Visiting the Unit

This weekend I was out doing errands and had some time before a store opened.  So I was driving around aimlessly and ended up going to my storage unit for the first time in four months.  I’ve been avoiding it because of the powerless feeling about getting rid of the stuff in storage.  This summer I focused on other things at the house.  Made awesome progress there, although not (yet) down to the ideal of “desk plus 5 boxes”.

Anyway I was afraid of feeling overwhelmed by the sight of the boxes stacked up there.  Today I did not feel overwhelmed.  The stacks seemed smaller than I remembered.  Maybe because I didn’t go there to work on sorting?  I had something in the car to drop off and another thing to find next time I was there.  Got that done in a couple minutes.

Just a visit today.  But I know this has to be dealt with at some point.  I still want very much to get rid of this storage unit, but have no other place to put those boxes.

Next Door Potential

Last year a small house next to where I live went on the market.  It never sold, but did inspire me to spend lots of time researching real estate.  Owning property would complicate my life, and would also increase my freedom.  I’ve learned a lot about the buying process and have watched the local market for the past year.  Still I am living in a rented bedroom in someone else’s house.  I want to move (someday) but don’t have to.  For sure renting a room is less expensive than buying a house, even a tiny house.  Honestly at this point am kinda sick of all the research time and effort.  Decided that I am fine with shopping for a home next year, passing up on the “first time home buyer” tax credit for 2009.

Now I find out that the small house that got me interested in the subject is going back on the market!  The owner cleared the overgrown yard and brought in a crew to fix up the interior.  Even fixed up it’s not a great house.  Foundation needs work and the outside walls are sagging.  It still needs serious work or maybe even a rebuild from scratch.  The heart is tempted to bid on it just so I can be independent again – but the brain is pretty sure that would be a mistake.

Minimalist Experiment

Tonight I am going to be traveling to another town to see a show and meet family members for dinner.  I’ll be staying overnight at a hotel and returning the next day.  Because I am so focused on “stuff” there’s so much worry in my mind about what to pack for the trip.  Trying to predict which items I’ll need to have with me to handle anything that might happen.  Preparing a mental list of the things I usually pack for any trip.

This time, in order to test myself, I’m thinking about not packing.  It’s only one night away.  I haven’t been to this hotel before but I assume they will have towels, soap, tissues  that I can use.  There is no need to pack up a miniature version of my bedroom to take with me.

One of the most powerful minimalist sayings I know is “Let go, and trust.”  For this experiment I’ll let go of the need to have my stuff represented on this trip, and trust that I’ll find what I need or will be able to make do without it.

I will not take my laptop computer, although I will take my iPod.  I will not pack clothing outfits or extra shoes, but I will take along a second shirt to put on tomorrow morning.  I want to bring a toothbrush, but maybe I can do without a hair comb.  So I will have a little bag, but not a heavy carry-on bag.  We’ll see how it goes!

Book Pile Staredown

Found a group of books I was willing to let go of.  Some hardcover and newer softcover ones, probably worth $80 total if they were new.  Monday I took them to work and put into the donation box.  Walked by the box on a coffee break and saw they had been taken somewhere and the box was empty.  Had an “OMG THEY’RE GONE” moment.  I was okay with it, although it did feel strange.

Over the next two days I felt inspired to find more to donate.  Books were pulled out of their storage boxes – on my desk, bed, and a card table.  There were four major groups:

1. Reference
2. Want to Read
3. History – personal and family mementos
4. Favorites – mostly fiction

If it’s reference, can I give away the book and look the info up online or in a library when I want it?

If it’s #2, how long have I been keeping it to read?  Some have been in storage for more than ten years.  Would I be terribly disappointed if I never got a chance to read them?

History items should be ranked in order of importance, and then maybe I can toss the bottom two.

Why do I keep a favorite book that has already been read?

• to read again someday
• identify strongly with the characters
• makes me feel comfortable to see it

Is that feeling in the book itself?  Would I stop feeling that way if the book was no longer in my life?

This week has been like a staring contest between me and the books.  I sit in a chair and look at the piles.  I sort through them and move books from one pile to another.  I pick up one book and leaf through it, then pace back and forth because I can’t decide and then put it back down.  Who will blink first?  I’m afraid that would be me.

A favorite book is in my collection because I may want to re-read it in the future.  The question is, how much is the storage costing me?  I enjoyed it in the past, and it’s being saved for a potential future that may or may not happen.  I think back to my storage unit, which costs a monthly rental fee that is way more money than the stored things are worth.  Is the peace of mind that I am losing by looking at the book clutter costing me more in the long run than the trouble I’d have to go through to find the book again?

Donations

Some things I have held onto for a very long time, recently was able to let go and give them to a church fair.  I put them in the box of donations, and even then could not believe I had done that, perhaps thinking of just taking them out again, restraining myself and letting them stay.

Telephone – This was the last wired land-line phone that I had.  A nice quality AT&T phone in perfect working order.  The house where I’m staying had a cordless phone system installed a couple years ago, so it went into storage.  I probably kept it this long because I’ve been using it since the early 1990’s, and it could potentially be used as an emergency phone in case the cordless phones stop working.  But there are other phones in the house to use in emergencies.  I also have a mobile phone which is my main number.  So this telephone was not necessary.

Clothes Iron – The old metal ironing board from my Grandmother’s house is still here.  But I decided to let the iron go.  It was not something I chose – the iron was given to me when my Mom got a new one for herself.  Most of my clothing was chosen partly because it does not require ironing.  If I start ironing clothes again someday I’ll get a new one.  Maybe now I’m closer to being able to give away the ironing board?

The pile of audio tapes I had set aside for donating went to the church.

Also, just found out that someone at work is collecting books to sell as a fundraiser for charity.  When I read the sign I thought about my “on the cusp” pile of books that I still want to keep but would not be devastated if they were gone.  I decided while I was at work that I’ll just donate the whole pile.  Not looking at the books helped to make the decision.  Never finished reading some of them, but I really don’t have room for them all here.

It seems easier to give things away if they’re going to benefit a church or raising research funds to fight a disease.

Bound By Books

Because of my recent success in sorting through the old audio tapes, this weekend I felt ambitious enough to try to sort my books.

Books are the hardest things to let go of.  I have very few fiction books.  Most of them are collected for a purpose.  For example – at one time I wanted to learn to sail a boat, so I have books on learning to sail, biographies of famous sailors, outfitting a boat for living aboard, how to survey older boats, etc.  These books are research material that I believe will help turn a dream into reality.  Getting rid of these books feels like I am giving up on my dream.

There are philosophy books related to principles that I believe in.  The implication is that getting rid of the books means my values have changed.  I know this isn’t true, of course.  But the feeling that a book is connected to a dream or belief is why I keep all my books.

The approach I started with was to sort them into four groups: To Keep, To Donate, To Sell, Not Sure.  Goal is to reduce them to the most essential books that cannot be replaced at any price, hopefully to fit in one banker’s box.  They had been boxed up for a year and a half.  Looking through them reconnected with the memories, beliefs, feelings, and dreams.  Only found ten I could let go of.

The next day I began to realize that the trouble in letting go is caused by this connection to things that I wanted to do someday in the future.  So I made a list of “dreams” and wrote them on index cards.  Also had cards for fiction, must keep, sentimental value, and other.  I placed the cards around my bed and table, then sorted the books into these categories.  The new goal was to sort them and then pick 2 or 3 books from each category to keep.

Tried to use the OHIO technique (one handle it once) but some were shifted around three times.  At the end of the day the keepers were down to about two boxes full.  Had a nice donation pile and a sell pile.  During the day I created a new pile called “the cusp” – for books that were somewhere between must keep and can go.  I’ll let this pile sit for a week or two, and maybe I’ll be able to sort it again and let most of them go.

A lesson learned: giving away a book does not mean that the knowledge within is being erased from the world.  In fact, passing it on means someone else can read it and share the knowledge.  If I need the information again in the future, I can probably find it.

Tapes

Don’t know why I felt inspired to get into this now.  The box full of old audio tape cassettes had not been touched since about 1994.  Maybe it was because a couple weeks ago I consolidated all the audio tapes and CDs into one stack of boxes, instead of being mixed in with videos and other type of media.

I have a cardboard shoebox to hold my CDs, which isn’t big enough for all of them.  The first thing I did was do a fast sort and flip through the CD cases looking for ones that I am ready to let go of.  Enough were pulled out that I can now fit all my CDs in the box, and there is room for about five more.  This was a good practice run for the next step.

Audio tapes.  Not sure how many I had, maybe around 200.  I went through them all without listening to them – only going by the label on each tape.  If I start playing them I’ll never finish.  They were sorted into three piles:

1. Must Keep
Space for these is limited to a storage case I have that has slots for 30 cassettes.  I doubt that there will be any new tapes added at this point.  From now on if I buy a new tape, an old one will have to be discarded.

2. Donations
These are original store-bought music albums on tape that I can part with.  Mostly 1980’s rock and pop bands.  It didn’t feel right to donate or sell a copy of a tape with a handwritten label – only originals.

3. Other
The biggest group.  Copies made of vinyl albums (don’t have the vinyl anymore, or a turntable).  Things I want to listen to before deciding.  Music tapes given to me by people I don’t know anymore.  Tapes that were not labelled.

The sorting was all I did that day.  The three piles stayed that way until trash day this week.  On trash day right before taking it out I will usually look quickly through my piles to find at least one thing that I can throw away.  This time I looked at my “Other” pile of tapes.  I sat down with this one pile again and ruthlessly cut it down to only 10 tapes.  All the rest went right into the trash.  There is probably a way to recycle them, but right now I don’t have the energy to find out the “right” way to discard tapes.

Losing things in the mess

Just when I think I’m about to run out of things for eBay, I uncover another box of stuff that I’ve been saving to sell.  Like peeling an onion.  Listed 8 things last week and sold 3 of them.

Today I was looking for a CD that I made last year.  It wasn’t in the usual pile of CDs or DVDs.  So I started looking through desk drawers, and sifting through piles of old mail.  Searched the same piles more than 3 times, but still not there.  Then I was moving stacked boxes so I could look inside them to see if I had CDs stored anywhere else.  Had to lean against the wall with one hand at an angle, while moving stuff with the other hand reaching down.  Could not stand next to the boxes because of all the stuff on the floor.

I hate it when I know I have something but can’t find it.

Unfortunately did find a box of glassware that I thought had already made it out of this room.  Ugh – now I need to deal with getting rid of it (again?).

There’s also a VHS tape that I have been looking for in my piles of stuff for a couple of months.  I feel sure it’s still here somewhere because I haven’t sorted through any videos yet.  It was a dubbed copy of another video, so maybe it’s here but I didn’t label it clearly?

In-Between Items Out the Door

Some items do not fit into the KEEP TOSS SELL framework.  I don’t use or love them, so I shouldn’t keep them.  They are not garbage, so I won’t toss them.  Their monetary value is low enough that it’s not worth trying to sell them on eBay or Craigslist.  They are In-Between items.  I had a box of them collecting on my floor.

This past week someone asked me if I had anything that could be donated to a local charity that was doing a garage sale to raise money.  This is an excellent use for the in-betweens!  A few more things were found by rifling through some other boxes.  I also gave her stuff that I had tried to freecycle without success.  There was some hesitation on whether or not to give away some items that I was on the fence about.  A couple of these made it into the box of donations.

I didn’t donate everything though, there were a few things I felt compelled to take back.  One T-shirt that I won’t wear but feel embarassed about donating because of the slogan on it.  A mechanical calendar gadget that used to be on my grandfather’s desk.  A small set of vintage plates that I can’t part with yet.

She was thanking me for donating to the cause, but I felt very thankful as well for a chance to move some things out of here.  Things that I didn’t know what to do with.

Clean Sweep

Just discovered that TLC is replaying episodes of Clean Sweep on weekday mornings at 6:00 and 7:00 AM.  I have many of these recorded already, but maybe I can get some new favorites.

The best part of the show is when Peter Walsh helps them sort through the stuff on the lawn.  KEEP SELL TOSS!  He’s good at posing questions that bring someone to a point where they have to make a decision – showing them the stuff from a new perspective.  Also I like how they can sometimes repackage items so they can preserve a memory without all the bulk of an original item.  It really proves how clutter comes frm the mind, and not from the physical junk.