Lightening the Load

Last fall my hus­band and I embarked on a declut­ter­ing project. We rec­og­nized that we were ill pre­pared for sud­den life changes that might force us to move or down-size on short notice. Our garage was clut­tered with remod­el­ing debris, old or bro­ken fur­ni­ture, skis and sport­ing gear we no longer used, mildewed books. We found boxes we hadn’t opened since grad school. Our clos­ets were stuffed to the gills.

The first big week­end of clean­ing out the garage

Although we’d talked about it for sev­eral years, we’d found it almost impos­si­ble to take the first real step toward declut­ter­ing. And then some­thing changed a year ago.

Our brother-in-law’s unex­pected death last August was a wake-up call. Since then we’ve been watch­ing our sis­ter strug­gle with the after­math of her husband’s pass­ing. We were able to help her after­wards for a few weeks, but then had to return to our own lives. We didn’t want to risk sub­ject­ing our friends or fam­ily to a sim­i­lar chal­lenge if some­thing hap­pened to us.

We also rec­og­nized that a house full of clut­ter takes time to deal with, which would make it hard to act quickly if we were forced to put this house on the mar­ket. Some­times life forces you to cope with unex­pected events like seri­ous ill­ness, job loss or forced retire­ment. We wanted to be less bur­dened, in case we’re forced to con­front some dif­fi­cult choices.

Adding to our con­cerns, we started to hear rumors that my husband’s job might move out-of-state later this year. [For­tu­nately, we heard last week that his job isn’t mov­ing!]

What­ever the rea­son, we rec­og­nized that the time had come to lighten our load, so we’d be more agile, less bur­dened with stuff — more able to con­sider our options or ini­ti­ate change on short notice.

Taking the First Steps

We knew that the first phase of declut­ter­ing would be the eas­i­est: get­ting rid of old doc­u­ments and records that no one needs any more.

We had old bank books, tax fil­ings, school projects, tick­ets, expense receipts, reports for for­mer employ­ers or clients… We had years’ worth of paid bills and credit card state­ments. We had shrink-wrapped soft­ware for com­put­ers we no longer own.

We had sou­venirs and memen­tos from travel hol­i­days, fam­ily mem­o­ra­bilia, and other keep­sakes. We had cal­en­dars from col­lege, love let­ters, greet­ing cards and old jour­nals. Some of these are worth keep­ing, so we’ve begun a back­ground project to scan and dig­i­tize the ones we might like to see again some­day.

To dis­card doc­u­ments with no emo­tional or prac­ti­cal value, we bought a heavy-duty shred­der that can run for hours before over-heat­ing. For weeks I focused intensely on shred­ding a lifetime’s worth of paper doc­u­ments — decades’ worth of detri­tus. Day after day I loaded up the Prius with bags full of shred­ded doc­u­ments, for dis­posal at a recy­cling cen­ter ten miles away.

I’ve learned my les­son about accu­mu­lat­ing unnec­es­sary paper. These days I shred incom­ing doc­u­ments that have no value, so I don’t accu­mu­late a bunch of junk I’ll have to deal with later.

Tackling the Harder Stuff

Wait­ing for the dona­tion truck

Hav­ing dis­posed of the paper, I’ve switched my atten­tion to prun­ing clos­ets, look­ing for house­hold objects, unused appli­ances, gad­gets or gar­ments we can donate to char­i­ties.

Over the years I’ve donated clothes that no longer fit, so what remains is harder to give away. These clothes still fit, look good, and are made from high-qual­ity fab­ric or mate­ri­als. But, they’re either out-of-style or too dressy for my cur­rent lifestyle. So they hang in the clos­ets, unused, col­lect­ing dust. Good can­di­dates for dona­tion.

So, I take a deep breath and remind myself that, rather than hold on to them indef­i­nitely, for some occa­sion when I might use them, it’s bet­ter to give them away today to peo­ple des­per­ately in need of warm or use­ful cloth­ing. I try to remem­ber the yogic prin­ci­ple of non-attach­ment.

With prac­tice I’m get­ting much bet­ter at find­ing things to give away. As a result each week I’ve col­lected bags and boxes like these for the dona­tion trucks to pick up. Space is open­ing up in our clos­ets.

Words to Live By

Rather than just ran­domly giv­ing stuff away (which might be a good prac­tice too), I’ve found the prun­ing process works bet­ter when guided by a set of prin­ci­ples. What works for us are these guide­lines a friend shared with us last month:

Do you use it?

Do you love it?

Does it bring you joy?

If you can’t say yes to any of these ques­tions, then you’ve just found a good can­di­date for dona­tion.

It also helps to devote con­cen­trated time to sort­ing and prun­ing, so you get more effi­cient (and less emo­tional) when work­ing through these ques­tions.

If you really want to prune heav­ily, then this mantra from a Bud­dhist friend offers addi­tional wis­dom:

Can you sim­ply remem­ber the joy, and let the item go?

If you’re on the verge of declut­ter­ing your house­hold, good luck!