soooo, anyone remember my sl resolutions? no worries if you didn’t, but *i* certainly remembered.

the biggest one was to pair down my inventory to a more manageable size. i started out strong, right after new year’s, and went about boxing && deleting quite a lot of stuff. but as the days went by, my enthusiasm waned…. until earlier this week.

i started with right around 50k items in my inventory. honestly? not as bad as it could have been. i’ve always been sorta good at keeping things organized and tossing/boxing what i didn’t think i’d use. but in the last few months, my organization went to shit && it was just getting overwhelming. and i knew that i could get my inventory size down by half, i was determined to do it, ’cause even though at some point i loved every last one of those 50,000 items… there’s no way i need *that* much now that most of those items are older.

AND I DID IT!! my current inventory count is…. *drum roll* …. 21k. that’s more than half gone!! i haven’t had an inventory around 20-ish-k for a looooooooong time. this makes me so super excited!

cue the music && pardon me while i hop on my coffee table to do a victory dance!

inventory sorting && purging is, really, a taxing task. and it can be so bewildering when you first start out. luckily, i’ve been sort of.. anal… about keeping things in folders and subfolders for a while now so i didn’t have to worry about organizing so much… other than sorting through my most recent acquisitions. but since i got my inventory number down, i know you can do it (yeah, *you*!).. so i can offer some advice!

1. get your favorite music playing. having it in the background will give you a bit of a distraction && will really help with how monotonous sorting and organizing can be. open itunes, make a playlist on youtube, use pandora or spotify… it srsly helps!

2. strip down and try *everything* on as you go. yeah, i’m sure if my neighbors were caming me… they would’ve been rather amused at a naked, bald, tattoo-less vixxie standing on a pose stand and changing from one shirt.. to another shirt… to another shirt… over and over again. but this is a big help too for several reasons. if it’s an item you’ve had for a while, but haven’t worn in a bit, you might remember it being nicer than it *actually* is (case in point, i had several pairs of jeans from a now-closed store that i wore out a couple years ago. i fully intended on keeping these because i remembered loving them so much… until i tried them on. they really paled in comparison to the more recent jeans i have and thus, the older pants were easy to toss). trying things on as you go will also help you organize (see the point below!) && if the items aren’t named in the most descriptive way, you’ll be able to easily see what they are.

plus, it’s much easier to make a judgement on whether you want something or not by seeing it on!

3. if you don’t already have your inventory sorted into folders, start *right now* while you’re trying to pair down! believe me, it makes things so much easier in the long run — making an outfit is so simple when you can hop from one folder to the next instead of trying to search through everything for what you want. i did very basic folders at first — pants, tops, sneakers, heels, piercings, tattoos, etc. then, once everything was sorted into those folders, i made more specific subfolders inside the basic folders — by brand for large folders (like tattoos for instance, of which i have about a billion, are sorted by brand this way) or by type for more broad categories (my jewelry folder for example is subdivided into smaller folders for necklaces, earrings, rings, and so on).

since you’re already trying everything on as you go (riiiiight? ), sorting into separate folders on top of it really isn’t that tough!

4. have two inventory windows open. it makes moving folders of items up and down through your inventory a lot easier.

5. take frequent breaks!!!! i didn’t do it all in one sitting, or even all in one week, and it can easily become even *more* overwhelming if you try to do it all in one go. my inventory wasn’t even that large to begin with, so if your number is substantially higher than my starting point was… yeah… definitely make sure you take a break from it! do one category at a time — start with, say, pants.. once those are done, do something else for a bit, then come back to sorting. doing it this way will help you from feeling discouraged when it seems like you’re not even making a dent after being at it for hours at a time!

6. landmarks && notecards — hidden *huge* numbers! i had sooooo many duplicate LMs and all those subscribo-notice notecards in my inventory it was ridiculous. my total number went down, literally, 2k after i got rid of every single notecard i didn’t need && went through my landmarks and deleted outdated/duplicate ones. using the inventory filters is great for this — set your filter to only show landmarks, then sort by name.. and you’ll be able to easily see LM dupes. you’ll also be able to see those LMs that sneak by in folders when you purchase something new!

demos too, if you hang onto them (or forget you even have them), then searching for “demo” in your inventory might reveal some just sitting there taking up space!

7. extra clothing layers. now that we can wear multiple undershirts, jackets, pants, etc layers at once… having, say, a t-shirt on a thousand different layers really isn’t needed. i appreciate the content creators out there that do this, that make their products on every layer available for easier mixin’ && matchin’, but when it comes down to it… i just don’t need them all. for example, take a tattoo. from para designs, you usually get a black version of the ink in light, medium, and dark intensities. then you get the same tattoo in color in the same three versions. when you have *all* of those on every possible layer — jacket, shirt, undershirt, pants, underpants, glove and tattoo — the numbers really start to add up. since i only ever wear them on the undershirt/underpants layer, or glove layer if it’s needed (since my actual tattoo layer is never used for tattoos xD and is normally used for nothing but makeup!), i got rid of every other layer i didn’t need. this added up to a lot of unnecessary clutter gone from my inventory!

8. double-check your trash before you empty it. …yeah, i may have derp’d && deleted something i honestly didn’t mean to. eh heh. :X

8b. …but when you *do* empty your trash, keep an eye on the numbers && watch ‘em fall! there is nothing more satisfying than emptying your trash, knowing everything in there is something you don’t need or want anymore, and seeing your inventory number go down by several thousand. it’s a lovely feeling!

such a lovely feeling that you, too, could be dancing with me on my coffee table.. with a freshly sorted, organized, and smaller inventory. woohoo! \o/ good luck if you go for it!

get the look yourself — but not before you sort! *points a finger*:
skin; curio @ truth district candy petal in tootsie 1 (50% off!)
hair; truth @ truth district addison streaked in swedish (50% off!)
tattoo; para designs color of love
eyes; insufferable dastard real eyes in deep blue (group gift)
piercings; hod the crux
top; lark @ seasons gatcha winter enten shirt
jeans; tres blah juju jeans in worn out
boots; kookie muggy in brown (subscribo gift)
cuff; whippet & buck simple polished cuff
nails; rezipsa loc chocolate nails french
necklace; addiction grandpa’s pocket watch necklace

poses; long awkward pose