Help me declutter - I didn't think it could upset me!

SmarterNotHarder

Hi folks,

I've been reading threads on this forum for a while, so have been trying to live with less stuff generally and have no problems letting go of clothes etc.

I've hit a block though. I still have a bunch of books/papers/assignments etc from secondary school upwards, and for some reason I'm fighting myself while geting rid of them.

It's the uni work from the course I never finished thats the hardest though. There is absolutely no point in me keeping it, my head knows that, it was ten years ago and even if I did go back to finish, the course materials/teaching points etc would all have changed.

So why am I finding this so hard and how do I get over it and get it done?

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Susan1962

Hi. I had a similar problem with old course materials and even lugged them round various flats until I reached this house and stayed put. They sat in boxes, gathering dust and doing me no good but I struggled to get rid of them. Then about 10 years ago I found Flylady. Now I have to be honest - Kondoing has worked better for me than Flylady's methods for decluttering but it's what was there at the time and it was what was needed at the time. It sounds as if you're getting to the stage where you need to let go but are still finding excuses/reasons for not doing so but really it's time to get rid of them. Imagine them as a giant weight on your shoulders, because mentally that's what they are. They are always at the back of your mind, dragging you down. Letting go is such a relief! It might also be - assuming you've followed the KM order for decluttering that these particular papers are not supposed to be dealt with as paperwork, but as sentimental clutter, in which case you're building up your willpower as you go and you'll be able to deal with them in due course.

PS - a few years after this I found a box of old paperwork that had escaped the purge. When I opened it, it was yellow at the edges, faded and smelled disgusting. For some reason, really old dusty paper starts to smell like stale pee. Sorry if that's TMI, but it might help you get motivated LOL

dingdongsaving

I'm a genetic hoarder from a family of teachers and can absolutely sympathise with that feeling of "what if" and the horribly anticipation of guilt. What if something is thrown out and is then needed later on??? :eek:

It sounds as if you know this isn't the case here though..."if" you went back to the course you'd have different requirements so you shouldn't need to ever look back and regret letting it all go.

Think of the relief once you've made the decision (either way) and acted on it!

My worst struggle with keeping old things was def. clothes and toys after having our son as we knew we'd have another...as well as keeping all of my fatter/pregnancy and post pregnancy "slimming back down" clothes ready for number 2.

DD (baby number 2) is now 15months and I literally ADORE throwing EVERYTHING she and I have "fitted" through/don't need anymore to friends and family who want them for their own little ones...and if nobody wants it I take it straight to the charity shop. I love the feeling of having a clean and tidy house that only has what we "need" and "really, really want" in it.

Good luck! :T

NoGoodNamesLeft

If you really can't bring yourself to throw some of the papers away completely, can you scan them? That way you can get rid of the paper, but you have 'safety net' which might make it easier to let go of the hard copies.

moneyistooshorttomention

At a guess - maybe because certain possessions are something you see as meaning something about you as a person - ie what sort of person etc etc.

Part of a possession is not just the utility value shall we say? Its = I'm the sort of person who is an academic/who is a foodie/who is a nice person/who "changes the world" etc etc.

With the nature of the possessions concerned I'd say that's a big clue there that you are saying to yourself "Well this is evidence that I'm not stupid. If I were stupid I wouldn't have started a university course".

Perhaps if you find other ways to prove to yourself/others that you aren't stupid then you might feel able to get rid of those particular possessions iyswim???

These things aren't necessarily logical. There could be some other woman keeping clothes designed to be bought by elegant/attractive women with slim figures - but they've changed a heck of a lot since they bought them (or never were that woman in the first place). They would not want to get rid of those clothes because it would be seen by them as an admission they were never going to be slim again and/or had never been an elegant/attractive woman iyswim.

Yep...I got rid of the couple of items of "career person" clothing I had bought specially when I decided that it didn't look like I was going to be swopping from a job to a career anyway - long story....and out went the "classy" suit....

GreyQueen

SmarterNotHarder wrote: »

It's the uni work from the course I never finished thats the hardest though. There is absolutely no point in me keeping it, my head knows that, it was ten years ago and even if I did go back to finish, the course materials/teaching points etc would all have changed.

So why am I finding this so hard and how do I get over it and get it done?

I think a lot of things of this nature are hard to part from because they're evidence. You chose to mention that you hadn't finished your course, and I think that's the crux of the problem; you subconsciously feel that you will need these materials in order to finish the course, and while you have them, you haven't 'failed' at the course, it's not really over, it's just on pause for a while.

I'm deliberately using inverted commas around the 'failed' because it's not how I see your experience, or anyone else's who doesn't complete on something they started, but how I think your subconcious might be viewing things. Your rational brain clearly identifies that even if you went back to your studies, it wouldn't be with these materials, so they are worthless.

Some objects exist as evidence of what we did, even if we didn't finish it. Can you invisage some future hostile conversation where someone disparges your intellect and you cry Aha! That's not true! I studied X at Y place and here's the proof, I have the course work from 2004-2005 so there, you take that remark back, you dirty rotten scoundrel!!

Not really going to happen, is it?

I have an arts degree I don't use in my working life. For several years after graduation, I kept three very nice Daler portfolios lying over the joists in my parents' loft. Nothing else of mine was in their home, just these items. They weren't in anyone's way but they were taking up space in my head.

I knew I wouldn't use them, and that the materials they were made from (plasticised board and vinyl) would die in storage. They were relatively expensive and I didn't have much money and could use what they'd make, but by getting rid of them, I would be acknowledging that I had pursued a course of study which I was not best suited for, and had acquired a debilitating illness whilst a student (ME) which would limit my options.

Then I told myself that I chose my degree subject as a 17 year old - so shoot me if I made a mistake. And, bad as I felt about the sunk costs in those portfolios, I would feel even worse when they died in storage and ended up in landfill.

I arranged to have the family fetch them to my flat when next coming my way, checked the new price, priced these as-new items at 50% of new and sold them immediately. They were 2 x A1 and 1 x A2 folios, probably weighed only a few kilos put together but the mental weight their departure took off my shoulders was incalcuable.

Let your coursework go, my dear. Perhaps have a ceremonial bonfire for it. Shed a few tears if you feel moved to do so, and move on.

dktreesea

Hi, this thread ticks so many boxes for me. Evidence/identity, nostalgia, I "might need it one day"....


Maybe you could check out your books on Amazon and see if there is still demand for them and if so, can you sell them for more than the postage cost? I suggest allowing £4 or so for postage and packing, and not to forget to add back the net postage allowance you would get (£2.32) and take off their commission (15%). Some textbooks, even ones ten years old, can still have demand and sell for a tidy sum.


If it's any consolation, I still have manuals going back to a different life nearly 15 years ago which I can guarantee I will never use again. So why are they still with me? Well, for starters, they are so buried I am not sure where exactly they all are. Laziness, nostalgia for the past, regret at waiting so long to leave that life that I was 99.9% sure I wouldn't go back to the day I left it. Anxiety that I may have to go back to it (i.e. needing the money) , so may need the manuals once more.


I have clothes still from that time. I can still get into them but have no reason to wear them anymore. Some of them probably qualify as vintage by now. If I listed them on Ebay, or took them to the very nice exchange shop downstairs, I could probably get £30 to £40 for some of them.


So why haven't I? Having read through some of the comments on your thread, I'd say one big reason, which I hadn't thought of until now, (so thankyou, moneyistooshorttomention and greyqueen for raising this as a reason) is evidence. They signify a time when I was more successful workwise/financially. I wasn't necessarily happier, but I did have a life with much more choice than I have now.


There's also a fear factor. When what I need and/or would really like to keep wouldn't even take up a cubic meter, what on earth would I do with all the space? Maybe hoarders suffer from some form of fear of large spaces....

Callie22

I really struggled to get rid of my university notes - I must have saved well over twenty, very full foolscap folders of notes, along with lord knows how much general detritus - journals, workbooks, notebooks etc. I dragged the boxes with me through half a dozen house moves, until one day I got so fed up with it taking up space, time and money to move that I went through it all and dumped 99% of it in the recycling bin. I felt so free when they took it away! The only things that I saved were my marked essays, which had my tutor's comments on them.

I still have my degree, I still have my memories of university and those things don't live in boxes of paper. I realised that the content of the folders was becoming less and less relevant, and what use it had was decreasing with every day it lived in a box. I wanted to use the physical and mental space it was taking up for other things, so it was time to get rid of it. I can honestly say that in the five or six years since I chucked it all away, I've never needed it and I've never missed it.

FrugalWorker

I used to keep all my old books, and they really weighed me down as I hadn't finished them. They were a bit like looking at the person I wanted to be - someone who had read all of those books. And yet, I didn't finish them, and when I looked at them, I didn't feel all warm and fuzzy, just a bit guilty at having spent all this money on these books and yet I didn't really want to read them all.

I decided if I ever did want to read one, I could get it out of the library or I could just buy it again - I have never once missed them, and I'm over the guilt. I view it as a lesson now.

You're using them to define yourself in your head. You are more than your belongings. Keeping them doesn't make you a better person. In fact I find getting rid of things that are defining you free up your mind to new experiences or opportunities. I would just take the plunge and rip that plaster off.

SmarterNotHarder

Thank you everyone, you've all been incredibly helpful. I'll reply properly later, but thank you again for giving me something to think about.

dktreesea

Just thinking back to how I even got into filling up the space, when I was young, a waste of space didn't mean what it does now.


Nowadays I think of this phrase as meaning having things in the space that I never use, with the aim to have free, unused - uncluttered!!- space. But when I was growing up I realise now that this isn't what my parents and grandparents meant by the phrase. To them, a waste of space was having space that you weren't "putting to good use". So cupboards were crammed, the tin bath tub was hung on the inside of the pantry door, even though it made the pantry awkward to use, (presumably because to do otherwise was to waste the opportunity of using the pantry door as a storage place) and having the living room "cosy" meant, to me, having three pieces of furniture too much. Talking to an older relative, she was saying that a waste of space meant having a house too big for your needs, and possibly even implied that you couldn't afford to use (aka fill) the space you had at your disposal. Hence massive vegetable gardens and glass houses rather than croquet lawns out the back of some of my relatives houses. The stack of newspapers near the front door, so long regarded in my memory as something the occupants of the house were too lazy to dispose of I now realise were kept for an entirely different reason. As status symbols. To show the visitors (far more than these days) the household could afford a daily newspaper. And bookshelves everywhere. The books were dusted (rather than donated to be sold at a church fete). Nowadays too many things represents a complete waste of money, whereas back in the day it represented a cosy household with a fair bit of wealth. One couldn't be seen to be "having to do without".