Saturday, January 1, 2011

How to Clean your Inventory...Part One, Quick Start



To keep up with my SL new years resolution, I decided to do a massive clean up and sorting of my inventory. I thought perhaps we could all use a little encouragement in this department and it would be nice to write a tutorial/guide on how I complete my inventory clean up. Just so you know, I'm in no way an inventory specialist but rather I'm someone with way too much time on their hands and a bit of a complex when it comes to SL inventory.

My inventory is currently unorganized sitting at 22,249 items. This is about the time when that red flashing light and blaring alarm goes off, because to me my inventory is busting at the seams and is needing to be cleaned. Only a short couple of months ago it was under 20K. I do try to set aside some time every week to keep up with the maintenance and sort through my items, but with the holiday season, somehow it has escaped being a priority and has fallen into chaos. 

Originally this was going to be one post, but when I started writing I realized this was going to be a long and decided to break it down into three parts. The first part will cover a "Quick Start", which are easy tips and things you can do to reduce the amount of inventory numbers you have. It's a great starting point to giving a quick reduction in any inventory.



The easiest way to sort through all of these items is to utilize the Filter drop down menu. The Filter Menu is located at the very top of the inventory under the search field.  (I am currently using the Phoenix viewer, so I'm not sure if it's located in the same spot on other viewers.)

1) Delete those Calling Cards- I personally haven't found a way to use the calling card and have always thought of them a space collectors. It's best to delete these.

2) Note cards- Clear out all the useless note cards from your inventory. Old sale updates, events, basically anything that is out of date must go. Only keep what is needed or has sentimental value. Keep instruction manuals for objects and Huds, especially if you are a klutz like me. Note cards can easily pile up and be hidden in folders.

3) Landmarks-Clear out Multiple Landmarks, and only keep ones that are necessary. I delete all LMs and rely on search in Second Life to find locations.

4) Gestures- This is really a judgment call you have to make. Since voice was introduced in Second Life gestures have been used less. It's also considered socially unacceptable or rude to gesture spam in large crowds. While I did delete a bunch of old gestures I kept sentimental ones given to me by close friends.

5) Textures/Snapshots- Another way to clear out extra clutter is to delete the adverts that are included in your items. While I like the extra effort that designers make to include the sale ad as a quick look guide I find it to be an extra I can live without. I also deleted old photos collected over the years.

6) Scripts/Sounds- Unpack scripts, Give inventory scripts, Hold Object Scripts, Delete me Scripts, Give all Contents were just a couple of scripts I had floating around in my inventory. I was amazed at how many were hidden.

So after I removed all these items my final inventory total is 19,126! Which means I cleared 3,123 in one cleaning session. I am so doing the dance of joy at the accomplishment and decrease in inventory. Now,  I'm not quite finished with inventory sorting. The next post will cover inventory structure and organization in detail. I plan to crack open the biggest folders I have "Clothing" and provide an inside peek at my closet.

10 comments:

Unknown said...

brilliant post and very helpful

Chic Aeon said...

All good points. I try to do these almost daily but sometimes fail. I actually LIKE the textures of the items though as I often forget what things look like and viewing the photo is much simpler than trying on the clothes.

I'll be hitting my inventory again soon. It seems like a every three month thing to keep it under control. Actually you are doing well from the numbers I see from other bloggers.

I used to aim for 15,000 but I have so many great things (plus a lot of products and textures and such) that may not be realistic any longer. Still, anything under 30,000 is pretty good I think

Will look forward to your next installment.

Nissa Nightfire said...

*sighs dramatically* yup -- this made it onto my New Year Resolution list too! Thanks for the inspiration!!

KymSara said...

You motivate me to get on with this Bells! Thanks! ks

Monica said...

That's on my list too. I have been trying to unpack and sort items as I get them so far this year. My inventory jumped 3k in December because of all of the hunts and free gifts! And I still have old hunt items from months ago that I still haven't sorted :x

Bells Semyorka said...

:) Thank you so much for reading and providing feedback. Hugs to all of you and I hope that you are able to meet your inventory goals for 2011. :D

Unknown said...

OMG BELLS if you can get Kymsara to do this you are a better person than me, I have tried for years to sort her out lol

KymSara said...

I heard that Ms Beulah!

SySy Chapman said...

wow this is SUPER helpfull, ty so much :) I'm gonna make a start, NOW. One tip: posestands! I encountered thousands of them ;)

Samara Cavalieri said...

I am so glad I found your blog and your posts on cleaning your inventory. Thanks so much for taking the time to make these. My inventory is only at 12,000 but I'm already finding it hard to keep up with it.