So I start the minimizing today. Appropriately, it’s Boxing Day and I’m about to go to U-Haul and buy boxes to pack up my stuff.
I’ve been thinking about nothing else for about a week. GETTING RID OF THINGS. I’m watching every TED talk I can find on the topic. I’m reading Everything That Remains by Joshua Fields Millburn (I'm really enjoying it, by the way). I’m watching Tiny House Nation (which is, counter-intuitively, strangely focused on getting new stuff, new wingy-dingies that spin, hide, expand, contract, but that’s another conversation).
Today I’m feeling like a startled cat; that fear is making me hiss and spit as I get closer to actually going to get the boxes and then, to start filling them.
It’s hard for crafters, isn’t it?
Crafters Have Stuff. Lots of it.
I’m not sure I’m going to be able to do it. I’ve gone through this room so many times before, getting rid of the things I could get rid of. I’ve already been ruthless. The things left in here are what I need to live.
Except that’s not true. I need very few Things. I just WANT all this other stuff, and the thought of it—the look of it—makes me feel heavy, sluggish, and stressed. I’m tired of it.
So I’m going to tell you my plan, and maybe putting it here will remind me how much I really want to do this. Because it would be a lot easier to just stay in bed today, on this day off, and read all day. (The deliciousness of lying in bed reading about minimalism while not moving toward it can't be overstated.)
Starting
The place I’m really getting stuck, of course, is on keeping the things I really love, the things that add value to your life. How do you pick between them? I love everything in my office! I do!
I found a great piece of advice on Courtney Carver’s site, on identifying treasures and finally letting go, and I’m using it. In my words:
1. List the things you’d run into a fire to save. (The 911 fire dispatcher in me says, NEVER GO BACK INSIDE, the gasses are what take you down and kill you, not the fire itself, are you CRAZY?!) But let’s think about a metaphorical fire, shall we?
In this metaphorical fire in my metaphorical house, I would save:
Lala.
The animals.
These are the only answers that make sense. But say I had twenty extra seconds. What would I risk my own life to save? There aren’t many of them. I only came up with:
Mom’s journals (I love to hear her voice)
My journals (not that I ever, ever reread them, but they’re important to me)
The afghan my capital-K New Zealand grandmother knitted for me
Photos (which are going to be digitized and soon will all be on the cloud—let’s talk about this again soon because I have no idea how to approach this and will do a whole post on it soon – would love your ideas if you have some)
2. Keep the things you use everyday. This, also, presents a problem for me. I know, obviously, what I use a lot. My computer, Post-its, pencils, etc. But what about all those things I think I will use someday? Like the stapler? Good god, I haven’t stapled papers together in twenty years. Why do I stubbornly keep that thing, when I’m actually going entirely paperless? That’s it! The stapler goes! But you see what I mean.
I got a great tip from Millburn's book (above). He uses the 20-20 rule. If you're torn about getting rid of something, and the item can be bought for less than 20 bucks in less than 20 minutes, then toss it. HELLO ALL THOSE LITTLE CORDS. They’re all going. I’ve never EVER had to find one of those, but I couldn't throw them out. Until today.
3. Keep the things you love that bring you great joy. This could be art, or a book, or that plastic elephant you bought in the market in Marrakech right before you danced all night. Note: this means the things that DO bring you great joy. Not that you think COULD or SHOULD bring you great joy if you just got around to using them/looking at them. (Tea towels, anyone? Last night we went to a party and I used one of my favorite tea towels (a 1967 calendar spinning wheel towel!) that had been languishing in my office waiting for inspiration to strike — I wrapped it around the bottle, tied it with yarn, and there you go. It did bring me joy, in fact, to give it away, to a spinner.)
This doesn’t mean keeping the things that you think you should keep, that you think SHOULD make you joyful, but that actually make you uncomfortable when you think of them. Read Getting Rid of Things that Make you Feel Bad. I’d kept old love letters for a long time, thinking I would like reading them when I was old. Know what? Even when I’m 97, I’m still going to feel a little foolish for staying in those relationships for so long. I got rid of the letters years ago and haven’t regretted it once.
This step, though, I think will give me trouble, so I’m going to box everything I can’t immediately say I would ache not to see everyday, things that aren't as important as the Things I Will Keep, like my signed Elizabeth Zimmerman that Janine gave me. That’s something I love seeing every single day. That won't be boxed.
4. Let everything else go. Box it all. Sell it at the garage sale. This will include:
All pattern books (when was the last time I used one? Years and years. Ravelry has solved this. I love that my patterns are kept on their server!)
All yarn that doesn’t have immediate plans for use, excluding favorite handspun and cashmere, of course.
All sewing fabric without immediate plans for use (which is to say all of it)
All jewelry making supplies. Hahhahahahahaha. Remember the time I thought I’d make jewelry?
All half-finished projects. They’re half-finished for a reason. I’m going to keep on the needles one big project (sweater), one pair of socks, and one piece of lace. Everything else goes.
All memorabilia. <—— Really. Mom’s journals and a few photos bring me happiness. Using her yellow bowl daily in the kitchen brings me joy. All the other stuff? I’ll see if the sisters want any of it and then let it go. There are a few tchotkes I’ve bought on trips that bring me happiness to look at, but the rest, the things hiding behind others things? They’ll go.
5. When it doubt, box it. Leave for 60 days. If I haven’t been compelled to fish it out, then I’ll donate the boxes, unopened.
Luckily, I just redid Project 333, so I don’t have to worry about clothes. Thank god. (If you haven’t tried that, TRY IT. It’s life-changing.)
So this is the plan. Now I’m going to put on jeans and a favorite T-shirt (because all I have left are my favorite clothes) and go buy boxes. Then I’m going to box. Happy Boxing Day.
***BOOK GIVEAWAY! *****
You should be on my mailing list, because soon I'll be able to give away TWO ADVANCE COPIES of Splinters of Light.
I too envy the minimalists….but when I look around, most everything I have brings me joy and makes me smile so I realize that is not me….especially when I thought about the one pair of jeans things…..until BOTH of my 2 pairs of jeans tore at the same time! And I was glad I did have a 3 pair available! LOL
May you exchange boxes for the space you crave/need. Like good chocolate space is an acquired habit I hear, wishing you as much joy as chocolate can bring without the ‘bonus’ of a migraine.
You have inspired me and I am going to clean out my sock drawer (I got some new socks for Christmas and really, those socks I sigh when I put on because they are faded or raggedy — they have to go). Good luck with this all. And when you find yourself keeping or tossing EVERYthing you touch — take a break. It generally means I am exhausted from decision making and need to refresh.
I just used my ScanSnap 1300 to scan 1000 photographs. Took me a few hours over a couple of days (I had done the entire box and then realized that it had gone so quickly because I had a very low resolution set up by accident). Now, these were photos that were “extra” as far as I knew (I have way too many scrapbooks as that was part of my social life when the kids were younger) but my son wanted to have them but wants to be able to walk away from the box of photos. It worked beautifully. I probably would not try it for really old photos; it will not work on photos on stiff backing; and these are not photos that he is likely to want to blow up to giant size — but it worked for what we needed and we now both have a record of those photos. Just a thought.
You! This! Yes!
Xo
What if someone wanted all three books? $5 for shipping per book?
I have a friend who found out that most of the scrapbooks that she had been making over the years were water damaged. She uploaded a lot of stuff on forever.com. It’s an interesting idea that you pay for the space, and they invest the money so that it can be archived forever so that you don’t to worry about the site getting obsolete. Seems like a cool idea, I haven’t tried it. YMMV
I’ve been working on Alton Brown’s idea that if you don’t use something within a year, you probably aren’t going to use it, and should just get rid of it. It’s (mostly) worked for me. I’d save my animals, all 4 of my diplomas and my phone.
I also find that there are all sort of cool things that you can buy to organize things, but those really are another problem unto itself. It’s your junk’s junk, which defeats the purpose.
Moving 1000 miles from a 2500 sq ft house to a 1200 sq ft house helped great cut down on my “stuff.” I don’t follow Project 333 religiously, but do keep it in mind and it has helped me buy intentionally instead of wantonly. I agree that the craft part is hard. I am down to one box of “eh” yarn. Purging sometimes feels good.
I recommend that you read “It’s All Too Much” by Peter Walsh. It really helped me pare down and feel good about my choices. He gives you real strategies that make sense. Good luck.
Thank you for this. I don’t think I could live as a minimalist, but I do need to cut down on STUFF. These ideas will really help.
You do this to me every year. You pull down the curtin of my delusion, rip the super glue from my eyes and force me to truly experience my reality. Damn. Weight,clothes, finances, depression, now my “stuff”. Where will this end. Are you trying to convince me that my life really is better now that I am in control of my finances(because now I pay attention) and I am not bat-shit crazy part of the month(because meds when taken appropriately really do work)? Now you want my “stuff”; bin, upon bin, of half completed projects; pounds of paper scrap, bags of quilting scrap, and a library of old craft magaizes that each have one outstanding project from 1978 (were you even born in 1978?). My brain cannot calculate how many projects that those magazines contain.I had every intention of whowing my family and the general public with a repurposed world all suggested by one magazine or another. Now after pondering your post, maybe I can accept that if I havent whowed the crafters yet, it isnt likely I will and that not living with the pounds of needless stuff will truly make me feel lighter. Maybe 2015 really will be a lighter version of me, I kind of like that thought. Thanks for the suggestion…..
xox
I just moved from Anchorage to Juneau. I was without stuff for about two weeks. All I had was two suitcases, a backpack and a borrowed air mattress. My stuff arrived and I now have a room full of boxes to unpack. I don’t need, and didn’t need, any of this stuff while it was in transit. So why am I keeping it all? Your post and the links, really made me think about this. It’s time to start unloading it out of my life. If it ever stops raining, I’m having a ginormous yard sale! Thanks for your post and your blog.
I haven’t yet figured out where I stand on the minimalist-stuff lover scale, but I do love reading about it. And I do try to only bring things into my home that will bring me joy, and to let go of things that won’t.
I hope the uncluttering is going well.
I had a huge purge a few years ago when my son started school (8 week apartment therapy program – I bought that book and it worked well for me), and since then I have a minor purge every few months of some part of the house. Occasionally I look around and appreciate the progress. It is such hard work, though, that now I find any time I am thinking of buying something, I am also thinking of how it will look in ten years’ time (cheap couches, so no couch in here yet), or how hard it will be to get rid of it. I am proud of my wool supplies – I bought some yarn to make a crochet blanket recently, and discovered that there was plenty of empty space available for it (wool can occupy up to three small vintage cases kept on top of the wardrobe). I consider myself a recovering clutterbug, and find it helps to borrow books devoted to the topic every few months from the library. It keeps me in check. I also found ‘Open Studio’ by Lotta Jansdotter very inspiring, as it shows people’s art and craft spaces, and covers the full spectrum from minimalist to completely-stuffed-full, and I found it helped me to identify my comfort zone (this was not the point of the book, by the way, and it is inspiring in other ways too).
I won’t list any more books. Reading can get in the way of doing!
Once again, good luck, and keep up the good work!
I just did the same thing with my own home office. It was an epic chore. I had so much stuff in there that I had just planned on dealing with later.
I have a similar “fire” qualification with keeping stuff. Instead of determining what I’d go back inside to save, I just ask myself what I would truly regret losing and what I would have to replace.
I did a major yarn culling too. MAJOR! I invited over my knitty friends and let them have first dibs before I donated the rest to a great charity here in Portland, Scrap.
It sure feels like a weight lifted to get rid of so much stuff. Part of it is just dealing with less crap and having a workable space but part of it is also removing all the things that had piled up to be “dealt” with. It’s like getting rid of entire ToDo lists.
Photos.
Scancafe runs sales sometimes and they’ll do your scanning for you for a fee. I highly recommend it!!!
I was already inspired and you’re inspiring me even more. YAY! 🙂