As a professional organizer, I spend a lot of time helping families sort through years, and sometimes decades, of belongings. I see firsthand how difficult it can be for adult children to decide what to keep, what mattered to their parents, and what to let go.
It has made me think differently about my own home, about decluttering and downsizing before I have to, and about what I want my sons to face one day.
I have always been the keeper of our family memories. Add in my years as an elementary school teacher, and yes, I have collected and saved plenty of things over the years! But I don’t want my boys opening boxes one day and asking, “Why did Mom keep this?”
So I’ve been thinking about what I actually want them to find.
1. Family photos they can understand
I don’t want my children opening a box of old photographs and wondering who everyone is or why a particular photo is significant.
I want to add names, dates, and small details while I still can. If you have boxes of family photos, this is an easy project to start a little at a time. Even labelling a few favourites counts as progress.
2. The scrapbooks I made for them
I know my boys value the scrapbooks I made because they tell our family’s story, and they still enjoy sharing them with others.
I stopped making them when they graduated from high school, so they each have five albums. I hope their future partners are willing to give them a little shelf space!
3. A small collection of Christmas ornaments that hold meaning for them
Each of my boys has a box of ornaments I collected for them over the years. Each year, I chose one that reflected what was happening in their lives at the time.
They still look forward to pulling them out at Christmas.
Hello, Buzz Lightyear and Woody!
I would much rather leave them a small collection filled with memories than boxes and boxes of decorations they feel obligated to keep.
4. Important documents that are easy to find
Our wills, insurance information, financial records, property documents, and other important information are kept together in a folder our financial planner gave us for this purpose. "Thanks, Shef!"
This is one of those organizing jobs that isn’t particularly exciting, and it can take longer than you think. But it can make a huge difference for your family later.
5. An organized basement and crawl space, eventually
Notice I said eventually.
This one is still a work in progress. As Tammie and I stage more properties, my basement currently holds quite a bit of staging inventory.
But I don’t want my sons someday crawling through boxes of things I forgot I owned. My goal is for them to know what is there and why it is there.
6. Clear instructions for a few special belongings
I plan to leave a list explaining who I would like some of my special belongings to go to.
I don’t want my children to have to guess.
If you feel strongly about passing something on to a particular person, write it down and talk about it now.
7. The stories behind a few meaningful things
Some belongings may not seem valuable, but the story behind them is what makes them special.
If something matters to me because of where it came from, who gave it to me, or what it represents, I need to tell my boys that story.
Otherwise, one day it may simply look like another object in a box.
8. Permission to donate what they don’t want
My boys have watched me donate items to schools, churches, charities, and neighbourhood Little Free Libraries for years.
They know I would much rather see something go to someone who can use it than sit in a box because they feel guilty about getting rid of it.
If they don’t want it or need it, I want them to pass it along.
9. The understanding that they don’t have to keep something just because I did
Something may have belonged to me, my mother, or my grandmother, but that doesn’t automatically make it meaningful to my sons.
I don’t want them keeping things out of guilt or because they think, “Mom would want us to keep this.”
I want them to keep what matters to them.
The rest can go.
10. Time to remember us instead of spending months sorting through our belongings
This is really the reason for all of it.
There will always be things my children will have to go through someday. That’s unavoidable.
But I don’t want their memories of that time to be dominated by boxes, paperwork, clutter, and hundreds of decisions.
If I can make some of those decisions now, organize what matters, and let go of what doesn’t, that will be one less thing they will have to carry later.
Decluttering and downsizing aren’t only about creating more space in our homes today. Sometimes they’re about making life a little easier for the people we love in the future.
If your children had to sort through your home tomorrow, what would you hope they would find?
And what could you make a little easier for them now?