WonkoTheSane said:
Nothin' to it, but to do it. There's no book/videos/whatever that will do anything but help you procrastinate.
I'm a really really not-sentimental person, probably to the point of it being a negative, but I evaluate everything from a "have I needed this in the last 2/5/10 years" metric. If I have something that can't prove its worth in that time frame, I ditch it. I have a shoebox sized box of momentos from my early life, and next time I run across it, I'll probably toss more out of there. I never look back whistfully at old books/cards/etc. I have a folder of old pictures that seemed worth it to keep. I used to like to think of myself as the kind of person who did, but an honest evaluation of "when was the last time you actually looked through that crate of X" led to the realization that I never did look backwards like that, and I couldn't forsee a time when I would.
We have a herd of kids, though, so many of the childhood things that I could have gotten rid of for pocket change went to them. They're playing with old legos and star wars action toys that I could probably sell on ebay for $10, but I'd rather that 1st edition Lego X wing get played with than sit in a box somewhere. Same with our overly-full bookshelves, we've kept ahold of good books that we've loved and will enjoy letting the kids read. After they're grown up, though, a lot of 'em will be gone.
I should have added that the gf, when she reads something that offers sage advice and that is resourceful, she'll adhere to it. She read through some book or blog on how to fold and organize clothes. Her new method is very space efficient and organized. We also utilized this other methodology of putting colored stickers on shirts with dates. If we didn't wear something in a six month period we got rid of it....
Getting rid of things other than clothes has been another story. As others have said sentimental value, the thought of "oh I might need this later," or "could we sell this" hits and something we haven't touched in months is back into storage.
I've started in my shed this week. Which is where I simply threw anything I felt I wasn't going to touch in a while. I also was able to ditch all of the previous owners "spare" koi pond parts that were actually in dismay or useless. I also got rid of the derelict plastic storage cabinet holding that stuff as well. Any pieces of wood under 6 inches that couldn't be used as a shim or garnish hit the fire pit.
It's wild how overwhelmed one can feel with just things sitting around. It distracts me from other house projects or car projects. I'm itching to minimize the whole compound.
We've known each other plenty long and have actually been in this house for over a year and a half. Slowly getting all of our stuff here has been an issue and now that it's finally all here, it's toooooooooooo much.
