Decluttering Challenge: Play the Moving Game

Sometimes it takes a decluttering challenge to get you motivated to clear out craft supplies or anything else that might be holding you back. The moving game is an easy way to change your mindset about the things you’re holding onto and whether you want to keep them.

How to Play the Moving Game

The moving game is pretty much just what it sounds like.

Imagine you are moving to a new house and you have to pack all your things.

What would you really want to keep?

If you had to pay to have your things moved, what would you leave behind?

If you were moving across country or into a space half the size of your current living space, what would you let go of?

Why the Moving Game Works

The moving game works as a decluttering challenge because it gets you thinking about what is really essential in your household and your life.

It’s so easy to get stuck in the inertia of your current situation. Because you are used to all your stuff as it is, you kind of get blind to it and it can be hard to know where to start.

So, whether it’s your craft room or a different part of the house, look at it as if you were planning to move. If you want you can physically pack things into boxes, or remove as much as you can from the room and then decide what comes back in as if you were unpacking a new space.

• Is this something you really want to keep?
• Is it something you know you will use in the near future?
• If you had to buy this again, would you?
• If you had to pay to have it moved, would you want to?
• Is it something you’re keeping because you think you should, because someone gave it to you or because you spent a lot of money on it?

This process works for items large and small, from that bag of yarn you haven’t touched in years to the pressboard bookshelves you’ve kept since college.

How to Use a Decluttering Challenge When You’re Actually Moving

Of course this decluttering challenge is great when you are actually moving, too, because moving gives us a chance to make a fresh start in a new space.

But I know from having moved that it’s not always easy to do this while you are actually moving. There’s so much to deal with and it can get overwhelming really fast such that you give up and just pack everything despite your best intentions.

This is how we end up with boxes of things in our garage that we don’t open for years after we move.

So, if you know you are moving in the near future, it’s a great time to start playing the moving game. Go through as much as you can in the time you have before things start to get really serious.

If possible, continue to pack with an eye toward things you might like to get rid of. If you have hard nos, don’t pack them.

For things you’re not sure about, try packing those things together. Label the box well and put it somewhere easy to get to in your new space but don’t open it.

When you find yourself needing things out of that box in the next six months, take them out. Anything you didn’t need you can easily and happily donate.

A decluttering game can be a great way to shift your thinking about your stuff and get you more excited about letting go. Have you ever played a decluttering game? I’d love to hear about it!