There are three main ways to get rid of your clutter. Sell it, donate/give it away, or trash/recycle it. That’s the easy part. The hard part is letting go of the item in the first place.
I’ve been putting things to sell or give away in several containers for the past couple of months. I was hoping there would be a subdivision garage sale. I don’t have enough stuff to have a sale on my own.
Last month my subdivision newsletter (I’m on the committee) asked the residents if they were interested in having a subdivision garage sale. It’s been a couple of years since the last one. As of right now it doesn’t appear there are enough people who want to participate.
So now I will have to go through the containers and decide what can be donated to charities, recycled, or trashed. I had planned to put many of the items in a “free” box because they weren’t worth selling or donating. Now they may have to go in the trash.
I’m not a person who is good at the philosophy of “Do as I say, not as I do”. That is why when I wrote the eBook,”Decluttering With A Garage Sale” I included chapters on not only what to do with the leftovers from a sale but how to decide if it’s even worth having a garage sale. In other words, I wrote the book to be used as a tool to help get you (and myself) motivated to clear out the unused and unneeded items in our homes.
If you have been reading my posts and newsletters over the years you know I like to play “mind games” to help motivate me to take action. Even if you never intend to have a garage sale getting in that kind of mindset can help you be more objective when deciding what to keep and what to get rid of. It’s our emotional attachment, which many times is illogical, that keeps us from letting go of things.
Isn’t it funny how hard it is to break that emotional attachment when you are thinking of giving away or throwing away an item but it’s easy if you think you can get money for it? A double standard?
Learn to be objective. If you are willing to let go of an item because you might make some money from it then you obviously don’t need or want that item very much. Evict it from your home because it is a freeloader and not adding any kind of value to your life.
To a lighter load along the way.
Janice