Tag: decluttering

Boxing Day: Box it up!

You don’t have to be a minimalist to want to declutter your life after Christmas. We, who are lucky enough to live in wealthy countries, have more than our fair share of possessions and after a while, the sheer volume of it makes us feel stifled. Never more so than after Christmas, when even more things come into our homes, not all of it is welcome.

Generally, I try to give presents that are consumables like special items of food or at least useful around the house. I do make an exception with a friend with whom I exchange ridiculous gifts, but even these are practical. I don’t get hung up on whether things I give get re-gifted; if I got it wrong, let someone else enjoy it! Nor do I mind giving money if I know it is the best gift for the person.

I find it difficult to fathom that people would want to go out and spend more money on Boxing Day sales, unless, of course, there is something very special that they have been waiting for. For me, Boxing Day is a good day to begin the purge and box up all the things I no longer need. I go through my wardrobe and ask myself honestly whether I have worn that item in the past year, whether it still fits me and whether I still like it. If the answer is no to any of these questions, it gets folded and put into a box. I also go through my linen cupboard, shoes, kitchen utensils, herbs and spices, and food items at the back of the cupboard. The only thing that escapes my scrutiny is books. We all have our weaknesses.

While I am by no means a loyal follower of Marie Kondo, there is some truth in what she has to say. Although, she too has changed her tune somewhat since she has had children. She is less rigid and acknowledges the inevitable clutter that comes with raising kids. If you have children, you will need to be much more flexible with your approach to clutter. Still, you can go through clothes that no longer fit and toys that no longer hold their interest. Box it up!

Those of us who don’t have young children in our care need to think about the things we have accumulated and whether they will help or hinder us when transitioning into the next stage of our lives. Moving from a house to a small townhouse at the beginning of the year has certainly taught me about which things spark joy and which things spark nothing but trip hazards. There is only so much that fits into that container, which we refer to as our home.

I am not advocating Swedish Death Cleaning either. As far as I’m concerned, if someone benefits from receiving my inheritance, let them clean up after me. No, I am advocating doing some decluttering for ourselves. We will be the beneficiaries of a place where we can easily find things and where we can walk to the bathroom at night without encountering an obstacle course of our own making.

Let Christmas Day be about giving and receiving. Enjoy the presents, the food, and your loved ones. Then, when Boxing Day comes, and you look at the mess that’s left behind, take out the boxes and begin sorting. Come the New Year, you will be so thankful you did.

Photos on my phone

Fifteen years ago, I had to remember to take a camera if I wanted to take a photo. I may have remembered to take it along to special occasions or when we went on holidays. I chose my subjects carefully and tried to take the perfect photo in one shot. Before digital cameras, the roll of Kodak film often sat in the fridge for a year or two before I remembered to have it developed. The result was either joy at remembering a forgotten moment or the disappointment of a badly executed composition. Usually, it was the latter.

Now that we all have a camera in our pockets, it is easier than ever to take bad photos. The only difference is that we don’t have to print them. We now store these along with the thousands of other photos on our phones, computers and of course the cloud. We keep it all because we can. We have photos of wi-fi passwords, breakfasts we have consumed months ago, screen shots of travel arrangements and of course thousands of photos of pets and the occasional human.

By the time we have several thousand photos, culling becomes a chore best avoided. There’s always something more important on the to do list.  Who wants to spend hours making one decision after another? Generally, this task is only attempted when we are running out of memory on our devices. Even then, people will go to great lengths to avoid pressing the delete button. The number of photos slowing down a device is often the excuse for buying a new phone or iPad with bigger memory and better camera to continue our bad habits.

I have recently updated my computer and decided it was a good time to do some digital culling. I deleted thousands of files and even made a start on the photos. My worst offenders were images of work-related PowerPoint presentations that reminded me of my good intentions to revisit them. Of course, I haven’t looked at them. Not once. This was followed by random photos of cute dogs, hundreds of photos of my daughter at graduation, catching each expression milliseconds apart. I do it because it is easy; just a slight push on the glass screen and I have a memory that is less likely to fail than the memory stored in my mind. At the same time, I realise it is another version of mindless consumerism. I can now outsource remembering to my phone.

My friend Lizzie once gave me some advice when I felt overwhelmed with my (lack of) filing. The piles of paper were screaming at me every time I entered the room. I felt shame and a good measure of embarrassment whenever I glanced across at the papers. She suggested spending no more than 15 minutes on the task each afternoon. It worked. Slowly the pile began to recede and as I acquired stamina, I could face twenty minutes or even half an hour to get it done. The problem I have always faced is all or nothing thinking. Either I sort through the lot, or it isn’t worth starting. Yet the reality is that deleting 5 photos is better than deleting none.

Currently, I still carry 5 838 photos and 132 videos in my pocket. What about you?