packing up for college in those, reconsider how else you could use the space.

7.     Picture frames 

8.     User manuals 

9.     Candles

10.   Cookbooks 

11.   Party decorations 

12.   Pens and markers – Do they work? How many 100s do you need? 

13.   Remotes from gadgets you no longer own 

14.   Pots for plants 

15.   Decorative pillows – Well, maybe keep the pillow, rehome the case?

16.   Baseball hats 

17.   Pads of paper / notebooks 

18.   Cleaning supplies and tools 

19.   Retired and retirement-ready linens 

20.   Bottle openers 

21.   Koozies 

22.   T-shirts and sweatshirts 

23.   Chapsticks 

24.   Coasters 

25.   Glassware 

26.   Scrunchies – If you know, you know.

27.   Old sports equipment 

28.   Ice packs 

29.   Rubber bands – Beyond the fun aesthetics of a rubber band ball, how many do you need? And you know they will become brittle and break.

30.   Shorts (or other clothing) long out of style, stained, or otherwise in disrepair 

31.    Belts 

32.   Coins – Cash it in! 

33.   Musical instrument lesson books 

34.   Fine silver, you never use 

35.   Fine china, you also never use 

36.   Pottery 

37.   Bookmarks 

38.   Greeting cards 

39.   Business cards, too 

40.   Rechargeable batteries, because they stopped holding a charge 

41.   Regular batteries in sizes you haven't used in decades 

42.   Foam rollers and massage devices

43.   Coffee making apparatus, including pods that are long-since stale 

44.   Coffee mugs 

45.   Hygiene products (spares and expired, from consumables like cosmetics to tools like toothbrushes, hairbrushes, and combs) 

46.   Socks

47.   Keys 

48.   Craft supplies, the should’ve, would’ve, could’ve never started, unfinished or dried up

49.   Handbags 

50.   Fishing tackle 

51.   Nail polish 

52.   Aprons 

53.   Magazines and pages torn from them 

54.   Dog toys 

55.   Pet beds 

56.   Lamps 

57.   Baby blankets 

58.   Spare buttons and thread 

59.   Kitchen appliances you never use and utensils, too – What’s jamming that drawer?

60.   Spices, so old they may not poison you but they certainly won’t add the flavor you’re expecting 

61.   Travel-sized everything 

62.   School report cards  – Scan and Artifct them first! 

63.   Awards, professional and childhood 

64.   Games and/or pieces left from them 

65.   Take-out containers and utensils 

66.   Blankets

67.   Stuffed animals

68.   Boxes of tea – Added to this list, with love, on request of both of the husbands of the cofounders of Artifcts.

69.   Holiday stuff, the one off, the past it's prime, the "when did we celebrate that?" 

70.   Kid artwork 

71.   Magnets 

72.   Unmatched socks 

73.   Décor 

74.   VHS and cassette tapes – Say it with us: digitize, digitize, digitize.

75.   Miscellaneous workshop scraps (wood, metal, wire, etc.) 

76.   Miscellaneous home repair and renovation materials (tiles, bricks, etc.) 

77.   Books 

78.   Blenders – True story, our cofounder Heather found SIX of them at her dad’s house.

79.   Record player 

80.   Reusable shopping bags 

81.   Plastic shopping bags 

82.   Costumes 

83.   Reusable water bottles 

84.   Windshield wipers, for the car you don’t even own anymore 

85.   Vases

86.   Watches 

87.   Travel pillows 

88.   Gift bags 

89.   Costume jewelry 

90.   Placemats, tablecloths, and chargers 

91.   Extension cords - Who are you, Clark Griswald? 

92.   Eyeglasses 

93.   Old computers 

94.   Postcards 

95.   Cutting boards 

96.   Key chains 

97.   Dried (and dusty) flora 

98.   Membership cards 

99.   Cameras 

100.  Cords, cables, and chargers  

101.  Swag from your employer

102.  Paint 

103.  Travel mementos from who-remembers-where 

104.  Sunglasses 

105.  Cake pans of all varieties 

106.  Shoes 

107.   Covid-era face masks 

108.  Ticket stubs, playbills, brochures – ephemera of life 

Your reward for reading all 108 is this free download to take with you around the house. As always, if you’re having trouble letting go, "Artifct that!" to keep the memories. You can download our DIY checklist to jot down all the items you want to Artifct as you declutter, too.

And please remember to recycle, upcycle, rehome! Download Artifcts' Going Green guides to inspire and support you. Depending on where you live, you may have a reuse center where you can donate goods in addition to traditional charities.

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You may also enjoy these related ARTIcles by Artifcts in our decluttering & organizing theme:

Do You Know What You Own?

What to Do with All That Sport Stuff

Letting Go of Sentimental Items: Green Light, Yellow Light, Red Light

© 2025 Artifcts, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Reading time: 4 minutes 

Paper clutter and digital clutter can transform minor nuisances to major problems when you have a critical need for access to your important life documents. Today we want to flag the evolution well underway to declutter and organize all of life’s essential information so can you find what you need, when you need it, via what’s commonly referred to as digital vaults. 

Bottomline: These modern tools can help you and your loved ones to get organized and be better prepared. 

How many email, banking, shopping, entertainment streaming, and even cloud storage sites are you using? Apps exist to help you keep track of paid memberships to ensure you remember to resubscribe or cancel, helping you keep an eye on costs and control the chaos. Check out this story from US News: Money for information on a few. 

And what about true life essentials, like the paper copies we keep of everything from warranties, tax filings, and receipts to insurance policies and mortgage documents. Sometimes we keep these because we aren’t certain where the digital version exists or if a paper copy is somehow legally required. We may even have digital duplicates floating around in our email accounts. 

Digital vaults can manage it all, your car title, mortgage information, passport and drivers license, and banking and investment details as well as life’s daily resources (memberships, online accounts, contact lists, and more) to be better prepared for everyday life, the aftermath of natural disasters, and deaths in the family. Vaults have a different scope than home inventory apps, the latter focusing on the tangible stuff. And vaults offer more features than file storage, like Box, Dropbox, or Google Drive, where you can nearly endlessly amass files without rhyme or reason.

The Early Days of Digital Vaults

Some of the first companies in this space emerged following the 2011 tsunami in Japan, others have steadily followed.  

At stake is everything we rely on to make our lives function. And when major calamities strike, we may lose access to important documents, including insurance policies, property deeds, and more, without which a return to any sort of normal is impaired and/or prolonged. A digital solution was needed to help people through these life altering events with less stress, cost, and loss. 

Why go digital? Because files in a cabinet or box are vulnerable. Period. Add to that the fact that more and more of our lives have gone digital, there’s no reason to create a paper trail for loss and misuse when robust and affordable digital options are now available to help us tackle it all securely. 

The Digital Vault Industry Today

The digital vault industry has emerged to not only securely store critical information but to also offer built-in planning tools. How’s that for efficient!  

Avoid getting distracted by bells and whistles, however. Review each vault’s listed features, and ask yourself: Does it meet my core needs? No one vault is exactly like another. Pick the one you’ll actually use and will work best as you work with financial services, insurance, estate planning and other professionals, too. At a minimum, as you review each vault consider: 

• • • Security of the system, how you will sign in and grant others access, and how any of your personal information is being used by AI tools to generate personalized recommendations. 
    • Export options if you terminate your subscription and want to take your assets back out. 
    • Adding new information, meaning is this a tedious manual endeavor or is there support from smart instant scanning and sorting (generally AI-assisted). 
    • Price for the trial period, annually, and lifetime plus any add-on features you “need.” If there is a free model, always try before you buy, and then upgrade if you like it and free is insufficient for your needs. 
    • Unique features. As we’ve said, no vault is exactly like the other and your needs are not identical to others’ either. Trustworthy Certified Experts™ offer customized 1:1 guidance whereas Motivity Care provides a suite of concierge care management services and GoodTrust is supporting estate planning. 
    • Ease of use, because beyond different features each offers, the vaults each look, feel, and organize your information a bit differently as is the ease with which you can securely share information with family and professionals. Don’t forget to test your vault out on the device you will use to get the work done, e.g. desktop computer, laptop, tablet, or phone.

Here are a few examples of digital vaults on our radar, each with an array of unique features, offerings, and specialties.

Artifct Here are a few examples of digital vaults on our radar, each with an array of unique features, offerings, and specialties.

(In alphabetical order; with company tagline.)

• • • Everplans: All the pieces of your world in one place. 
    • GoodTrust: Estate planning made easy, affordable, and secure. 
    • Keylu: Life is chaotic. Keylu brings order. 
    • Motivity Care: Redefining how you manage caregiving. 
    • Prisidio: Your digital vault. For life.™ 
    • Trustworthy: The Family Operating System®

You’ve Signed Up to a Digital Vault: Now What?

If you’ve taken the step to set up your data within a vault, be proactive to ensure your time and money are well spent. Here are a few tips to make the most of your digital vault from our personal experience: 

1. 1. 1. Block time to your calendar over the next few weeks to input your critical accounts, memberships etc.; if you have a filing cabinet or box, start by digitally migrating those contents. Email is another great source to migrate docs you’ve received. 
      2. Turn on any available options for reminders so you keep information updated and fill any gaps you might leave;  
      3. Add an annual refresh date on your personal calendar; of course, if you have a major life event (birth, death, sell a company, etc.), or you move, you should also update your vault information; and, 
      4. Set alerts in your search engine of choice, such as Google Alerts, for announcements from your vault company about events, new or retired features, and policy and price changes in case you miss an email or alert from the vault.
      5. Send feedback to your digital vault of choice. It only makes the product better (for you and for all) for companies to receive feedback. Screenshots and videos are amazing bonuses to include in your email to the company. Don't forget to mention what type of device you are working from (e.g., smartphone, tablet, desktop), if applicable.

With a digital vault, you’ll be better prepared for yourself and your loved ones. We hope you find one that fits your needs!

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You may also be interested in these ARTIcles by Artifcts:

Emergency Go Bag: Don't Forget the Memories

Estate Planning & the Art of Artifcts

Insurance & the Art of Artifcts

© 2025 Artifcts, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

It’s January, and we’re focused on the living room in our 2025 series, “Around the House, with Artifcts.” 

Before we dive into today’s ARTIcles story, we want to call ourselves out. There’s been a lot of chatter about something that we hadn’t even thought to address: What is a living room?

In some homes, there may be only one main room where you gather, listen to music, read books, watch TV. In others, you might have a living room that’s distinct from a family room. In these cases, the living room is often devoid of one thing in particular: a TV. It’s meant for relaxation and conversation.

For the purposes of “Around the House, with Artifcts” we’re not picky about whether you’re working with a living room or family room. Both rooms:

• • • Are high traffic, social areas 
    • Accumulate objects of sentimental and financial value 
    • Tend to be more about layout and decorating than some other spaces in the home

Okay, with that said, on with the story!

One Process to Rule Them All: Declutter, Artifct, Organize 

You’re welcome, Lord of the Rings fans!

When we are focused on daily living meets practical habits, in every room, we have the same process: declutter, Artifct, organize.

When it comes to the living room, which has a high propensity to be a major collection point for knickknacks to fine art, this strategy is particularly helpful. So much to Artifct! 

You gain so much clarity when you remove the clutter. You learn: 

• • • What’s accumulating 
    • Where it’s accumulating 
    • What’s worn out, in need of an update/upgrade, or simply no longer giving you joy. (Yup, we said it. Forgive us if you are not a joy fan.) Watch out, this clutter could include fixtures like furniture, which often we look right past when decluttering. 
    • What you need and/or want to make space for going forward.

Every home has its own rhythm and its own natural clutter. We asked some members of the Arti Community about their most common living room clutter. Here were some of their responses:

• • • Catalogs that come in the mail 
    • Personal items, like eyeglasses, pens and notepads, medicines 
    • Toys, including for our furry family members 
    • Technology, including laptops, iPads, and earbuds 
    • (Seemingly) Random remotes, chargers, charging cords, and other tech items 
    • Pillows and blankets 
    • Puzzles and games

This comment about toys from one of our members is too good not to share: “The movie “Toy Story” was on to something, because I could swear the toys get up and walk in there all by themselves. Wasn’t it clean when we went to bed?” Oh, we sure do feel you!

Now that you know what’s accumulating on a regular basis, you can focus on the next step. 

The recent fires in California have put a fine point on what it means to lose everything. You may have memories, you may have some photos, but an Artifct can pull triple duty: ease you through your grief, helping you to re-live happier times; support an insurance claim when you share an Artifct with your insurer; and help you rebuild and re-furnish your favorite spaces when the time comes. 

In the living room, where you have collectibles, decorative items, homemade blankets, art and photographs, books, and more, pause to consider what the items mean to you. The stories they could tell! It’s a great room to start in if you are building your Artifcts collection. It’s likely rich with your stories.  

A few Artifcting tips for the living room:

• • • Valuable items. Remember to include in each Artifct receipts, appraisals, and other items in the “Documentation” section that can support re-selling, estate planning, and insurance. 
    • Purely sentimental. When you Artifct these items, complete the “In the Future” field to help others know what to do with them one day when you’re no longer here. Make their decisions easier. 
    • One of a kind. For your one-of-a-kind items, valuable or sentimental, that mean so much to you, consider sharing those Artifcts with friends and family. Everyone loves a good story! 
    • On the way out. If your declutter included sentimental items that are hard to let go of, Artifct that and the story to remember always and to say goodbye.

You won’t get far with organizing if there’s nowhere to put the stuff. If you have certain items that are constant thorns in your side, items left out and about in passing or because of frequent use, start with those. It’s a great win to remove the clutter and find a long-term solution.

For everything else, here are a few friendly organizing reminders:

• • • Put things in the closest proximity that is practical to where they are used.  
    • If ‘stuff’ gives you anxiety, intentionally minimize what’s out on display and rotate new objects in by season or on a schedule, like monthly. 
    • Find a home for your best intentions, like books and magazines you've been meaning to read, craft projects you intend to start or finish, and so on. You can pull them out when you’re actually ready for them. 
    • Consider carefully if more storage is the answer in your situation. You might need to go back to the decluttering and Artifcting steps if you find yourself filling up and maybe overflowing your existing and/or new storage solutions.

What your your tips for decluttering living spaces and making it easy to let go of items, sentimental and valuable alike? Write to us at Editor@Artifcts.com. 

Happy Artifcting!

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© 2025 Artifcts, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

We want to help each person to transform stuff from a potential burden today and on future generations to the source of immediate connection, history, legacy, and financial security. We cannot do it alone.

The simple reality is that the world of ‘stuff’ is broad and sometimes overwhelming! Artifcts helps you to connect the stories and stuff, enjoy walks together down memory lane, support your wills and insurance coverage, and think through and document what to keep based on those hard tradeoffs between the emotional and financial value (and space!).

In 2024, Artifcts expanded its offerings by creating a new membership and platform feature set for professionals who work in your homes helping you with everything from decluttering and organizing to move management to end of life preparedness. The program is called ARTIPro, and it enables professionals to create Artifcts for and with you, securely. You trust these experts to help you with the physical items, and now they can help you organize the memories, stories, and value too.

Complimenting our ARTIPro program are other companies, organizations, and professionals who can help you preserve, sell, move it all, and more. We've learned about an amazing breadth of services and organizations and want to share a few of them with you.

Meet Our Allies in 'Stuff'

Our allies are resources to help expand your awareness of the possible for you and all your ‘stuff.’ The organizations represented cut across multiple categories:

• • • Digitization & Preservation
    • Organizing, Decluttering, & Moving
    • Valuations & Sales
    • Family History & Documentation
    • Preparedness & End-of-Life
    • Artistic Renditions

We have met with every company directly, reviewed their products, and are confident they can help or, at the very minimum, inspire your first or next steps. We have focused on those with broad national, and many international, footprints and services. Yet we know sometimes going local is what's needed, required, or desired. Learn about the possible in the world of stuff here at Artifcts! Head over to Allies in 'Stuff,' click to read about each company, and download the Allies map to have on hand as a reference.

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© 2025 Artifcts, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

After publishing last week’s ARTIcles story with tips for decluttering that we learned from people who have moved and/or downsized, we were inundated by “That’s me!” responses. Most people who wrote to us pointed to this line in the story:

Apparently, many of us can relate. We don’t even know what we own. Our co-founder Ellen said as much in the ARTIcles story, We All Deserve a Purple Bin, confessing that, in general, she does not know what's in it, could not quantify the loss if it was destroyed, but acknowledging she'd feel the loss. A messy purple bin of memories.
 
And no doubt you realize, the process to get reimbursed for any loss is longer and less likely a positive outcome without records to back you up. 
 
So, what is the answer? Let's explore options.

__________________

Take a Step Forward and Lean In On Digital, If Possible

(Yes, we beg you. Step back from relying on binders and bins.) 
 
Like everything in life, it depends on what it is and why you’re asking. The key really is do something, anything, that will take you one step forward. Our favorite advice to date: 
 
CHECK BEFORE YOU BUY.

We’ve talked before about strategies “they” use to get you to buy more. Truly, pausing before purchasing helps.

When you go grocery shopping, you check the pantry to confirm what you need to buy for your recipes, right? This is the answer for some types of stuff. Picture frames are a prime example. How many times have you stashed one away as you made room for something, changed up the layout of a shelf or wall, or never had space for it to begin with? You probably have an accumulation of them waiting to be put to use. 
 
DUMP IT OUT.

Literally, empty the box/drawer/shelf/bin of ‘stuff,’ sort through it, put back in what belongs and rehome what does not. This is also a great prevention technique for what we call "declutter rage" and the remorse that can follow.

GET A LIST.

You should have online access—or be able to also request a report—from your insurance agent and lawyer (who helps with your will, trust, and/or estate plan), to confirm what items you’ve itemized on your policy or in a tangible asset memorandum. Is some object of sentimental value or financial value missing? Maybe you bought something new or simply forgot some items? 
 
CREATE AN INVENTORY.

Despite an abundance of inventory apps on the market, fewer than 50% of people surveyed by the Insurance Information Institute said they have a home inventory. And yet when you are looking at natural catastrophes and household disasters, a complete home inventory is your best bet for replacement, including when you bought it, for how much, and the serial number.

Most inventory apps—including from the National Assoc. of Insurance Commissioners—support adding video of your home and/or using AI to itemize your belongings so you have at least a baseline reference as to what you own. Make sure you go into those drawers, cabinets, closets, etc., too. And if you start with a printed checklist—here's one of many free examples—we beg you to digitize a copy and submit it to your insurance, too.  
 
Do your homework before you inventory anything! Some inventory apps are more than an inventory, which may actually be just what you need. For example, Fair Split offers a means to divide up estates when a loved one passes away. 
 
ARTIFCT THAT!

Artifcts is clearly the best tool for capturing items that you care about most, for any reason. Artifcting is a multitasking achievement. Artifcts takes home inventory to a deeper level by focusing not just on what you own, but also why it matters. Items you Artifct could be valuable collectibles and collections, irreplaceable gifts and mementos, or simply things you love for reasons your own. If it matters to you, Artifct that. All Artifcts are private by default but can easily be shared digitally or downloaded. 
 
The Artifcted home “inventory” is not only useful for replacement, capturing the condition and key details of items, but also deeply meaningful for you and your family.

Need Help Getting Started?

Depending on your needs, our Artifcts Concierge virtual or in-person services may be just what you need. There are also inventory and home organization professionals who can help you with home inventories. It’s really just about your priorities and where you want to start. If you need advice, reach out. We’re happy to help. We also encourage you to check out our Allies in ‘Stuff’ for more resources.

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© 2025 Artifcts, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

When I moved three times in as many years, I had no choice but to come to terms with what stuff I owned and whether it warranted a spot in a moving box, place on the truck, and space in my next home. Of course, in a pinch, and if space was not at a premium, I knew which boxes left unopened for multiple moves I could contentedly continue to ignore for another day and hand into the truck.

But that level of awareness is unique I think to people who move a lot. A professional home organizer told me recently that her clients get tripped up when decluttering and organizing a space because they have forgotten what was even in it. So, they rediscover items they already own and want to keep them and put them to use. There’s a human psychological phenomenon in play here. Namely, we tend to place greater value on items we already own.

Clients get tripped up when decluttering and organizing a space because they have forgotten what was even in it. - Home Organizer, Austin, Texas

Through Artifcts, my co-founder and I have spent an above average amount of time with people who are moving and/or downsizing as well as the professionals who assist them. Along the way, we have picked up on some tricks to help us with our own 'stuff’ of daily life and are eager to share them here with you to help reduce your day-to-day stress and enjoy your homes more. 

____________________

The Obvious Strategy: Pretend You’re Moving 

Before we cover any true tips and life hacks, let’s just put it out there: Even if you have no intent on moving anytime soon, pretending you are and going zone by zone through your home can be an incredibly effective decluttering technique.

Few of us follow golden rules popularized by the likes of Martha Stewart when it comes to regularly refreshing all of our spaces, including those cabinets and closets, to remove dust and other debris. When you tackle one zone after another this strategy becomes a decluttering and home cleaning win all in one!

The Second Most Obvious: You Don’t Need It, but Someone Does

Decorative pillowcases, picture frames, books, and special glasses and dessert plates are great examples of this downsizing theme. Yes, it is perfectly good. Yes, it’s perfectly usable. But you have outgrown it. That’s okay! Tastes and preferences change. Your space has changed. You simply don’t need it. That’s life. You married your spouse, not the ‘stuff,’ so give yourself some grace and the permission to let it go. It's natural to let go of stuff.

How exactly should you go about letting go?

For some, the answer to this type of ‘stuff’ is charity. Temporary homes for abused persons and other displaced individuals often need the sort of TLC cozy and practical home goods and décor can offer. Donate locally! Or check our free Going Green guides for ideas.

For others, taking a page out of Margareta Magnusson’s book, The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning, is just the ticket. And no, you don’t have to be dying or in your senior years to use this concept in your life. When it comes to ‘stuff,’ Magnusson reminds us that rehoming items not only lets us share the stories and value of them with loved ones now, but it helps us to live as comfortably and stress-free as possible without the burden stuff can become.

Shred and Digitize, Today not Tomorrow.

Accidentally accumulating paperwork—yes, including photos—to sort through another day? Do not take a shortcut and stick it all in a binder or bin. That's a Band-Aid. Let’s go for a sustainable and useful fix. Mass digitizing and shredding can immediately clear spaces in your home and the back of your mind from this sort of clutter.  

Yes, it could mean you now have shifted it to digital clutter, but at least you freed up space and now that it’s digitized, it’s accessible when you are on the go, shareable and searchable, and protected from destruction by mother nature or theft. You can’t say that for a filing bin, cardboard box, or cabinet.

And your files are ready to upload into whatever app you are using for planning all of life’s nexts. Perhaps those cards, postcards, letters, photos, and pieces of kid art are ready for Artifcting along with their stories. Maybe you need to add that latest home insurance policy into your digital vault, like Trustworthy. 

Done digitizing? Now recycle.

Piles with Timelines (#IveBeenMeaningTo)

When you are heading toward a move, you start clustering things naturally in your mind: making the move, heading to donation, must ask a friend/family member if they want it, selling this, etc. If you apply that logic on a daily life basis, and dedicate a strategy for each intent, you’ll have a great habit that keeps you decluttering regularly. 

Perhaps you have an under-the-bed bin, a cute basket with a lid, or even a simple bag tucked into a closet where you can put anything you’re ready to donate.  

Perhaps you Artifct sentimental and valuable items and set a reminder with the Artifcts “In the Future” feature to sell by a certain date. Or maybe instead you share that Artifct with a loved one to see if they want it (especially now that they know the story) before you sell, donate, or otherwise rehome it. The act of asking not only avoids traps that faulty assumptions might set, but it’s also a best practice in managing your family history estate.

Another reason those move piles work wonders? It’s visible progress. For the items that have already made it through your assessment and are keepers, we strongly encourage adding a QR code so that you (and everyone else who looks) can see this item matters and can scan to learn why.

(Re)Set Up Your Home for Convenience and Peace

One of the best parts of a move is setting up your home again. You have a blank slate. Nothing is stopping you from using this blank-slate strategy even if you are not moving:

1. 1. 1. Grab a pen and paper or open up a blank note on your phone.  
      2. Go room by room.  
      3. Do you see any pain points, constantly cluttered areas, things that are broken or damaged? Note it all down. 
      4. Review and prioritize for action.

Let’s walk through some examples.

Is it constantly irritating and slightly absurd that your hook for your reusable shopping bags is in the pantry and nowhere near the car you get into to go shopping? Move the hook.

How about the fact that naturally everyone in your home has some volume of clutter. And it’s everywhere, including on the counter, on the table, on the coffee table. I have a specific pen I love, a tape measurer, a set of Artifcts QR code stickers, and a book I’m reading, all of which I want readily accessible. Create a home for your clutter. I have a cute little pop-up crate on my bookshelf that holds these and other random items. Problem solved. (And, yes, my husband and daughter have crates, too.) And our family also has a small crate for common household stuff like scissors, tape, batteries, and a retractable utility knife.

Furniture falls into this category, too, albeit we’re not always in the right place financially to do anything about it. But if you are, everyone who moves knows that you do not want to ship furniture that you always found uncomfortable, has a worn-out look that is not intentional or repairable, or is literally outgrown, like a toddler sized rocking chair. Sell or donate it, but either way, move it on out!

Schedule it. 

When you’re on deadline, as in the moving trucks will arrive one month from today, you have no choice but to get stuff done. Many people already keep things running on a schedule at home anyway, e.g. how often the chimney is inspected, the air filters replaced, or the windows washed. Why wouldn’t you add decluttering to your schedule? Home is not just where you spend the majority of your time, but it is also a place that should help you to feel recharged and comfortable. 

If daily or weekly sounds too intense, try monthly, as in, the third Sunday each month you schedule a specific space in your home for a once over. Sometimes it might be a “simple” drawer, other times you might schedule the front hall closet, because it’s a month when you know you’ll have more time. You do not need to make it a stretch goal. You just need to make the decluttering a reality.

And if you are truly under deadline, perhaps a guest is coming to stay, or you just feel overwhelmed, consider hiring a professional organizer to get you started with the most challenging spot for you.

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All of these strategies are about (re)organizing and removing things that drain your energy and provoke frustration so you can live your life more smoothly. We hope you test them out, revise to your liking, and reap the rewards.

Happy Artifcting!

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You may also be interested in these ARTIcles related to decluttering and downsizing: 

#HabitChange: Rescue and Preserve Those Memories

15 Years In Storage: Now What? Tips Before & After You Store 'Stuff'

Sorry, Not Sorry: I Love My Stuff

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