The Mock Move
Judge possessions through the cost and effort of an imagined move.
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~days to results
- Steps
- 4
- Confidence
- 98%
The Mock Move recreates the clarifying pressure of relocation without changing address. Pick up each possession and imagine paying to pack it, transport it, unpack it, and find it a place in a new home. If that effort would not be worthwhile, remove the item now rather than waiting for a future move. The physical handling matters because familiar objects become invisible background when left in place. Rubin also suggests adjacent perspective shifts, such as viewing a room as a real-estate broker, home stager, or party guest. Each lens interrupts familiarity and reveals clutter that ordinary viewing no longer registers.
Origin
Rubin built the exercise from the common observation that moving naturally forces people to touch and reassess nearly everything they own.
Core principles
- 01Familiar surroundings make possessions fade into the background.
- 02A new lens exposes objects that no longer justify their space.
- 03The imagined cost of packing and moving sharpens value judgments.
- 04Handling an object makes evaluation more concrete.
How to run it
- 1
Create the moving lens
Imagine that every retained object must be packed, transported, unpacked, and placed in a new home.
Pro tip Limit the first session to one room or category.
- 2
Handle each possession
Take each object out of its normal place so familiarity cannot make the decision for you.
Watch out Looking from across the room preserves the background effect.
- 3
Ask whether it earns the move
Decide whether the object's value justifies the money, effort, and space required to move it.
Pro tip Try a guest or home-stager lens when the answer remains unclear.
- 4
Act before a real move
Release objects you would not move instead of carrying them until relocation forces the same decision.
In the wild
A giant metal vase sits unused in a closet. Under ordinary viewing it remains background; under the mock-move question, paying to box and transport it makes no sense.
→ The imagined move provides enough distance to remove it now.
A household imagines packing and moving five years of magazines that nobody currently reads.
→ The future disposal decision becomes an immediate one.
Common mistakes
Evaluating without touching
Objects left in their familiar places remain background and evade the fresh judgment the method depends on.
Is it for you?
Best for
Settled households that need a fresh perspective without an actual relocation.
Not ideal for
Urgent moves where real packing decisions already provide the same test.
From the transcript
“a mock move is when you try to replicate that in your imagination and really say to yourself if I were moving would I move…”
“anything that kind of gives us a new way of looking at what we own helps us to clear clutter”
From the episode
Gretchen Rubin: The Dirty Secret of Happiness
Gretchen Rubin