It’s true that what keeps us from throwing those items is that they may still be of use in the future. It’s indeed better if we just get rid of them to free some space and some organizing in the future.

“Liz Says: July 2nd, 2007 at 13:15

For those of us who don’t like throwing “still useful” things in the trash, even though we have no use for them — there’s always Freecycle…”

An interesting site Liz. I like the idea and agree with the idea that “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure.” It’s already being done though, on craigslist.org and includes a much larger pool of community members that will look at your crap items. Check out the “free” section of the CL community in your city, state, or area. This link is for SF as an exable of what people are giving away.

NY NJ and Andy - Having had recent epiphany, I’m in the process of migrating lots of ‘stuff’ to charity store, occassional eBay sale, library, etc. But that’s not to say the LPs or cassettes are going (yet). I think it’s okay to do graded ‘sweeps’. Each will find one’s own level. I’ve plenty of entirely or marginally useless (to me) stuff to reap much good by its purging.

Michael Shulver - Hit a chord. As I was discarding the clothes I’d not worn for years I’d think back to events, times, reflections. But two things: (a) The obvious clutter issue, and all that entails, and (b) A decision to look more ‘forward’ than ‘backward’. In the end, I wrote about some of it in my journal (the utilization of which has bobbed to the surface again as some of these ‘stuff’-tentacles leave the house. A coincidence?

To Michael Shulver and anyone who puts GTD on hold until all clutter is purged and/or organized:

I put everything on hold for years. Then I decided to implement new systems for the stuff that happens going forward and just let the clutter get older and dustier until I formed new habits. IT WORKED!

Whenever I had to find something in the clutter, I would incorporate it into the new systems without sending it back to the clutter. After only a few months I began having thoughts like, “What IS all that stuff? Maybe it would be entertaining to look at some of it.” I started looking at the clutter like I was at someone else’s garage sale. There was no pressure to finish a decluttering project or to make decisions. I kept everything that I felt an attachment to.

Now here’s the best part. The more times I looked at clutter items, the less attachment I felt. Previously when I had stored things and only looked at them every few years, I would think, “Wow, I remember this!” Now those things were starting to bore me. Also, I read somewhere that you should only keep memorabilia that gives you good feelings. If you feel attachment to something that gives you unpleasant feelings - get rid of it. If you feel guilty that you never used it, either use it now or get rid of it. If you kept it because someone else liked it, but you don’t, get rid of it.

I have not completely uncluttered my life, but the clutter is no longer stopping me from getting things done. I have categories that haunt me - photos, music, recipes - because I want them all and organizing them is tedius. But I have purged clothes I don’t wear, old dishes I don’t use, broken equipment, other people’s stuff, knick knacks that I no longer like, gifts I don’t use, catalogs that are out of date, old magazines, archives of every bill I ever paid, reference books about old technologies, manuals and parts for equipment I no longer own.

My new GTD systems are working and my clutter is getting smaller. I will never be a minimalist, but packrat is no longer my middle name.

A few years ago, i started ‘collecting’ those state quarters. I use the term loosely because all I was doing was throwing them in a jar as I came across ones I didnt recall seeing before. You got me thinking. I once had the idea that they would be valuable some day, but realized that my coins had been circulated and were just quarters. I rolled them up today and to my surprise i had $80 in quarters. They go to the bank tomorrow, and then into my IRA - where they WILL be worth something someday.

My usual criterion looking at an item is, “If I were moving, would I move this?” If not, why not get rid of it now?

Then again, I do understand that some people get sentimental for their stuff. I, on the other hand, get sentimental for the days when I could fit everything I owned in my car.

I have a little interrogative sequence that I run through, sometimes when thinking of buying something myself, but more often when I want to encourage someone else to think twice:

“Never mind whether you can afford to buy it. Can you also afford to:

• Carry it 
• Power it
• Clean it
• Maintain it
• Repair it
• Upgrade it
• Protect it
• Insure it
• Store it
• Replace it
• Move house with it
• Organize it

and, above all,

• Use it enough to justify all of the above?"

The companion query is: “If you don’t buy it, can you:

• borrow it
• rent it
• improvise it
• substitute for it
• finesse it

or, above all, just

• do without it?

Nine times out of ten, the answer to the first question is No, and the answer to the second is Yes. At the very least, considering the alternatives make the Shiny New Toy much less compelling:

Its perceived benefits drop, from "all the many things the SNT will do for you", 
to "the few things it will do that easy alternatives won't". 

Its perceived cost, on the other hand, rises, from "$x" 
to "$x now, plus $y later, plus z hours of my spare time, at $zz/hour".

It’s amazing how few Shiny New Toys retain their appeal after this.

Dom

I think a lot of the clutter we amass is really just a poorly implemented Someday/Maybe list.

Several of the Cleaning shows on TV tell you to keep a donate or sell box. This is the out box you’re talking about. And I also make it a point to count the actual donation/trashing as part of the cleaning process.

The Unclutter blog has been hit or miss for me. Sometimes it has a good tip that seems like common sense, sometimes it advocates the Container Store approach in a rather mono-tasking high priced item sort of way that makes me laugh for hours. Instead of reading more about small spaces and furniture, I’ve added a few money blogs to my rss reader like “Getting Rich Slowly”. I’ve found that if I concentrate on not spending, then I’m not buying and wasting my cash. On the flip side, they’d also advocate that you turn your unused items into cash. Perhaps focus less on stuff and more on why you’d need to allocate money towards something, just like you mentioned. Sure, Design Blogs are eye candy, but just how many containers can you fit in that space anyhow…

Very Flylady-esque, Mr. Mann. :-)

Thank you for series on clutter. In March I began my serious GTD implementation after over a year of fooling around, “half measures” to put it kindly. It took 3 Sunset Scavernger dumpsters to make a dent in my house where I’ve been for 40 years, its an old Victorian in Noe Valley, cheap when I bought it, and falling down under weight of years of office/work/life in the city. I’m still implementing. I loved the comments about too many containers from the Container Store -it was costly indeed to bring in the elfa new closets and added to the clutter, though it “looks” a little better than before. I kept throwing out piles of papers from everywhere my eyes rested. At the third dumpster my husband said “STOP” so I’m left with piles yet to go. Is there no end in sight? OK Merlin, those were good directions, no more Container Store “remedies” —I’ll keep tossing weekly till the garbage cans are full. Thanks for the post. I’m ordering the book from Amazon (my Amazon habit fills a whole house of floor to ceiling bookcases). After all, its needed for my productivity.

I second the Freecycle motion.

What’s great is that you put your unwanted item directly in the hands of someone who does want it. No Goodwill middleperson. Everybody’s happy, and your junk gets at least one more home before ending up at the landfill.

And you can get rid of almost anything this way. I once Freecycled a big pile of rocks. You wouldn’t believe how pleased people were to haul those things off. So easy.

Thanks for the Freecycle suggestion. I’ll mention that in the upcoming post about where stuff can go.

Generally, though, for purposes of this series, I’m looking at the idea of “out” or “gone” as a black box (trying to focus more on the process of getting to that “gone” step). Folks can determine based on their own needs and preferences what to recycle v. give away v. trash etc.

My main proviso — esp. for procrastinators — is to not let concern over “content type” keep you from getting started. If you have to pause for too long over “where it goes” you lose a lot of the momentum you need to get through this. True for me, anyway.

And, second, if making a discarded item leave the house requires any outside intervention (whether that’s trash hauling, Goodwill, Freecycle, the third-party eBay dealer, or even your friend down the street, etc.): schedule it. This is critical to ensuring you aren’t letting the “give away” pile in particular turn into the beginning of next year’s mess. :-)

$0.02.

I agree with James, the literature on Lean Operations: Just in Time, Total Quality Management … et al talk frequently about the problem with inventory. Inventory being analogous to the stuff / crap we have been discussing in this post. Inventory gets in the way, gets broken, becomes obsolete, ties up working capital etc.. so the less of it you have, the lower your costs. However, more enlightened Operations Management types would point out that inventory is primarily a distraction: its presence hides the problems in your operation .. its a buffer against uncertainty, a comfort blanket almost. By reducing inventory you expose problems (like dangerous rocks being exposed by receding tide) and in exposing them, you are forced to deal with them.

Another idea from the Operations Management field is the sandcone / cumulative principle (Ferdows, K. & De Meyer, A., Lasting Improvements in Manufacturing Performance: In Search of a New Theory. Journal of Operations Management, 1990, Vol. 9, No. 2, pp 168-184.) This argues, amongst other things, that there is an inescapable precedence in Operations Improvement; that you have to address fundamental quality, and dependability, before you get on to improving speed, flexibility etc.. Hopefully this makes intuitive sense. You can be as quick as you like, but if, because of, say unreliable processes you take one step back for every two forward, you are not as quick as you thought you were.

Anyway, I think these two ideas can be applied to a specific area of difficulty I’ve had with GTD implementation. I read GTD about a year back. I tried to apply it right away but the initial collection phase I found overwhelming. This was because my stuff, especially the physical stuff manifested itself as a queue a mile long … and it was growing. I became conscious of the need to take a two week holiday just to do my initial collection!

Not workable really. So, while I’m using small bits of GTD that help me (ubiquitous capture, project recognition and next action principle mainly), the “whole system” is on hold until I have finished my clean-up. Or rather, I’ve got my inventory down to a manageable level and I’ve addressed several unreliable sub-processes (e.g. processing credit card receipts) which currently degrade overall reliability and in turn lengthen the crap queue.

And so we come full circle, and return to Merlin’s title: Never organise what you can discard. There is a need for a front end to (and set of contingencies for) GTD. Its pointless progressing to a very slick system for processing crap. Its not that GTD is complicated, but its wasted on the overwhelming majority of the stuff in my life. A simpler set of processing rules, with simple goals (perhaps GTD contingencies) of cleanness, simplicity, minimalism and clarity needs to be applied first. So like King Canute, I’m pushing back the sea of stuff with some simple questions. Not sure what they are exactly, as I rarely verbalise them, but probably: what is this costing me, is it paying its share of the mortgage, when did I last use it, if I loose it, can I get its functionality elsewhere? I’ve also taken to embedding a chuck-out in the daily routine. When, about mid-afternoon my brain is slowing, and I need a Pzizz, I first fill a carrier bag with stuff to chuck, or take to the charity shop. A bag a day, and I reckon by Christmas I’ll be ready for GTD again.

Tim’s comment (#14251, of July 2nd, 2007 at 15:57) sounds a little like music piracy.

Great post. Discarding items may be easy for some but is mostly hard for everyone, especially if it has a sentimental value. We always have the thought that it will be useful someday but end up stocking a pile of garbage.

This is all very interesting, and much of it is useful, as well. Some, not so much.

A couple of years ago I digitized my whole lifetime output of writing. Writing was how I made my living, so there was a lot of it.

So, today, I took out of the garage a 1G Jaz drive and about 14 drives of writing that I will probably never be able to access as Iomega has dropped Jaz. Thunk.

I have no attachment to clothes; I have five identical dresses. You want me, you get me dressed as me. You want another dress, find someone else.

I love my digital camera, and have taken photos (or scanned, in the case of the kids’ artwork) of some things. But the quilt my grandmother made, the stitches she set in by hand, the real crayola strokes laid down by beloved little hands, nope, the camera/scanner just doesn’t cut it.

Dom, most of your post is excellent, but I have to balk at the idea of borrowing something that you have either thrown out or refused to purchase. That’s just not fair. I’m happy for you to rent it, though. Or do without. Doing without is the best. It’s how I usually handle cravings of any sort.

I love the idea of lightening the clutter load. I really don’t like the idea of modeling my life on corporate cublcle life, or worse, manufacturing.

Love to see some kind of happy, sensible, human medium. However, we live in bulemic times. Binge at the mall, purge to the dumpster.

And yes, I do Freecycle. Haven’t been in a mall in years.

Will continue to check the ideas here, just not join choir.

I love this site. I only ever stumble on to it linked from another site, then spend an hour browsing through the whole site. And every time is life altering.

It just so happens, that on a whim I desided to re-arrange my place. And in doing so, ripping all the crap out of the storage areas, closets, ect. So it’s all just pilled up in the middle of the respective rooms, waiting to be re organized and stored again for the next time. Then I see the title of this article. Now I am looking at all this crap, that I have re organized since 1995, taken with me on like 3 moves. And why?

Man I am such a geek, I only use this laptop, so why do I have 2 x86 computers, a P133, a 1gig, 4 monitors, 8 keyboards, a whole box of mice, 3 milk crated of zip tied cable, and a tv with wood laminated sides.. Good! now I’ll have some room for all my VHS. Wait, I DON’T EVEN HAVE A VHS PLAYER!

Love you guys. Now if I only had a girlfriend I could dump..

“If the stuff that you accumulate doesn’t help get you closer to the life you want to have, it’s simply not worth keeping. Period.”

Not that it’s directly related to GTD, but that type of approach to life is good for humanity. Philosopher/teacher Gurdjieff defined “evil” as anything that would not lead to evolving into the best you could be. All sorts of clutter have to go away!

@Alan - Your inner buddha is dancing because that approach leads to GTD’s mind like water.

Thanks Merlin.

They say “when the student is willing, the teacher appears”, and that is exactly what has happened to me! I ordered Peter Walsh’s book and have been reading it for the past two days. And then tonight I stumbled on this web-site.

On the surface, my house looks neat and clutter-free, but I, too am a closet clutterer. Now, my closets, shelves, drawers and garage are full, and it’s been driving me crazy!

I am finally willing to start the Purge To End All Purges, and will continue to follow your progress (and inspiration) as well. Goodwill,Freecycle and dumpster here I come!

I read this sentence:

If the stuff that you accumulate doesn’t help get you closer to the life you want to have, it’s simply not worth keeping…

and think that I’ve accumulated stuff because I still don’t know what life I want to have. I’m keeping stuff because I fear some of my dreams will die if I get rid of it. If I get rid of A then I’ll never do B. If I get rid of Y, then I’ll never be Z. The stuff represents something, but isn’t really helping me figure out what life I want to have. Sometimes I just want to get rid of everything and start over.

Spring Cleaning is always a good thing, clearing clutter is great, I just went through some of that myself here at home…what a relief!

Whatever tactic you use, please consider charity, donations and hand-me-down methods. I know it does take a little more effort but it saves the earth and gives poorer people more opportunity.

There’s always the Goodwill.

“Scorched earth approach”

Perfect phrasing and exactly what I did this past weekend. I was appalled at the amount of “schtuff” that came out of a 700 square foot apartment… 21 large bags of completely useless stuff and another 5 bags of usefull stuff that went to charity.

What was most beneficial for me was finding very useful things that I’d simply forgotten or misplaced. Now, everything is in its proper place and I won’t be wasting money by purchasing duplicate items.

Great post, Merlin. What would we do without you?

Great post, Merlin. I clear clutter for a living, and my philosophy is that the less you have, the less you have to manage. Organizing stuff you don’t want or need is like pulling the weeds from your garden, then replanting them in tidy rows!

My clients often start out believing they need bigger, better storage products, only to end up getting rid of their organizing gizmos once we’ve cleared the excess stuff.

Having only things you use and enjoy brings a sense of control, clarity and peace of mind that you just can’t buy at The Container Store.

I can relate. I used to be a clutter person. After discovering the world of Feng Shui and reading many books on Feng Shui I have changed my habits. Yes I still do get clutter, but I have more control over it. I just give it away or throw it away. Makes it nice when I go to look for something, I can find it and not have things falling. I enjoy my space a lot more. I’m a fan of a book called “Clear Your Clutter With Feng Shui” This book changed my throught pattern as to why I kept holding onto objects I did not use. When I start collecting physical stuff and I see it is becoming cluttered I start removing it.

Wow. That post made my inner-Buddha do the Snoopy dance. Thanks, Merlin! (and Peter, of course!)

Some stuff has been around so long you keep putting it in a new box each time you get serious about de-cluttering. The emotional attachment to stuff is usually based on some kind of preservation of a memory by picking it up. These things, which aren’t garbage, have a way of lingering.

Ladies and Gentlemen, meet the digital camera! It’s quick, it’s easy, no film to buy!

What I find very helpful is to just TAKE A PICTURE OF THE DAMN THING!

That way it can always be remembered and remind you of that summer when…and get out of the way.

LPs / 45s / cassettes - digitized them; bits get smaller all the time and I do use the music. I gsve the LPs to the local college radio station to do with as they want - if they made money selling them I guess they can use it.

Best cleaning method I’ve found (but not always practicable): remove everything to another room / space; put back only what you need or want. Sell / recycle / trash the rest.

I am loving this new series on clutter. It has me wondering weather I really want that collection of 1950s Viewmaster discs. I’m curious, are you just chucking stuff in the garbage, or do you try selling stuff that some other craphound might buy? It’s the selling part that has held me back in the past, b/c I feel guilty just chucking, but selling requires actual effort.

Amen. As you’re ‘organizing’, you should ask of every thing you touch: Do I love this? When did I last use it? What are the chances of using it again in the foreseeable future? And how difficult/expensive would it be to get a new one if I did need it again? You will certainly discard things you end up needing again, but if you have to repurchase 1 in 10 things you get rid of, you still come out far ahead of the (psychic and real) expense of storing all 10 of those things.