Advice for Adriane

Adriane said...
Sounds liberating. I've been wanting to de-clutter my life as well.Have any tips?

Well Adriane, there's a few things I've learned I suppose.

1) Start early
If you're moving or have some kind of deadline, you want to be working at least two months in advance, probably more. If you don't have a deadline, I encourage you to make one, even if it's arbitrary. Without some kind of goal, it's easy to get sidetracked and caught up in all the random stuff you'll find while you're cleaning.

2) 'Sunk Cost'
Please be familiar with the economic principal of Sunk Costs. That's a lot of words, but I'll simplify it here. If you paid $400 for a bed, and you are entering a situation where you cannot take it with you, the original cost of the bed cannot have any impact on decisions you make with regards to how you're going to dispose of the bed. You cannot think "oh my god, I just spent a ton of money on that bed, I can't get rid of it!" or "I can't sell it for $50! It cost $400 new!". You must treat all decisions about that bed based on their own merits. If you can get $50 for it, or the alternative is throwing it out, take the $50 and be glad you got some part of your original investment back. Of course, this fits in with point 1 above, where if you start early you are more likely able to wait for a better offer.

3) Primacy of Recency
I had boxes in my closets that I hadn't opened in two years, since I packed them and moved into my current apartment. If I had to do this again, I wouldn't have even opened those boxes to see what was inside. If I haven't used it in two years, it's clearly not something that I need. Instead, I ended up spending a ton of time reminiscing about the items in the boxes, and then ended up getting rid of it all anyway.

4) It is just STUFF
In the end, everything you own is just stuff. It can be replaced. It does not define who you are. It is much easier to declutter your life when you are able to detach your emotions from your belongings. I'm not suggesting that you throw away all your pictures of your family, or gifts from relatives, those objects represent something more than what they physically are. I am suggesting that you carefully examine everything and actually think about what the object is, and then determine whether it fits into the life you want to live.