Moving sucks. Ever since leaving college more than a decade ago, I’ve only lived in apartments, so I’ve had to get good at living small and managing my inventory of belongings before, during, and after a move.

A lot of what makes that possible is that I really like decluttering. But it didn’t come naturally – it’s a skill I’ve had to practice, learn, and occasionally fail at. So I thought I might share my experiences here in case you find it helpful for a current or future move.

I got good at decluttering when my wife (then girlfriend) and I decided to downsize from a one-bedroom apartment to a studio. We loved the one-bedroom for a lot of reasons, including its view of Seattle’s Space Needle. But eventually, we realized we could afford to live in a more walkable part of the city if we could squeeze into a studio.

That meant reckoning with the volume of stuff we had each brought into the apartment. Our move into the one-bedroom apartment was two people stuffing their separate lives into one. Our move into a studio meant we had to really decide what would make the jump to the next phase of our lives. It was an emotional thing.

We made the decision to downsize a while before we …

Read the full story at The Verge.