I do find my little, fast “SnapScan” scanner to be a lifesaver for quickly turning papers I “might need” into digital files that take up only virtual space and can be searched for. I’ve gotten rid of an entire filing cabinet that way. I even scan magazine articles I think I may want for reference and recycle the magazines.

Thanks for the inspiration to keep going with the declutteration!

When the box is full, it goes to Savers or Goodwill!

Make it a nice, simple yearround purging.

Otherwise, some things I do are: Use Freecycle a lot; keep a rotating give away box. When it’s full, I set up a charity pick up, or we take it to a thrift store. I have been picking a room, closet or space each month and setting aside time to go through everything in that space. When I did this in the living room–where we keep most of our books–I ended up purging a grocery bag full of books and a bunch of knick-knacks that “are just not me, now.” (Great expression!) The last thing I do is try to keep to a “one in, one out” policy, as some others have mentioned. This has helped me a whole lot. We also do a lot of recycling/reusing/repurposing at home, which can–in and of itself–be very satisfying.

The level of clutter ebbs and flows, as my BF and I work on various projects, but for the most part, I’m pretty happy with our space. You want to find a balance between “clean” and “comfortable.” Living in a space that’s TOO sparse is probably just as disheartening as living in a space that is too cluttered. At least, it would be for me.

Great article, comments, and as always, I love this blog!

In our case, we keep a pair of crutches in the attic should my husband’s old leg injury flare up. I obviously hope he doesn’t need crutches as often as once per year, but sooner or later his problem always comes back–and he simply has to stay mobile.

And to think, for years I even kept a storage facility with things I “might need” at some point–how stupid was that?

What people don’t realize is how very liberating it is to be free of all the junk.

I still have some stuff that I can yet part with but I hope on my next trip to the city and each subsequent one I can realize more and more what I really “need.”

There is a women’s and children’s shelter in Oregon City that wants donated board games:
http://www.cwsor.org/wish_list.htm

So, if you get around to the other 25 of ‘em…

I’m too lazy to try to sell my worthless stuff, so I’m thankful to the other readers who were in favor of just donating it.

One of my favorite pieces of advice about not acquiring stuff is this: don’t go shopping. Unless I need something (and have done the research), I don’t step foot in a store just to “browse.” I have friends who are compulsive shoppers and they are always complaining about how they have no space in their homes – or they have to have garage sales every weekend during the summer to get rid of it.

One of my main sources of clutter was vintage video games and systems that I picked up at yard sales (those things are deadly for pack rats.) I had at one point like 7 genesis systems (hard to pass up when they’re $2), then realized why do I need more than one? So I purged a lot of it on ebay and kept only the stuff I actually play.

What I never understood was how people could use their garages to store all their junk and leave their cars outside exposed to the elements. The car wears prematurely (rust/paint damage) while their junk is sitting cushy lol. Good example, my uncle had always kept his whole 2 car garage piled with useless trinkets/old gardening equipment while his cars sat on his driveway. Last week his daughter had her car stolen off their driveway at night. If it wasn’t for all that clutter (worth a lot less than her car), she would probably still have it…

I use this as a reminder every time I bring something home, or before I even think of bringing it home, is this going to sit around and collect dust, will I ever get to this project? Realistically I don’t have a lot of time and I love doing crafts. I finally boxed up all of my craft stuff and took it to the nursing home, I figured they would get more use out of it than I would and if I want to make a craft I will buy it at that time when I have the time to do it.

Getting rid of stuff is hard! And getting pennies on the dollar or nothing for it, or worse yet it will cost you money to get rid of it.

I know this sounds mega hippy dippy, but you’d have been surprised at the quality of the items at this thing, and the fact that it operated without a hitch. I used as a chance to ditch some movie posters that were in fine condition but I was never going to post, and figured if someone else could use ‘em why not?

there was a lot of high end products, some things brand new (wedding gift duplicates I imagine) and it went over really well.

I declared war on things long ago and it’s been great. the things I have can’t be replaced (pictures, etc) or are of use, and I keep clothes to a minimum too. It’s great!

My husband and I recently purged our home of most of our books. It was hard to do this, but as you mention, with the internet and the library, it seemed silly to hold on to them (though we did keep some books w/sentimental value). We brought our books to Powells and made $130! )

Next stop, my RIDICULOUS CD collection. We’re going to finish burning them all to MP3 and then next stop: Every Day Music! )

Thanks for the great blog, btw. I read it nearly every day!

Both implicitly encourage you to bring more Stuff into your house, but at the very least you can exchange things you don’t want for things you do — and I’ve sent out a number of books on BookMooch without getting any in return, donating my points to charities. On both sites you do have to pay for shipping (media mail is usually just over $2 per item), but you know that your old books are going to someone who really wants them.

We’re also house hunting, so I’ve been trying to purge now rather than have to move extra stuff in a few months.

Here are a couple links for it:
http://weeklycomicbookreview.com/comic-binding/
http://www.librarybinding.com/comic-books.php

In general, we all wear about 20% of our clothes about 80% of the time (same as everything else we own, really…), so there’s usually stuff you don’t wear at all anymore. No point in saving those old pants “in case you fit them again”. Even if you are committed to a fitness goal as well, will those pants really still be in style by then? Sell or donate them, and free up some space in the meantime!

I’m purging my own closet and having a garage sale this weekend. Wish me luck!

**

On cooking magazines – Like WHD, I remove the recipes that interest me and recycle the rest of the magazine. I do it as soon as I finish the magazine, though, not at the end of a year.

But I put those recipes in files. I have one notebook with the sheet protectors for my favorite recipes, and I also have some pockets for recipes that I want to try soon.

Still, I have quite a lot of things in files. I recently went through and organized them a bit better. And my priorities have changed a bit. So I got rid of several things that I now know I will never try such as recipes that require two sticks of butter and recipes that are too time consuming.

I still feel I have too many and that, when I’m looking for something new to cook, I’m more likely to try something I just read about or google it than to go look in my files. On the other hand, most of what I have filed is from trusted sources, unlike much of the stuff that pops up on google, so it’s more valuable. So, I’m still working this out.

**

On how to let books go – I figured out there are four reasons I like to have books: 1) to re-read them, 2) to lend them to people, 3) to look things up in them (reference works), 4) in case I can get a better job that would require these. Any book that doesn’t fulfill one of those purposes should go. Of course, sometimes I don’t remember how good a book is, and so then I want to save it until I can re-read it. (Bad and mediocre Amazon reviews can help me get rid of books I haven’t re-read yet.) And with the internet, we probably don’t need so many reference books.

As for strategies – You could try that two-closet method where you pack up all your books and pull them out as you use them over the next year and then get rid of the rest. Another strategy is to sit somewhere away from your books and write down all the ones you know you want to keep. There won’t be very many at all. Maybe do this during several days, and maybe even while walking around a library to remind yourself of all the kinds of books there are. Then keep only those plus the other few that make you think, “Yikes! How could I have forgotten this!” Or make yourself catalog each book (type in the author, title, and other info for insurance purposes) so that laziness can work in your favor—you think to yourself that this book isn’t worth cataloging, so you get rid of it instead.

I also save my Word files two ways. First I backup my computer every few months onto CD’s and the files that are most important are printed out. I Defrag and use Disk Cleanup regularly. You will find your computer and internet connection are faster when your processing is not slowed down by ‘stuff’. The benefit is also that if your computer ever crashes, you have all your ‘stuff’

Also delete programs you have not used in 6 or more months. For example computer games, outdated spyware, etc…

Though with the selling stuff thing… I know I need to just get it out of the house. We’re having a garage sale on Saturday and I WANT to just take whatever doesn’t sell to goodwill and be done with it.

Of course, I always end up “saving” a few things that I think I could get some money for. Annoying! Craigslist makes that easier but we don’t have CL here.

All right… time to get off the computer and go cull some more junk for the garage sale. Thanks for the boost.

a) make a room suddenly seem new/improved,
b) clean those hard-to-reach spots, and
c) purge Stuff.

Every couple of months, there’s a corner of our apartment, and the Stuff in it, that’s being reconsidered.

The books, though, just get moved and more efficiently shelved… we’ve started using the library rather than buying, so the influx of books is slowing, but how do you let them go?

Of course, the consternation at getting rid of it is all in our heads, because once gone little of it will ever be thought of again. In fact, it’ll probably be a relief!