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Photographs are the one thing in a house you can't judge by size or weight. Start with the albums, keep the ask pile separate, and write names on the back while somebody can still answer the question.

A storage unit is a monthly bill attached to a pile of decisions you have not made yet. Here is how to empty one deliberately.

Rusty hand tools, dead cordless drills, a bench vise and a half-full can of old paint each leave the garage a different way. Clear the floor first and sort by type before you decide what any of it is worth.

Most charities won't take a used mattress and most haulers won't pick one up without a call first. Work through the store, the hauler and the donation desk before it ends up in the alley.

Good photos are not about a good camera. They are about light, framing and photographing the flaws nobody wants to photograph.

What to do before anything is sold, donated or thrown out, and why the order matters more than the speed.

The argument is usually about a chair, not money. Agree on what's already promised, photograph the house before anything moves, and keep the sentimental list separate from the valuable one.

A file cabinet is mostly junk mail and a few documents that are hard to replace. Pull the legal and financial papers first, keep the original order, and don't shred anything until you've seen the whole folder.

Books are heavy and mostly worthless. A twenty-minute pass per shelf finds the few that are not.

Most of a collection is worth very little and a few records are worth a lot. The skill is separating them without listening to all of them.

A house full of possessions is not one job, it is a few hundred small decisions. This is the order that keeps you from making them twice.

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Sturdy boxes are the first thing you run out of and the last thing you think to buy. Small boxes get heavy fast; big boxes get impossible fast.

Paper that has to be kept needs to be dry, dark and findable. A cardboard box in a damp basement is none of those.

A box with no label is a box you open twice. Label the side, not the lid, so you can read it when the boxes are stacked.

Anything with an account number, a signature or a date of birth on it should be shredded, not binned.

Scanning is how you keep the memory and lose the box. Do it before the albums are divided up, not after.