As the gift giving season is pretty much right on top of us, the reality of needing to clear some things out came back top of mind. I don’t know about your household but mine has a lot of stuff. Even more so since it’s so easy to get overloaded by many factors such as:

Gifts from family and friends that I feel guilty to get rid of.

Little pick ups that hit just right in the moment once upon a time again, and to get rid of feels like throwing away a memory.

It’s simply so common to see that, what difference would it make since it’s been sitting in the same spot forever so why disrupt the choppy flow of this mess ;)

And then of course all those “little projects” that are most likely never going to be finished? Boy howdy am I guilty of this one. So much so that there are too many to list which makes the feeling even worse.

However, I have came up with a system to work myself into to that will help me get myself and my wife and daughter into a new habit:

Sort. Store. Sell. Share. Shank.

I define each of these as follows:

Sort: Dedicate time to go box by box or room by room to establish if an item is worthy to…

Store: Keep and put away. This of course is how the problems started but in this effort throwing in the question of “Why?” does it still have use value? Is the memory it’s attached to so strong that you simple can’t let it go? Or perhaps it has grown in monetary value and if sold could help with some upcoming holiday shopping? Which leads to to our next step on the decluttering ladder…

Sell: This traditionally has always been an easier one for me. Tired of looking at it? Sell it. It’s shot up on the secondary market? Sell it. Lost its meaning or charm but isn’t crap just not really my “thing” anymore. Sell it. However that last consideration lends itself to our next step…

Share: “Why not just give it away?” Donate it to a thrift store. Pass it on to a friend. Pass it on to a stranger. However and whomever it may be, I’ve come to appreciate the idea of “one man’s junk is another man’s treasure” and that I don’t HAVE to sell something for it to be a huge return for my soul. It honestly took a while to get to this headspace not because I’m greedy by nature, I just had a hard time letting go of things that even if I got it cheap was still money spent and I’d like to see any kind of return on that. I have since grown personally to the point that to give things away really does satisfy more than selling it.

But what then when it comes to things that you have a connection to but has no resell value and to share it with a charity would be more than likely, a burden on them?y final option…

Shank: I admit that’s a pretty harsh and drastic word when applied to something as benign as decluttering but sometimes one must go hard to get the point across to my subconscious. The thing was fun and loved but has a hole in it / is missing pieces/ broken and glued back together for the tenth time. It’s at this point one must accept the responsibility of showing some mercy and putting it and my mind out of its misery.

So what about you? How do you handle decluttering? I’d really like to know before Santa shows up and trips over this stuff… again.

Jim 11/18/2024

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