As soon as I had a better vision of what I had to accomplish before my departure, I started sorting my things, because it felt like it would be the longest to do. As said before, I don’t identify as a materialistic person and I didn’t feel like I had a lot of stuff. Well, I was wrong.

I started choosing my clothes in December. I took out one of my suit cases and filled it with every single piece of clothing I liked. I have so many pieces of clothing it’s scary. I had 10 skirts, about 30 T-shirts, way too many broken jeans and so many sweatshirts! The first steps were actually quite easy: I tried on everything and whatever did not fit me anymore I wouldn’t take. That was quite a reality check: I had put on quite some weight in the past few years… But that’s another story.

The second step was to take only the practical pieces. Should I take the pieces I do wear a lot that are warm and cosy or should I take the ones that look good but so uncomfortable? Well, for me it was obvious: I’d take only the practical ones. I ended with only a few sweatshirts, 2 pullovers, around 15 T-shirts, a few shirts… about 19kg of clothes. But see, at that time I thought I’d be able to take almost as much as I wanted, because you know “You can just buy more baggages“. So I was quite confident that I would manage to take what I needed, and I turned to the second big part of moving away: Furniture.

Well, as you can guess, I wouldn’t be taking any furniture with me. Due to the lack of certainty in this whole plan, we agreed that we would rent a Storage room in order to keep some valuable things and the rest would have to go. I really wanted to minimize my ecological impact, meaning that I really really wanted to sell or give away as much as I could. That meant throwing away as little as I could.

I do not have precious possessions, I have no family heritage or anything so this was quite easy for me. The real challenge was to compromise with my boyfriend. Since I was living in his apartment, most of the things were his anyway, and he had a harder time defining what he wanted to keep.
In my opinion you have two approaches: practical or sentimental. In my opinion, you should always favour the practical one. If you base your judgment en feelings you might find yourself with more than what you actually need. My boyfriend was more into keeping stuff that might be useful when we come back. I was more into getting rid of everything since we do not know when we will come back. Those are two very different approaches.
In the light of the events of beginning of 2020, I wish I had been stricter on my approach, and I’m going to write this down: In doubt, ALWAYS choose to get rid of most of your things. It will save you time if you happen to rush your departure in the end. It will make things easier. And unless you know exactly when you’re coming back and what you will need, it is safe to assume that you will appreciate not having much when you come back, and if you come back. In our case, we might as well decide to establish our “base camp” in Australia or Canada. That would mean moving everything from the storage room to our “base camp” so the lighter the better.

Deciding to give or sell everything you own can be hard. I advice you take your time in this process. Plan 2 months if that is what you feel you need. It is important to take time to think this through and feel this through. Accept the fact that your furniture have served you well and that it is for a better life. Also know that even if it feels hard now, it will make your life easier later.

So stick to the basics. Keep what is really mandatory: some plates, some glasses and forks and knives. Maybe a mug or two but that’s it. As you must have guessed, in December I was not exactly putting away my kitchen. I had planned to do that as late as possible, around second half of February.

Leaving for the other side of the world and changing your life means a lot of decision making, a lot of choices to make. It can be exhausting to be responsible for so many decision, especially if you are not used to it in your every day life. Having the ability to take the right decision with all the informations available is what it is all about.
Planning and scheduling will give you all the information available to you, so don’t pass that crucial step. Knowing is key in this situation. The good and the bad. With knowledge, you will make enlightened decisions. With enlightened decisions you will be more efficient throughout your moving process.