Downsizing is a time to re-evaluate and decide what things you enjoy the most.

The motivations for downsizing vary. One reason may be to live a better quality of life in a smaller space. A larger home may hold you back from what you really want to spend your time doing, such as traveling, pursuing hobbies and leisure activities, or visiting children and grandchildren.

Or perhaps you do not want to live in such an overstuffed house, and you just want to simplify your life with fewer possessions.

Ultimately, your adult children will need to deal with your lifetime of accumulations unless you are proactive in starting the downsizing process.

Whatever your motivations for downsizing may be, it can be an overwhelming task to figure out what you are going to do with all your stuff and where to start. The North Dakota State University Extension Services has resources on its Aging Well website at www.ag.ndsu.edu/aging to help you with downsizing and other important decisions in your second half of life.

One useful place to start the process of downsizing is with your adult children’s belongings. If you are like most parents, chances are you still are storing your adult children’s belongings in your attic, long after they have moved out and have a home of their own.

You’re not responsible for being a repository for all their memorabilia, such as their grade school trophies, baseball gloves and prom dresses. The solution is to send their belongings to them or tell them to claim the items by a certain deadline.

You may also assume that your adult children will want select items of your belongings at some point in the future. Be careful in assuming your adult children will want your grandmother’s china that you’ve kept boxed up the last 30 years.

Baby boomers and middle-aged adults have grown up in a period of consumerism and have acquired a lot of possessions; they’re more apt to give them away easily. In contrast, older adults who lived through the Depression and World War II were not ones to purchase things, and they also did not let things go.

Here are a few helpful ideas to resolve these generational difference and pass on family possessions:

– Start by asking your adult children what possessions they do want.

– Use technology, such as FaceTime or Skype, to discuss this issue with adult children who live at a distance. Walk through your house and put labeled stickers on items they want.

– Consider special items you should save for your kids, such as your first passport, military discharge papers, one printed photo of your wedding, a sentimental piece of jewelry, a photo of the first time you held them, dog tags worn by their childhood pets, a receipt with a date on it, and your favorite music on a platform your kids can use.

– Capture childhood highlights by keeping items such as college acceptance letters and report cards with teachers’ comments.

You can make the process of downsizing easier through planning and family discussions. One helpful resource is an AARP publication titled “Downsizing the Family Home: What to Save, What to Let Go” by Marnie Jameson.

The best time to develop a plan for downsizing is when you are healthy and have the time to decide what to do with your possessions. You have spent a lifetime accumulating possessions and now you should plan for what you want to do with them.