Doing an inventory of the valuable items would be VERY helpful to all! And just decluttering things that aren’t sentimental or useful a little at a time is great too. It’s not a process that anyone younger should overlook either. If anything happened to us, our families would have a hard time and there are spaces I know I need to clean out. Or tag a friend to help. I promised a friend of anything happened her, I’d fly in and handle her disaster of a cluttered craft room so her husband didn’t have to!

@Donna Jean, this has been on my mind lately. I have cleaned out both parents’ homes when they died — one was huge with the clutter of years and years; the other by that point only a one bedroom apartment. The amount of “stuff” — even useful household “stuff” in a one bedroom apartment — is just amazing and overwhelming. And I tell you, it would not have been easy to find homes and designate and disburse everything, even if it were organized and labeled. (And there were four of us working.) I am NOT so organized or decluttered, and I do not know if I ever will get there at the rate I’m going! 🙁 I’ve been thinking it will be a real burden on our one offspring. Does anyone have a “house contents inventory” in a notebook? Some type of list? I’ve been thinking of even going ahead and designating a beneficiary for items ahead of time. Oh, and making a list of items that may be valuable versus stuff that could just be sent away. And a description of the things that might be meaningful to someone in the family. I doubt seriously my son will want many of the belongings we know are valuable, but it’s a big puzzle for anyone from another generation to figure out after someone’s gone. And that’s not including the house itself!

It’s it fascinating how many things subtly annoy us on a daily basis that we just work through instead of improving. I’m 100% guilty of it too. And every one I fix makes me a little more patient with the other things (and people!) that are outside of my control.