I was home for Christmas at my parents’ house. They painted my old bedroom – over the sweet orange/rust colored paint job from high school with a classy blue and finally took down my posters (the audacity!).  They also asked me to get rid of some of my old stuff that was sitting down in the basement.

I find it really hard to clean out old stuff.  I have it for a reason right?  I bought it because I liked it, or I earned it in a sporting event, or maybe I wrote a good essay about cows in high school that I need to keep.  I also love collecting things, even more so when I was a kid.  I have a wooden box collection from all over the world, which is my prized collection, and in the past I have collected: stamps, rocks, coins, bottle caps, cards, comic books, candles, music, signed baseballs, board games, and probably more that I can’t think of right now.

The point is that I have lots of cool stuff, or stuff that I used to think was cool (like my giant shirts that I never grew into).  As I sat down to sort though this stuff and throw some of it out, I immediately felt analysis paralysis, and wanted to quit.  I felt like I couldn’t throw away my old text books -  “they were so expensive and what if I need them sometime in the future?” And “I can’t throw out my rocks that I spent so much time collecting when I was 9, besides, what if my kids want to see my rock collection someday”? Well, they can probably collect their own rocks – they might not even like the same rocks as me!  I don’t even have kids! And, instead of using an old textbook, it turns out you can just look stuff up on the interwebs.

There was all kinds of stuff I didn’t even remember I had (And I definitive don’t remember the stuff I have given away over the years).  I didn’t even care about it until I held it in my hand! But the memories associated with the objects came rushing back to me. Boom, instant connection with a part of my past.  It felt like if I threw it away, I would be throwing away that memory! You are getting rid of part of your brain! I need to remind myself that the memory will still be there – if I need to access it, I will.

The other hard part of cleaning out junk is that every item requires a decision to keep or chuck.  We are cognitive misers and can only make so many decisions in a day – which is why shopping gets so tiring, or why Barack Obama only wears blue suits or gray suits (by not having to decide what to wear each morning, he can save his decisive power for big world-leader-type decisions). Once I get to the end of my capacity for decision making, I find that I end up just chucking everything, or saving everything, neither of which is ideal.  I end up having to take breaks every 45 minutes or so to regain some of my decisive brainpower.

Every time I go through cleaning and get rid of a bunch of stuff, especially stuff that was importation to me just a few years before, It reminds me of what a consumer I am. Cleaning reminds me to think long and hard before I buy anything new.  Am I going to love this in another 15 years, even if my lifestyle and interests completely change?  That is the basis of my mindset behind buying high quality, durable products.  You will still catch me wearing my yellow fluorescent Patagonia jacket from 15 years ago!

Are you a hoarder or a neat freak? Do you sort and organize without throwing anything out? Do you clean as a means of procrastinating other chores? Is a clean living space necessary for you to function? Leave a comment below with your organization style.