Since I have a goal to craft more efficiently, and spend my craft budget more efficiently, having a bunch of extra stuff between me and the things I want to make is getting in the way. I’ve been collecting craft supplies since I was 8. Knowing how much money I’ve put into them, how much energy I’ve used moving them, and how many memories are attached to some items, it’s really really hard to get rid of… anything. But I’ve gotten to the point where the only way to organize all of this stuff would be to take over another room and buy more shelving and boxes for it too. I thought about it. I did. But then I realized two things. That’s expensive, and that’s insane. I need to reduce the amount of stuff to an amount that can be organized in the given space. Heck, I have more space than a lot of people (I don’t know how you do it, New Yorkers) and I’m still spilling out of it.
Here are a few ideas that help me decide what stays and what goes. Your actual mileage may vary, but I hope at least one will be helpful to you:
- If you kept if for sentimental reasons, if you know you’ll never use it, but it reminds you of Grandma, Mom, or that great trip to the Yukon, consider taking a picture of it instead and getting rid of the item.
- Go through your stuff with a stack of Post-it notes or flags. Take out each item and rate it on a scale of one to ten, indicating how much you like it. Not it’s usefulness, not it’s beauty, not it’s potential, just how much you like it. Then take everything under a 7 and get rid of it.
- Set a time period for yourself, anything from that’s 6 months-5 years. Commit to getting rid of anything you’ve kept longer than that and never used, or haven’t used since then.
- Go through a box (or your storage method) and every time you think to yourself “I forgot I had that!” toss it.
- Find any doubles you own of anything. Get rid of one of them.
- Be honest with yourself. If you loved it when you bought it and now it’s not your thing anymore than it can go.
I know this can be hard. I suggest tackling projects like this in 15 minute increments. Set a timer, work on it for 15 minutes, then go do something else. You can do the next 15 whenever you like, but you have to take a break in between.
Also, you may start seeing piles of things you want to get rid of and thinking about how much money that pile represents. Tomorrow we’ll talk about how to get rid of these things with as little guilt as possible.
The Organizing week! Day one… what to keep? by FasterCraft, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
