Been talking with parents about end of life matters. Shared several interesting articles like this one about one’s digital legacy. And I found another one today about cleaning out prior to dying.
My wife and I watched a show years ago where a crew came into a house and helped the owners clean out and remove things that were no longer needed. They brought things outside the house from three rooms and put them in a keep, sell or trash groups. It inspired us to do a MAJOR purge at our prior house. Before we moved to our current house, we did another purge.
A few weeks ago, I did a major purge or my cables, adapters, software, plugs, etc. equipment that has been saved over the years. I threw away multiple trash cans full of cables and the like. Interestingly, the VERY NEXT DAY, a friend pinged me looking for a prior Mac video adapter which likely was outside in my trash can.
Today, I went to my closet and started purging clothes (again). It is SO HARD to part with clothes that are great clothes but you never wear. It is nearly an intractable problem. One almost needs to force oneself to keep one and purge one. Even that is hard. Not sure how to best do this. Certainly, I don’t need any new clothes for a while. (Those of you who see me regularly please be ok with this).
Next week I’m going through suits, slacks, and sports coats. After that, I’m going through old software CDs, etc. I just want to trim back. Purge. Reduce.
Related, I’ve tried to wait to order from Amazon until I had multiple things I wanted/needed/desired and when I’ve had 4 or 5 or more items, I’ve placed the order. I’ve noticed that Amazon still ships them in multiple boxes! I guess things are coming from different warehouses, but it is so frustrating. I try to reduce my ‘carbon footprint’ and still can’t with Amazon. Argh……..
Stop buying things…
SugarHill 
We may have talked about this before, but yes, the solution is to STOP BUYING THINGS after you’ve cleaned out. Don’t let the clutter accumulate again. The year I went not buying things except groceries and gifts for others was very enlightening for me and made me realize how much I had!
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I think I need an intervention.
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I want to hear more about this. Your “rules”, things that surprised you, were difficult, what I don’t know to ask….. I have done a year+ buying local or buying Made in Oklahoma, and as a last resort, Made in the USA. It was tough but doable and I found I bought so much less if I couldn’t meet my requirements.
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Jennifer, are you asking about rules to purge or rules to buy? Not sure what you are thinking about here. I can list some things I think about when purging and know a few tricks.
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I ×want to hear about the original commenter’s year of buying nothing…. Sounds fascinating and maybe my next year’s goal.
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