Belongings Inventory

January 10, 2005 5:54 PM

I'm going to be undertaking a big purge and organize campaign with my belongings over the next week. Can anyone recommend a good program (OS X) for an inventory or am I better off just creating a spreadsheet? (mi)

This was spurred on by my not being able to find two cameras that I own and don't recall giving away (a Lomo Action Sampler and a Holga, so they weren't horribly expensive or anything). So, I'd like to do a small inventory of my belongings during this session to avoid these issues in the future. Hence, I don't need super-powerful retail-type inventory software, but I'd like to know if anyone has used anything they've found handy. I've been searching on Google and whatnot, but personal reviews are welcomed.

posted by stefnet to computers & internet (5 comments total)

Filemaker Pro 7 and its inventory script.
posted by AlexReynolds at 6:05 PM on January 10, 2005

Not a complete solution, but for books, movies, music and video games, Delicious Library is sooooo nice... especially if you have an iSight, in which case you can just scan the barcodes.
posted by stonerose at 6:46 PM on January 10, 2005

OmniOutliner. Version 3 was just released last week.
posted by tumult at 10:10 PM on January 10, 2005

Here's what I do: Buy a bunch of the big cheap plastic bins from whatever discount store. Label them Bin #1, Bin #2, etc.

As you go through your stuff, start throwing it into Bin #1 in no particular order. As you add each item, write a short one-line description of the object into a text file called Bin01.txt. When you fill the first bin, start a new bin and a new text file.

I use this method for anything that I want to keep and know where it is, but don't necessarily need to have access to it often.

Anything that will fit in a file folder gets a folder in the file drawer, and stuff that's really small might get it's own ziploc before going in the bin.

The advantage of this system is that you don't have to spend time trying to figure out how to organize stuff, and to find something, just to a search of your directory of text files. As long as you come up with a reasonable description of the object, it's unlikely you won't be able to find it later.

If you have a lot of really small stuff, you might want to use smaller bins for it...that way you don't have to dig through a big bin looking for something small.

cheers
posted by jacobsee at 10:00 PM on January 16, 2005

Oh, and be sure to label your bins with the right number. And never add or remove anything from the bins down the road without making the appropriate change to the text file. Here's a sample from my bin1:

- Power adapter for AA recharger (gray)
- Ziploc with 2 gray metal curtain-rod holders
- Squishy nose-shaped hand exerciser
- DVD/CD ROM drive
- Brunton binoculars
- Electronic Circuit Bread Board (blue)
- Blue Nokia 5165 cell phone

so it gets pretty random. but i love it and it's super easy, so do it!
posted by jacobsee at 10:05 PM on January 16, 2005