I've never considered myself a hoarder, and Swatra and I keep our apartment relatively tidy. But in the past week or so, we've systematically gone through every room and thrown away huge amounts of stuff. Knickknacks, kitchenware, clothes, books, CDs, DVDs, you name it. Here are seven things I've learned.
#1 Let go. If you find an object that triggers a fond memory, but you haven't touched or used it in years, and have even forgotten that you had it, chuck it out. The object is not the memory. It doesn't contain the memory. Your brain contains the memory. If you need the object to trigger the memory, take a picture of the object, then throw it away. Photographs and documents can be scanned. Books and movies can mostly be reacquired in digital form (but be sure to save the ones that can't).
#2 This is your stuff, nobody else's. The decision of whether to throw away an item should not depend on whether some friend might want it or need it. If they really wanted it or needed it, they would have taken it from your home and put it in theirs. They very probably don't even remember you have it.
#3 Trash hides treasure.Your home contains many beautiful, precious and display-worthy objects that you didn't know you had. Why? Because there's a pile of useless trash between you and it. Once you get rid of the trash, put your treasure proudly on display.
#4 More space equals more trash. I really thought that living in a spacious apartment would mean no more unnecessary stuff. The opposite is true. The space fills up automatically. I'll be very conscious of what I buy in the future, but I know we'll have to do a cleanup like this all over again in a few years.
#5 Resist the urge to think, "Someone else might want this." Of all the things we threw away, the only things we gave away was a bunch of cookbooks. We offered it to our neighbors, who took it off our hands. As for the rest, yes, it feels bad to throw things in the trash instead of checking if someone might want it. But here's the thing. Checking if someone might want it keeps the trash in your house.
#6 The regret you feel throwing stuff away now is the regret you should have felt when you bought it. If you feel a pang of regret throwing that pasta maker you never used in the bin, don't let it stop you from throwing it out. Instead, remember that feeling, and recall it when you're in the shop, about to buy another useless will-use-once-only kitchen implement.
#7 Keep the stuff you love. The whole purpose of this exercise is to hold on to what matters. For the most part, that's not material stuff, but people. And crows, obviously. But your home does contain things that matter deeply to you, and things that are unique and irreplaceable. Keep that stuff. When asked, Swatra estimated that this was about 10% of the stuff we went through. For me, it's more like 5%.
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