At the time Dylan and I decide to go on the Freedam Tour we were living together in two places- a rented apartment and Dylan's house which was 35 miles away from the apartment. We split our time between the two places but ended up mostly in the apartment because it was closer to my photography studio. When we fully decided on a full time life of travel we decided to temporarily move into my apartment and we ended up renting out Dylan's house.
Moving all Dylan's belongings from a two story house into a one-bedroom apartment was a task of its own. We ended up storing some things that wouldn't be of use to us but we didn't want to give away (furniture is expensive yanno) at his dad's house. My dad had just gotten a new apartment and was in need of a couch so we were able to pawn off a couch pretty easily. The rest of the house came to the apartment where we knew we'd have to move it out eventually.
About two weeks before the tour began we started packing certain things up and had four main piles: coming with us, not going with us, we can't throw this out but I don't know if we really need it, and I have no clue.
Here's how we kept organized while preparing for our road life and some simple rules and guidelines we followed.
Clothing and Accessories
1) If you haven't worn it, chances are you'll never wear it. Just get rid of it.
2) Put off-season clothes in a separate pile, box or bag. You know you're going to wear these and need them eventually but not for at least six months.
3) If you haven't worn those earrings your aunt got you, store them. You definitely won't wear them any time soon.
Kitchen Stuff
1) You don't need 3 of the same size pan. Lose it.
2) Those spices you've had in your cupboard for 3 years and might even have three of the same parleys, yeah, you don't need those either.
3) Think about how much you use each item, if you haven't used it recently and could continue to get by without it, save yourself the space and don't bring it with you.
4) Did we really need to bring 5 huge knives? No, but some things just don't make sense.
Office Supplies
1) Office supplies typically come in large quantities, pick out a few and store or donate the rest.
2) That notebook that you bought five years ago and still haven't used, give it to your sister.
3) Pens are $3 at Walmart, please don't bring that pile of broke ball point pens from various small town businesses that you've collected over the years. Save the good ones and toss the rest.
4) Bring all the tape and all the scissors. Trust me. You'll use them.
Electronics
1) That box of miscellaneous chords, do yourself the favor now and go through it and pick out what you actually need. There's a pretty good chance that if you don't know what it goes to then you don't need it.
2) If you have rechargable batteries, charge them up and stick them in your "to bring pile". This keeps the clutter out of the way and you'll never regret having fully charged batteries.
Important Papers
1) Gather your important papers (birth certificates, social security cards, tax forms, passports, contracts, etc) into one main pile and organize them into clearly labeled folders.
2) Go through that pile of mail, figure out what you actually need to keep and what can be tossed.
3) Those receipts? Go through those too.
One thing that make things easier for me is simply just purging things. I try not to think about it too much as I get rid of items. Its easiest for me to remove the emotional attachment to some things to make it easier to see things in a more practical way. Obviously this isn't applicable to all things, but it does help!
Be realistic and practical with yourself, this will help you in the long run. Always label everything clearly, especially fragile items, you'll be kicking yourself if something gets broken because you weren't careful.
Organizing as you go makes all the difference in keeping yourself sane. It also helps so that nothing getting lost or broken.
And remember, take a deep breath, it won't be like this forever. Everything is going to be organized and just fine.
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