Ok, so I'm going to try to occasionally blog out my minimizing. Not that anyone cares about the crap I'm getting rid of. More to keep myself accountable to continuing to do it! After reading "The Joy of Less" written by this woman http://www.missminimalist.com/ I have set up two rules for myself:
1) I will get rid of one thing every day. That thing will have a brief interview where I will review it's resume and see if it is worthy of remaining in the house and then I will have to decide where it goes (donation, selling, garbage, recycling, etc.).
2) I will live by the 1 in 1 out ratio, so if we buy something new, the old item has to leave in a 1:1 ratio.
As an example of what I'm talking about I posted this on Facebook the other day:
"Handtowels, 2 of you have been doing strong work, the other 6 of you have been lazily hanging out in the linen closet for years. The free ride is over, you will be leaving us now, no more staying perched up on your high shelf looking down on all the other bathroom items, good luck in the real world handtowels!
Today I am getting rid of something that is actually really a hard one for me. I'm going to (try) to donate the kids halloween costumes to Asher's preschool. It's difficult because 1) there are happy memories attached to them (Avery was so cute as Bo Peep!) and 2) they were (relatively) expensive costumes. But right now they are sitting in a bin and no one is using them, they are too small for Avery and Asher is unlikely to want to be Alice in Wonderland next Halloween and so they need to leave. I might take pictures of them before I donate them so I can have a digital reminder of how cute they were if I ever feel like looking at them again, but they are going.
I think it's time for you to watch Fight Club.
ReplyDeleteSeriously, though, what does the book say about what to do with all the stuff? I keep setting things aside thinking I'll have a garage sale (waste of time) or sell it on Craigslist but that is clearly not happening. I was thinking of consigning a lot of Elliot's baby stuff but, again, that's time and effort I may not be willing to expend.
And what do I do with books that Powell's won't buy?