There is something rewarding about realizing that I can simply downsize and my quality of life will be better, not worse.  I don’t NEED this stuff and it really doesn’t bring me joy.

The Continued Plan

The tough part about going through this exercise is that there is a lot of "good stuff” that I am just throwing away.  I don’t mean that this stuff is worth anything, but simply that I am sure that if I had the room and was able to organize it properly I would find a great use for it in the future.  For example, coax cable connectors.  I had developed a minor collection of these over the years of moving and such, and I am sure that I would be able to use them again in the future…maybe.  The fact is that we are probably going to cancel our cable in the coming days and even possibly sell the TV.  So unless I take all of this type of stuff when I move, I am not going to find a use for it here.  On top of all of that it is not worth selling and I am sure that the Salvation Army will not have a use for it.  So it gets thrown out.  And good riddens.

My goal is to have all of the books that I am not going to read again out of the house, and given away, all of my magazine subscriptions cancelled and old magazines given away, by the end of the week.  From there it is more of the same.

How about you?

Do you try to keep your surroundings lean?  Or are you a pack rat? 

Do you have any suggestions or resources on ways to un-clutter your space, and I don’t mean ways to store MORE.

Cheers,

JM

One of the moves that I have made recently is that I am not buying any books.  I am using the library.  Of course there are always going to be reference books that I am going to need to buy for work, but for the last few years I have been buying books, reading them once and putting them on a shelf where they sit till I put them in a box, move them to a new apartment and unpack them.  This is tiring, and takes up a lot of valuable space in my home.

The other move is working on going paperless.  I get all of my bank statements online, I pay all my bills online and I do the majority of my work online.  That said I don’t enjoy reading on the computer, so I still print off large reports that I am proof reading to read and mark up on.  The other thing I print off are large format drawings for review, this again I find hard to work with on the computer.  Most of the problem is the ease of marking and eye strain.

I think that I have found a solution for both the eye strain and the marking.  It is the iRexTechnologies Digital Reader.  This reader is approximately the size of a letter sheet and has a Wacom pen-tablet built it.  It is the first e-ink device that I think is large enough for me to review reports full size.  With it I will be able to review reports, mark up and then send back to be modified.  I will also be able to use this device to take meeting notes and make design notes, both things that I currently do on paper and then scan into the project file.

With this tool I believe that I can go completely paperless in my day-to-day life, there will always be print shops when required.  That means that I can also dispose of my printers, which I have 3.  One ink jet, one laser and one “large” format 11×17 max.  These take up a lot of space that I hope to clear out.

What Stays, What Goes

The next step is to look at what comes into the house and give it a 1-10 rating on importance.  For example, magazines I am going to give most of them a 2, maybe some of my industry specific magazines I will give a higher ranking but for the most part every magazine that comes into my home is read once and then put in a pile.  The advantage that I believe that magazines have is not in the actual information that they convey, but in the filtering of the noise out there.  This is the same reason I still read technical books.  I can find the information free in other places but there is much more work involved to parse through all of the crap.

Getting Rid of it

Some of this is the magazines that I mentioned before, the printers, but it is also books and “stuff” that I don’t need any more, well they can go now.  Some of this I think there is still some monetary value in and I can probably sell online with ebay or Kijiji.  I will use the money generated by these sales to off set any costs that are associated in the new tools (or Toys) that I am going to use, including the Digital Reader.  I will have more on my strategy, and talk about the volumes of stuff I have purged in the future.