The internet is full of moving tips and checklists to help the experience go smoothly. Those are helpful, but I believe that the most important tip is often overlooked. Here's the only moving tip you need. 

 

If you search Pinterest or Google, you are going to find lots of awesome posts with tips to help you pack and move into your next home. In fact, I was planning on compiling a list on these myself, as well as sharing other posts from fellow bloggers.

But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that there is only one big tip that you need.

Sure, you can pack things in colored tissue paper. Getting boxes off of Freecycle, facebook swap pages, or from grocery stores is great. Starting the packing process early (when you are staging to sell) and often (a few boxes every night) is awesome.

But the best tip I can give you after experiencing our current move?

HAVE LESS STUFF.

In fact, I can keep going. 🙂

GET RID OF AS MUCH STUFF AS YOU CAN.

or maybe this might help?

NO, YOU DON'T NEED THAT.

or this?

IF YOU'RE JUST THROWING CRAP IN A BOX BECAUSE YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH IT, STOP THAT.

oh I'm totally guilty of this one:

DON'T KEEP THOSE CRAFT SUPPLIES FOR PROJECTS YOU NEVER MADE.

and finally, my favorite:

YOU ARE NOT A STORE AND DO NOT NEED TO SAVE STUFF "JUST IN CASE".

 

Ahhh, you guys totally hate me by now. 😉

I am a person who purges regularly. I do it spur of the moment, and I do it once a year (or more) during our 40 Bags in 40 Days Challenge.

Before packing, my husband assured me that "Ann, we really don't have that much stuff."

But guess what? We still have too much stuff. And there's still ditching to be done. It's a constant process and just as we donate stuff, we acquire stuff. We acquire non-stuff stuff. Kids grow and out of clothes (and we grow or shrink ourselves, haha!). We make crafts and get papers home for school and don't know what to do with them. The toys threaten to take over.

That's life. You can aspire to live a minimal or simple lifestyle, clean house regularly, buy less, and it's still an issue. Ahem. At least that's what I like to tell myself. 

The best thing you can do before moving is stop getting sentimental and start ditching the stuff that gets in the way. Go through it once, twice, another time, and then another time.

Do this before you put your house on the market, do it continually.

Then, by the time you go to move you will be all like:

"HEY, THIS IS SO EASY!"

 

You know I'm kidding, right? You'll probably still be freaking out. 😉

But deep down you know you have lightened the burden and things won't be as crazy as they would have been.

 

Today is Monday. We close on our new house Wednesday, move on Saturday, and then close on our current house on Monday. I have a feeling things will be a bit crazy around here, and I'm going to tell myself to stay off the computer as much as possible. In the meantime, pray for us. And pray for my poor kids who are probably eating frozen pizza and having lots of movie time. 🙂