✦Moving · 10 recordsDownsize your home

Downsizing is a moving problem with a sorting problem underneath it, and the sorting is the part that takes months. This starts it well before anything is on the market, and keeps the sentimental decisions apart from the practical ones so neither blocks the other.

Install this templateSee the others

Free on any plan. You will see this list again in the app, and nothing is created until you press install.

✦ Everything it creates

The whole plan, before you install it

Goal

Move with only what fits Month 5

Decided in advance, not on the day, and not into storage.

Sort, long before the move Month 4

Months of work hiding inside a moving problem.

  • Measure the new rooms and draw what fitsDo firstWeek 3
  • Work through the house room by roomMonth 3
  • Arrange sale, donation or collection for what goesDo firstMonth 4

The hard ones Month 5

Sentimental items, kept apart so they do not stall everything else.

  • Put anything I cannot decide about on its own listDo firstWeek 6
  • Revisit that list once, laterMonth 4

Routines

  • Two hours of sortingweekly
✦ It comes with a note

Measure, then decide

A floor plan turns most of the furniture question into arithmetic, which leaves the genuinely hard decisions in a much smaller pile.\n\nMixing sentimental items into the general sort is what stalls a whole afternoon on one box. They get their own list, revisited once, after the practical work is done.

✦ Questions

Downsize your home, answered.

Months before the move, and long before a completion date exists. Sorting a lifetime of belongings under a deadline is how people end up paying to store things they did not want, which is the specific outcome this is trying to avoid.
Measure the new rooms and work to that, rather than deciding by feel. A floor plan turns an emotional question into an arithmetic one for most of the furniture, which leaves the genuinely hard decisions in a much smaller pile.
Give them their own list and revisit it once, later. Mixing the sentimental items into the general sort is what stalls a whole afternoon on one box, and most of them are easier to decide about after the practical work is done.
✦ More templates

Other systems you can install

Moving

Moving house

Eight weeks of admin, packing and address changes, in the order they have to happen.

Moving

Move abroad

Visas, money and healthcare first, because those decide whether the rest is possible.

Moving

Move into a first place

The deposit and paperwork, then the unglamorous list of things a home turns out to need.

Family

Getting ready for a baby

The appointments, the practical setup, and the leave and money questions nobody enjoys.

Install it and start this evening

It takes one press. Everything it creates is tagged, so if it turns out not to suit you, it is easy to find and remove together.

Install this template