How can I become an un-hoarder?

[travelover]

........... Items to be kept must be suitably labeled and stored. ...........

Right, like my box labeled "pieces of string too short to keep"

 

[Nords]

What I've been doing off and on for a few years (winter boredom months) is scan and toss the vast majority of our photos, but keep paper copies of the best ones in albums for the future. I don't really need all 32 rolls of pictures from our trip to Italy back in '90.
Scan and toss, scan and toss, rinse and repeat...

I was surprised how much closet shelf space we had dedicated to negatives storage.

I came across some golden-oldie high-school slides that I'm going to have to scan and print out, but I don't see us saving any slide trays either.

Maybe he is Mormon and just having his 2 yr supply of food storage?

I think he can't figure out where to spend his money, so having the ultimate hurricane-food storage site suddenly seems like a reasonable goal.

 

[devans0]

Flylady is a good online alternative to the pro hired way. LBYM! Small progresses, one space at a time. I had to work on my own hoarding instincts before I could point to my dw. She's much better than me but she has her triggers too.

 

[W2R]

One thing that I noticed in the past couple of years is this. I can clean out a closet, donating or giving away everything that I don't absolutely need. Then six months later, not having added anything to the closet contents, I can go back and do it again. I didn't really need all the stuff that I thought I needed.

 

[Retire2013]

I guess I've never been a hoarder in the same class as you, but I used to hang on to things I think I might use someday or might want to, especially tools and hobby supplies. Moving it around to new apartment homes two or three times without using it really helped me lose the desire to hang onto things. Getting financially in shape has helped a lot, too. It's more annoying to have crap in my way that I could easily buy if I actually need it in the future.

I don't have a firm rule, but I'm thinking if I haven't touched it in a year or two, then it's probably time to throw it out.[/QUOTE]


Quick question: Does your "rule" applies to clothing as well?

 

[W2R]

For me, the rules with clothing were:

(1) Does it fit, or is it at least within 1 size of fitting?
(2) Will I have occasion to wear it? (Of my formal meeting clothes for work, I only kept one black dress to use in case of unexpected funerals).
(3) Is it frayed or worn looking, but not something I plan to wear only around the house? (out go the favorite, but very worn casual work clothes)
(4) Will I be happy to wear it and really WANT to wear it? (I actually threw out those shirts with my agency's logo, because I don't work there any more).
(5) Do I really wear this type of thing? (out go the ball caps with company logos)
(6) Does it make me feel happy and pretty?

 

[youbet]

(6) Does it make me feel happy and pretty?

I'm with ya there W2R. I definitely get rid of anything that doesn't make happy ..... and ..... pretty. Like this ragged ole black sweatshirt I have on right now. I'm happy and I am sooooo pretty. There's something about a sweatshirt that's been through the laundry 100+ times to bring out the best in a man's appearance!

 

[W2R]

I'm with ya there W2R. I definitely get rid of anything that doesn't make happy ..... and ..... pretty. Like this ragged ole black sweatshirt I have on right now. I'm happy and I am sooooo pretty. There's something about a sweatshirt that's been through the laundry 100+ times to bring out the best in a man's appearance!

Maybe I should have said "happy and/or attractive." Or, "Do I look forward to getting a chance to wear it?" I do have some oversized men's t-shirts with holes in them that I like to wear when doing projects by myself around the house. They are comfy and make me feel happy (but not pretty).

Nothing that I wear outside the house can be all comfy and ugly with holes in it (or frayed), though. It has to make me feel pretty.

 

[jazz4cash]

Right, like my box labeled "pieces of string too short to keep"

Had any emotional events lately?............just askin.

 

[BigMoneyJim]

I am not entirely convinced, for instance, that is true for photographs. I wonder if there will be devices available fifty/hundrd years from now with which to view them. I have no such fear that human eyesight will become obsolete.

Think about who will actually want to look at your photos in 50-100 years. I went through a little mental journey when trying to work out which photos to get scanned, at what resolution and how hard I should work to preserve as much of the original quality as possible. (I went the DIY route and bought a good photo scanner.)

Long story short, I realized that most of the photos I like, I am the only one that cares at all about them. A photo I took of the Grand Canyon or Mount McKinley or Isla Verde are pretty, but there are better photos readily available. Nobody cares about the ones I took except for me because they put me back there rather than just show me a flat photo. Photos of people, however, have interest to others.

So my plan is to focus on scanning non-redundant photos of people for sharing, and I can either take a nostalgic trip through my photo box every now and then or go through the trouble of scanning it all in if I get tired of having the photo box around.

Quick question: Does your "rule" applies to clothing as well?

You made me look. Yes, actually, I have apparently cleaned the closet out a couple of times. There are some specialty clothing items like a suit and a life jacket, and come to think of it the suits might be reviewable to see if they still fit and look ok. There are two long sleeve patterned shirts that I never wear, perhaps it's time to throw those out. I always think I'll wear them for work in cold weather, but I just don't like long sleeves and haven't worn them. I also have a few old patterned work shirts with missing buttons. Perhaps it's time to toss them since it hasn't mattered enough to get them fixed. Also just 3 ties.

For the most part I have gotten rid of too big / too small stuff, but a couple of months ago the Dillards outlet had a crazy sale and I bought a bunch of shirts, many for under $5 each, but most of them are just a tad too small for me right now. If they don't fit in a few months I expect I'll get tired of looking at them and toss them.
-----
I sorta kinda hoarded documents, specifically paycheck stubs, bank statements and investment account statements (but not credit card statements...those went into a 12-month rotating file). I bought this document scanner largely to declutter work documents, but used it to great effect on my files. I went from 3 crates of files to one, and I figure I can reduce that by half with some more effort. The linked scanner is expensive at $400-$450 relative to most home scanners, but it takes all the hassle out of document scanning. I can stack letter-sized paper and receipts, and it handles them quite well. It scans both sides of the document in one pass, no flipping it over. The included software (full version of Acrobat, too, by the way) can do many things with the scans, but I put everything in searchable PDF. When I get a new piece of paper I want to image, I just open the top, press the button, and zip it's scanned, the paper goes in the trash. Now the challenge is to maintain a backup system, although copies on two hard drives in the same house is more robust than one paper copy in a file.

 

[obgyn65]

If anyone on this board is considering throwing clothes away please kindly email me before doing so. I am going to El Salvador and Guatemala in December to help patients. Many of these patients need clothes (especially shoes for their kids). Friends of mine can handle the shipping. Thank you.

We tend to use the things at the top of a drawer or the front of a shelf, so do we really need all the other stuff in there?

 

[DangerMouse]

Truthfully I wouldn't even attempt to try and deal with the excess you have accumulated until you have attempted to resolve the cause of why you are hoarding. Until you find the root cause of your actions is anything likely to change long term?

As others have suggested watch a few episodes of Hoarders on A&E, it may give you some ideas into why you are hoarding. From what I have seen on this show, the hoarding tendencies don't tend to just disappear if they go untreated.

Lastly, and I mean this in a non-judgemental way, do not bring children into the mix if you have a serious hoarding problem. I only say that because of what I observed on Hoarders on family dynamics. Hoarding tends to devastate the entire family, causes awful rifts and stress for those who want to change the hoarder. Most of the children seem to hold deep resentment towards the hoarding parent.

Lastly don't be ashamed as I would say that most people have hoarding tendencies to differing degrees. I always find it interesting when you drive down a street and observe massive McMansions with 4 car garages stacked full of what appears to be crap.

I think for many of us our childhood shapes how we act as adults. I see in our house, DH is a "collector" and he comes from a parent who puts a lot of emphasis on "things". On the other hand I am a "tosser" I came from a background of chaos and not many things so have no need for them now.

 

[BigMoneyJim]

I seem to be in transition from mild-to-moderate hoarder to moderate tosser. I guess the core motivation for me is utility. I tended to collect books, records-as-in-documents and tools of any variety (including kitchen utensils, hobby items like cameras, etc.). I was always thinking of how they could be useful now or in the future, even if I never quite got around to charting my investment performance history, using the darkroom equipment to make prints of my best photos or fixing that old 800MHz Duron laptop someone gave me but has a short in the charger connection.

But now I don't DIY as much, and I have more money to make a purchase when something is broken if it's not worth the effort to fix it. And techonolgy has changed the paradigm for record retention and photography.

Utility is still the motivation, but I see what I don't follow-through on, and the stuff I've kept is getting in my way more and more, so now it's more useful to toss the unused stuff with the knowledge that I can rebuy if I ever follow through. And it's a numbers game. I throw out several projects worth of tools, supplies and books, and I may eventually follow through on one or two of them, and I avoid transporting them in the next move(s) and tripping over them or digging around them so I can better enjoy the things I do use.

I'm still dejunking a bit, and I realized this week I'm extremely reluctant to break a set of items, even to give part away and keep part. For example I don't use my dining set mugs or saucers or half of a set of knives. Now that I've identified my reluctance I think I can overcome it quickly, because rationally it's silly.

I have a box full of music CDs that I've converted to MP3, but I'm still hanging onto them as if an RIAA auditor will stop by someday to make sure I have proof of ownership of all my digital music. I may still hang onto those...I'm not quite sure why. Everything I had on cassette tape or vinyl is already replaced by CD or Amazon MP3. I think...actually last I looked I still had one small box of cassettes...it's time to ferret it out and toss it.

 

[Sarah in SC]

BMJ, you can toss the cassettes, but let me paw through your vinyl collection before you throw them away!

 

[FinanceDude]

I set the rules down for the new basement rec room (almost 500 square feet). If clutter finds its way into that room I put it away once. If it appears a second time, I get rid of it. I told DW that policy applies to her also, and that did not go over well............

 

[ERD50]

I set the rules down for the new basement rec room (almost 500 square feet). If clutter finds its way into that room I put it away once. If it appears a second time, I get rid of it. I told DW that policy applies to her also, and that did not go over well............

Let me know how that works for you

I have a room that I am guilty of letting junk accumulate in. I'm trying to do better, but DW will put stuff in there and not tell me. We have her stuff piled on my stuff. She borrowed some stuff from friends for a big gathering we had here, and months later she hasn't returned it - it is stacked in that room.

I was going to put it all in her car, as a 'subtle' hint, but I know how that will go over...

-ERD50

 

[W2R]

Many of us have been doing some major decluttering this year, and now we have hoarders on the verge of un-hoarding.

Has anyone noticed how FREEING it is to get rid of a lot of stuff? It's hard to do sometimes, but wow - - - it is really worth doing.

 

[Martha]

For me, the rules with clothing were:

(
(5) Do I really wear this type of thing? (out go the ball caps with company logos)
(

I love caps with company logos. I want yours. And everyone else's too.

 

[FinanceDude]

Let me know how that works for you

On the plus side, we have a comfy coach on that room, so I ready!!

Somebody has to take a stand, might as well be me, I have been fighting authority my entire life.........

 

[FUEGO]

I love caps with company logos. I want yours. And everyone else's too.

Hoarder!

 

[FinanceDude]

Hoarder!

My dad has a Preperation H hat my grandfather got from the drugstore about 40 years ago, should I have him PM you for your address?

 

[ERD50]

Has anyone noticed how FREEING it is to get rid of a lot of stuff? It's hard to do sometimes, but wow - - - it is really worth doing.

Actually, that's part of the problem for me. So I sort out a shelf with five boxes on it, and after three boring hours I have it whittled down to 2 boxes. Just isn't much motivation really. It does help make things easier to find, but that's not too exciting.

I guess I need to envision a project for that space, and really give me a reason to do something. I dunno.

-ERD50

 

[ERD50]

Somebody has to take a stand, might as well be me, I have been fighting authority my entire life.........

And I bet we both have the bruises to prove it!

-ERD50

 

[W2R]

Many of us have been doing some major decluttering this year, and now we have hoarders on the verge of un-hoarding.

Has anyone noticed how FREEING it is to get rid of a lot of stuff? It's hard to do sometimes, but wow - - - it is really worth doing.

(emphasis added)

Actually, that's part of the problem for me. So I sort out a shelf with five boxes on it, and after three boring hours I have it whittled down to 2 boxes. Just isn't much motivation really. It does help make things easier to find, but that's not too exciting.

I guess I need to envision a project for that space, and really give me a reason to do something. I dunno.

-ERD50

One shelf is not a lot of stuff, and it is just not enough to feel much change. Get radical! Frank and I both think it really feels great to be so free and unencumbered, and so far we haven't missed any of the junk that we no longer have.

 

[DangerMouse]

Actually, that's part of the problem for me. So I sort out a shelf with five boxes on it, and after three boring hours I have it whittled down to 2 boxes. Just isn't much motivation really. It does help make things easier to find, but that's not too exciting.

I guess I need to envision a project for that space, and really give me a reason to do something. I dunno.

-ERD50

Nothing wrong with whittling down from 5 boxes to 2. The key is to do that as your first stage, revisit the area in 6 months and you will wonder why on earth you kept any of it.

I find the more you sort in one sitting the easier it becomes to just toss it all out.

Don't even worry about having a project for the space, you would not believe the sense of joy we get from gazing at an empty space that was once consumed by junk.