WHAT'S HANGING OVER YOUR HEAD?

How many storage areas do you have?  Aside from closet spaces, do you have a garage, attic, off-site rented storage unit, barn, outbuilding, tool shed, old van packed to the headliner with junk, a nice little detached potting shed, or an "office" perhaps?

Next question:  what are they full of?  (You don't have to answer that out loud.)

Whatever the contents of your storage, much of the stuff you have stuffed in there is there for one reason:  you are not currently using it.

Certainly, every household, except the most extremely minimalistic ones, requires storage for things used at different seasons ("seasonal storage").  Tents, coolers, float tubes, and waterproof radios are definitely summer time gear.  Christmas lights, evergreen garlands from the craft store, and jingle bell door hangers sit in boxes in the garage until it's time to ring in the holiday season.  

Those are seasonal "fun" items that simply need to be stored until the right time of the year rolls around for their use and enjoyment.  But most of the stuff in storage is not being used, and it probably won't be.  At least by you.

The real question to ask yourself about the things in your storage area(s) is:  do I like this stuff enough to justify keeping it all year?   Hard question to answer because you have a bunch of conflicting emotions and reasons for keeping all those items.

Do you know how to tell if you like something well enough to keep it?  Simple.  Pick one item in storage, and really look at it.   Now ask yourself:

What is my emotional state while I'm looking at that thing?

If you're not feeling any positive emotions, such as happiness, delight, refreshing anticipation, pleasant memories, or peace, then OUT IT GOES.

The things in our lives should bring us only positive emotions, not negative ones.  You don't have to keep things that you don't want!  They're just stuff.  Get 'em out of your life.


And if they're damaged in any way, well it just makes the decision even easier:  OUT!

Here's a real life example:
 
A reader recently asked me what to do with the following items in her attic:  bedding for out of town guests (used two to three times per year), travel mementos to be scrapbooked (she doesn't like to scrapbook), craft supplies she likes but rarely uses, and artwork that she likes but tires of after a few months.

She can now apply the above question to each of these items, and determine her emotional state when looking at each one.  We all intuitively know what we like and what we don't like; our reasoning just gets in the way sometimes.
 
If my insightful new technique is not enough to REALLY get you motivated to deal with your stuff in storage, here are a few ways I would personally handle the things in my reader's attic, if I were her.  (And consider the symbolism of stuff stored in the attic:  hanging over your head, oppressing you with undone tasks, heavy burdens on your brain.)

For the futons, I would invite my guests to sleep on my sofa rather than clutter up my precious storage space with rarely used futons.  Donate the futons to a battered woman's shelter.  Or buy an air mattress that comes with its own electric air pump.  They take up very little space in storage.

Throw a scrapbooking party for myself and ask my friends to help me make a travel scrapbook.  I can share my adventures with friends while they help me do something I don't like to do, but that I want done.  Friends make anything fun.  Two hours later and it's finished!  (And you'll think fondly of not only your travels but of the friends who helped you put the pages together each time you look through your scrap books.) 

Or pay a stay-at-home mom turned scrapbook consultant to do it for you.  Any scrapbooking store owner will have a list of people willing to help.  It might cost a couple hundred dollars, but the results will be worth it, and you'll be helping a local family stay afloat in these tough economic times.  Or buy pre-made travel scrapbook pages on ebay, and just paste the mementos in.  Easy.

For craft supplies, as long as I love the things and use them (even once a year!), I would get rid of all the other stuff in storage that I don't like.  Then I would make lots of room for the crafty things I do like.  I would make sure that I have all the necessary tools and supports to enjoy my craft supplies, such as proper lighting, sufficient work areas/tables, and cute storage shelves, bins, and baskets.

Finally, for artwork I tire of, I would rotate not only the wall art every few months, but its placement in my home.  One month the print from Provence would be in the dining room, the next month I might move it to the foyer or spare bedroom, and the third month I might put it in the attic until next year.  And if I got really sick of it, I would use the frame for something else, or give it to a friend who helped me put my scrapbooks together, or repaint the frame, or donate the print and buy new artwork.  Hey, we buy fresh flowers every so often, why not fresh artwork?

I hope you are inspired to create the storage areas of your dreams, and clear out what's hanging over your head!


Many blessings on you! 

CONSUMPTION AND THE RISE AND FALL OF JUNK

Most people in developed nations never give much thought to the process of acquiring, using, and discarding.  

We give ample thought--too much time and energy--into just buying stuff, the "acquiring" piece.  We give a little thought to "using" stuff, as long as whatever it is we bought does the job we bought it for, and even less thought to getting rid of the darn thing once we no longer use it (the "discard" piece).


This is a three-step, unique process, not three separate processes.  It's called consumption, and it includes these steps:  


1.  acquire
2.  use
3.  discard.


Although for many of us, the discard piece is often, "Quick! Throw it in the garage (shed, attic, spare bedroom) because company's coming!"  Which technically isn't "discard," it's "hide and deal with it later."


Anyway, how does this relate to your clutter?


Clutter can occur at any step in the consumption process.  So in order to get a handle on your clutter, you must figure out at which step or steps you have the most trouble, and work to solve that problem.


For example, if you shop every day for things that are not food, then you obviously have an "acquiring" problem.  Solve that problem by purchasing fewing things.  Voila, less clutter.  (I know I'm simplifying this step, but acquiring is not primarily the focus of today's post.  Keep reading.)


Or perhaps you have a large amount of useful things--things you YOURSELF know you will use--but for some reason you aren't using them.  You're saving them for some special occasion in the far off, nebulous future.  This is easy to solve:  start using your stash of useful stuff (pens, dishes, towels, knitting wool, fishing lures).  Don't keep these things for some future event or perfect time.  Now is the perfect time to use what you bought to be used!   


And then we have the discard issue.  This is where most everyone has difficulty.  Americans still retain so much of the pioneer spirit, to such a degree that we have great  difficulty letting things go after their useful life has passed, because "you never know when you might need this ________________ " (stripped bike pedal, faded T-shirt, clock that doesn't tell time anymore, pet food dishes you don't use, second-best skis, etc.).


Part of an item's useful life is determined not only by its physical state (faded, ripped, moldy, broken beyond repair, outdated, etc.), but by its owner's real or perceived NEED of this item (i.e. you passed college chemistry; you don't need the textbook anymore).  Therefore, you and you alone must carefully define "useful life" for every item in your possession.  

At SOME POINT you must ask yourself, "What is this item's useful life for me?  Has that point passed?"

If an item has passed its useful life (in your eyes), then it's time to discard it.  And discard can mean recycle, sell (as in the chemistry textbook), give to someone who wants it, compost it, or dozens of other options other than pitching it into the trash can.


Acquire-use-discard.  If you gum up one step in this cycle of consumption, the result is CLUTTER.


A good exercise would be to start at the acquiring phase, and ask yourself, "Am I really going to USE this thing?"  And then ask yourself, "How will I know when its useful life is over for me?"  "And when it's life is over, how will I discard it?"


Whoa.  This is way too heavy for a Monday.


Go throw away the gum wrappers from your purse.  There.  Less clutter.


Have a blessed week!