Kathryn Bird shares her struggle downsizing to travel full-time and offers a five-pile sorting system: keep, store, discard, guilt items, and travel-unnecessary. She recommends tackling rooms one at a time, saving the hardest for last, and donating or selling what you don't need.
Before I quit my job and went traveling full-time, downsizing was one of the hardest things to do because you are used to so much space and so much stuff and all the rest of the things. A couple of quick tips for you: split things into different piles. So you'll have the absolutely I love this, I want to take it pile, then you'll have the I love this but I can't get it in my van but I want to put it in storage pile, then you will have the I don't remember why I bought this, I'm going to diet and I'm going to fit into it very soon pile. Get rid of all those. Donate them to charity, sell them on Vinted, whatever, but get rid of all of that stuff. And then you'll also have the pile of, I feel guilty, somebody else bought me this and I feel like I should keep it. Get rid of them. Donate it to charity. And the last pile is, it's either a necessity that I won't need when I'm travelling, or this is something that I never use. Get rid of all of those things. And then you will find actually going through the I love this, I want to keep it pile so much easier. I recommend going room by room. Some people recommend like putting all your clothes in one room or whatever. If that works better for you, then fine. I worked better going room by room, and you will find one room, perhaps your spare bedroom or the garage or something, where you have stored all the stuff you can't deal with yet. If you work through the house, or the boat— I used to live on a boat— work through that until you get to that room, that will be the hardest room, but if you just start somewhere, you will find things so much easier.
