I’m learning how to be more ruthless throwing stuff away. I’ve watched my boyfriend clean up his house. He’s extremely tidy. He doesn’t keep paper around. He shreds it or throws it away immediately. He does not sweat the small stuff. I think the only receipts he saves are for taxes. If it’s not tax deductible, returnable or otherwise important, out it goes. It makes me wonder why I keep every single damned receipt I ever got.
While I’ve been happy in some instances to go back 4 years to dig up a receipt for something, I think I’ve only ever done that to research the original cost of an item for my blog. So why on earth do I keep it? I just don’t know and now that I know I don’t know, I can throw it out. (Or file it away so I can throw it out in 3 years?)
There are a great many things I’ve been looking at in my apartment, wondering why I have them or have so many. But that’s a revisit of some of my old hoarding posts.
Questions to ask when cleaning stuff up:
1. Are you going to need this within a month?
2. If you get rid of it, will you regret it? Why?
3. Can you replace it and will that cost you a lot?
4. What is the utility of this item? Has its usefulness expired?
5. Can you sell it or donate it?
6. Do you want to give it away on Freecycle or send it to the dumpster?
7. Are you really going to do something with it? If so, you have 30 days. Do not lie to yourself here and make up a future possible reason for something.
8. If I were moving cross-country, would I take this with me? (Done it twice and it does crystalize priorities.)
I find those seven questions to be useful when I’m feeling merciless about cleaning and throwing stuff away. What kinds of questions do you ask yourself when you are cleaning up?
No related posts.
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
{ 1 trackback }
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
We started being ruthless a couple of years ago about keeping vs tossing. I’m about 75% happy with the attic now, and will finish that horrible chore in September when I reinsulate up there (perfect excuse to clean up the rest).
Been going through closets and cabinets slowly but steadily. It really does make a difference.
This is so true – moving across the country completely and totally crystallizes what is really valuable and useful to you. The first time I moved East, I moved some furniture that I didn’t really love but needed, and about four boxes.
Since then, four boxes has been my limit of “stuff”. I’ve moved five times in five years, and each time, four boxes is the total of things I keep.
When I moved back West, I did so with NO furniture; only the things I loved and wanted to keep. Basically, I packed my Rav4, and that was it. If something didn’t fit, I had to reevaluate what I was taking, and the importance of what I was taking versus what I wanted to take.
It’s a really useful philosophy
I call it the “4-box” method.
My problem is getting to the actual cleaning. I always find something else to do.
How do you get ruthless about doing it?