Today, I kick off a new miniseries on a personal development project I've been working on since July: decluttering my home. More at www.bemovingforward.com.
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Decluttering series
Purging the plastic monster
This past summer, I hit a roadblock. I felt stuck in several areas when I decided on the advice of my father and two close friends to take stock in what I own to gain perspective. This turned into a desire to tackle a problem that I've had for decades: sorting through and organizing all the stuff I had accumulated since childhood and getting rid of what I no longer need or want. While I'm not a hoarder, and do not buy things I don't need, I'm definitely a packrat. That combined with a strong sense of nostalgia and an inability to throw random things away has resulted in cabinets, drawers, closets, and a storage unit filled with boxes and bags of stuff.
I decided to make it easy on myself and begin with the simplest decluttering task: flimsy plastic. For many years, I had collected physical media: DVDs and blu rays of movies, and TV shows. In addition, I had kept a lot of the shrink wrap and cellophane wrappers. They stuck out of my media shelf like translucent wings. On the opposite end at my kitchen, one of my cabinets was a repository of small plastic bags contained within a gigantic shopping bag.
I pulled out all of the plastic from these two places and piled them onto the floor. I could not believe the mountain that was before me. My media shelf and kitchen cabinet had done a great job of hiding this monstrosity for years. I realized there was no justification, past or present, for keeping this. After several trips to the recycling barrels downstairs, my place felt and looked much better. It was almost as if my home had just taken a deep cleansing breath and coughed out the last remnants of a long cold. Although it was a small dent, it was a good start to the long overdue process of decluttering my life.
Decluttering tip
Go around your home, including drawers, cabinets, closets, etc. and pick up any scraps of loose flimsy plastic, including shrink wrap, and bags. Put it all into a big pile and ask yourself if you really need this taking up space in your home and life. If you can't come up with a strong justification, throw it away.
Decluttering resources
Books
The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo (*****) (affiliate paid link)
Goodbye, Things: The New Japanese Minimalism by Fumio Sasaki (****) (affiliate paid link)
The Minimalist Home by Joshua Becker (****) (affiliate paid link)
The Swedish Art of Death Cleaning by Margareta Magnusson (****) (affiliate paid link)
Donations with pick up service
Vietnam Veterans of America (VVA) (clothing and other donations)
Purple Heart Foundation (PH) (clothing and other donations)
PCs for People (non-profit org that has locations across the country for donating old computers and laptops)
Tools
Digital postal scale (affiliate paid link)
Hard drive enclosures (affiliate paid link)
Hard drive (multidrive) bay enclosures (affiliate paid link)
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What I’m reading / read
Mrs. Fletcher by Tom Perrotta (***)
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