Hi Lauren, I did a similar move years ago when relocating from the suburbs of the Bay Area with a house, yard, and garage to Manhattan with a 1200 square foot apartment, no yard and no garage.

I had a huge garage sale before I moved to pare down furniture and gave away things that I knew I really didn't need. It was a big motivator to clean out closets and donate old clothes, books, etc.

Since I had to organize everything for the move, I had a head start when I got to NYC. Everything had to have a place and if it didn't, it had to go. It was a real lesson in needs vs. wants.

I have never been more organized than when I lived in that apartment and now that I'm back in the burbs with more storage and more room, I really really miss the organization and simplicity of living in that smaller space.

Thanks for the encouragement to get organized again. I have slowly downsize even after living in this semi big house. After watching an episode of Hoarders, it made crazy so I went through our stuff and donated stuff that we did not need or didn't used anymore to our local libraries and to Good Will. I felt so much better. And it will feel good again to eliminate more stuff.