Paralyzed by Your Possessions? Read On

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Hi again. Have just had a debate with some friends whether a 4 hour shift is possible for a modern family. A guy I work with, his wife is a minimalist because she works in insurance doing total loss claims and she says that 95% of people don't know 50% of what is in their house, and working with people trying to figure out what was in their house every day turned her into a minimalist. Their home is lovely but no clutter, no doodads, very organised - and they have a child and a baby! Anyway, they moved their 4 bedroom house in around four hours - we turned up to help and it was already done.
Their daughter has a set of plastic cube drawers that live in her wardrobe, one drawer is her Barbie drawer, one is her arts & crafts drawer, so on and so on. When she wants to play with Barbie the Barbie drawer comes and when she's finished playing it all goes back into the cube drawer and back into the drawer unit. Their theory is that's plenty of Barbies for one girl, she doesn't actually need the Barbie space shuttle, the Barbie RV and the Barbie vet clinic too. Its a system easy enought for a 5 year old to manage, and contributes to a minimalist household.

Moni Gilbert 7:47PM February 15, 2012

Mid 90's my husband and I had 1 baby son and were still renting, rentals in our area are often short term due to being a holiday location and often to secure the next rental you had to be prepared to move in that very night to prevent squatters. So we had to shift a lot over 18 months. Admittedly being a young couple we didn't have an excessive amount of furniture but every shift we ditched unneccessary stuff. By our last few shifts we could completely move house in 4 hours from hearing from signing a rental agreement & going home to pack and shift to being unpacked in the next house. Just us and a bro in law to help move the heavy items. Ten years later in the same house and an extra two children, it took us weeks to pack up, two days to shift with all of us plus 3 girl friends and 5 blokes. Crazy! So we have decided that that has to end and have spent six months slowly decluttering. I agree with Joshua Hudson that an area needs 4 "culls" at least to really do a good job, so it seems like I'm going around and around the house repeatedly, but each time possessions seem to lose value to me. The digital age is a blessing because I took all our photo negatives to a shop and got them converted to digital jpegs which I loaded to an external hardrive (and digital picture frame), family movies have been put onto DVD, and we've uploaded all the music to an MP3 system. Took time, but boy does it make life easy.
I haven't yet achieved my goal of being able to mobilise in 4 hours if necessary but I'm sure, even with a bigger house and 3 kids, we will get there again.
We live in a tsunami risk zone, and have had to evacuate 3 times now, it is interesting what it is each of us grabs to take. People are important not possessions.

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AyNSCSfbPXUl of 12:16PM August 10, 2009

I've only just begun this dastardly business of sorting through one's long-forgotten self. Today I took a baby step. I seized the moment as my uncooperative spouse escaped to do run his errands. I took possession of a small portion of the garage and started to re-establish a kinship with shadowy bags and boxes from the past. In the midst of gathering items for a Purple Heart pickup this week, I was confronted with a canvas bag containing stuff from a former self of 35 years ago: thinner, single, working in a New York magazine internsip program. It's moments like this - frozen in recalling all the possibilities and promise - that make downsizing such a daring and fearful chore. But there's about six large bags there in the mud room now, so I guess I muddled through okay for a first attempt. Will it be easier next week?

edda of PA 6:31PM July 28, 2009

My mother committed suicide in 1985 and my father passed away in January 1988. I was left with his tools, which I can still "smell" his presence when I open the toolbox. Mom had written letters to her mom (my grandmother) in 1945. I really want to down-size, but I want to keep part of their possessions, as it feels like I am keeping part of them. I realize this sounds silly, but it is difficult to get rid of sentimental items.
Tom Moore of Ohio

Tom Moore of OH 8:56AM July 13, 2009

Join a Freecycle group. There are 4,770 groups with 6,955,000 members across the globe. You can get a free membership to a local group where you can offer your possessions to the other members. Whoever wants the item has to come and pick it up.
It's great to know that someone else will be using your no-longer needed stuff.
To find a local group, just go to: http://www.freecycle.org/

monique theriault of CA 6:02PM July 03, 2009

My son was 44 when he died 3 years ago. At first I didn't want to get rid of clothes. I was going to remake some of his shirts for me. I put them in a box and opened it a few months ago. I finally gave them to Goodwill. I still have some little things that he saved that mean something only to me. I have started a special bin where I put them and will be able to look at them from time to time. He had an apartment in Manhattan, and a Lodge in upstate NY. I hated having to divide things I wanted, things my daughter wanted, things I wanted her to have and what to sell or give to charity. It's not easy but I am beginning to feel better about some of the things I have given away. I had to integrate his furniture with mine and now my living room is full to the brim. Perhaps some day I will want to give some of them to my daughter but I just enjoy sitting in the chairs knowing that it was something he sat in and enjoyed. He had a lot of antiques which I sold and kept a few for myself. I hated to break up all that he had worked for for so many years. I am glad he is not in pain but having his things keeps him with me and I know I will see him again in heaven. thanks for listening

Carol Gacioch RN RHIA of NC 1:38PM July 02, 2009