Decluttering: A Philosophy
My main weakness is retaining data: documents, email, and books.
My main problem with books is that I keep telling myself, maybe someday I might need something in one of those books. Some of the books I keep as reference material and I definitely do use them. However, I have a lot of books that I am keeping just in case I might someday need them. David is the same way. We have given the library something like 20 boxes or more of books. And these were not junk books, but good useful current books. Still, I think I should be able to get rid of some more books...maybe 4 more boxes of books. Also, as soon as I get rid of books, I tend to go and buy more. It's a vicious cycle.
I really think I need to take a much harder look at my books and stuff. I think I can still purge a bit more. I would really like to get more streamlined and not have as much stuff. I admit to keeping some of my text books. I got rid of all of my law books (that killed me 'cuz some of those books were really expensive). However, the text books that I kept are all language books, language tools and dictionaries. So, they aren't really going to go out of date.
David has gotten a lot better. I think the eye opener for him was when we went through my ex husband's stuff (after he died) for his family. David said there was no way that he wanted to leave that type of a mess for anyone else to go through.
In my search for efficiency, I was telling David about a pet washing machine I was going to invent. He went online and saw one that cost $30k. You have to read the comments and then see the video of the dog and cat being washed, especially the last part of the video with the cat. This is apparently not supposed to be a joke.
http://www.geekologie.com/2007/11/dog_washing_machine_will_scare.php
I view organizing and purging as something to do to eventually free myself enough to go to the next step. The next step brings to mind this question: "So, what would you do if you knew you could not fail?"
See, that's why I think that organizing and purging is so important. I don't know if anyone has ever noticed it; however, most life and career coach's start with purging and organizing one's physical environment. Besides the obvious physical benefits, purging and organizing is symbolic of something important mentally and spiritually. Is anyone getting where I am going with this? ....
My main problem with books is that I keep telling myself, maybe someday I might need something in one of those books. Some of the books I keep as reference material and I definitely do use them. However, I have a lot of books that I am keeping just in case I might someday need them. David is the same way. We have given the library something like 20 boxes or more of books. And these were not junk books, but good useful current books. Still, I think I should be able to get rid of some more books...maybe 4 more boxes of books. Also, as soon as I get rid of books, I tend to go and buy more. It's a vicious cycle.
I really think I need to take a much harder look at my books and stuff. I think I can still purge a bit more. I would really like to get more streamlined and not have as much stuff. I admit to keeping some of my text books. I got rid of all of my law books (that killed me 'cuz some of those books were really expensive). However, the text books that I kept are all language books, language tools and dictionaries. So, they aren't really going to go out of date.
David has gotten a lot better. I think the eye opener for him was when we went through my ex husband's stuff (after he died) for his family. David said there was no way that he wanted to leave that type of a mess for anyone else to go through.
In my search for efficiency, I was telling David about a pet washing machine I was going to invent. He went online and saw one that cost $30k. You have to read the comments and then see the video of the dog and cat being washed, especially the last part of the video with the cat. This is apparently not supposed to be a joke.
http://www.geekologie.com/2007/11/dog_washing_machine_will_scare.php
I view organizing and purging as something to do to eventually free myself enough to go to the next step. The next step brings to mind this question: "So, what would you do if you knew you could not fail?"
See, that's why I think that organizing and purging is so important. I don't know if anyone has ever noticed it; however, most life and career coach's start with purging and organizing one's physical environment. Besides the obvious physical benefits, purging and organizing is symbolic of something important mentally and spiritually. Is anyone getting where I am going with this? ....