Trash or Treasure?

By Barb Eimer

When going through your attic or basement, have you ever heard yourself saying, "But it’s from my family's past" when wrestling with whether to keep something or let it go?

One of my favorite books on organizing is called Conquering Chronic Disorganization by Judith Kolberg.  If you struggle with chronic disorganization, this book will help you.  I never knew that people who are chronically disorganized think differently than those who aren’t, and she knows lots of games and tricks on how to make the most of that.  (One example that I loved was to arrange your desktop files in “panic order!”)

In her book, Judith shares a quote from Clutter’s Last Stand that has come to mean a lot to me.

“Should we choose to spend our lives collecting, preserving and storing artifacts and inactive possessions we will find ourselves…wandering past the precious moment of life at hand…our past things have value, but the secret is to not let charm turn into chains, sentiment become a sentence…only you know the moment when collectibles have become clutter in your life…”

There are dozens of excuses as to why people keep clutter…especially clutter from the past. More often than not a loved one has died, and we feel a connection to him or her through their things. That’s totally understandable.  What’s a little more difficult is how keeping those things in a storage unit or attic is honoring their memory. I know that might sound harsh, but a big part of organizing is getting to the root of the issue.  Mental clutter is just as real as physical clutter.

Wouldn’t it be more meaningful to pick out a few special things and use them regularly?  Or, if you have something beautiful that has been handed down, highlight that in your home. You don’t need to keep everything that your grandma owned to have memories of her.  In fact, too many things become an anchor that weighs you down and makes moving on more difficult.  

I don’t understand the psychology behind it, but the simple truth is that there is a connection between letting go and being free.  Maybe because it reminds us that we are in control of our things and not the other way around. 

Regardless, stop and take a moment to think about what is weighing you down. Then, as Elsa would say…let it go!