Going Back to Nature: Cut the Clutter

I've been running a weekly "column" called Going Back to Nature. This week I'm talking about cutting the clutter.

Last year I got rid of car loads of junk, literally. Some of it was in good enough condition to donate. Some of it had to be thrown away. But overall, our house looks better for it. Our garage can actually fit a car with no problem. And we didn't have to pay any money for being over the weight allowance when we moved last year. Our closets are clean and I can find things when I want to.

I know it's hard to get rid of things. It took me years of living on my own carrying around most of that junk through five moves to get rid of it. But once I realized the fact that it was just taking up space and I really wasn't ever going to use it again, I was able to get it out of my house.

Now you're probably thinking - what does this have to do with Going Back to Nature? Ponder this for a while. One hundred years ago, how many families had closets, attics, garages, basements or even storage units full of "junk"? If you've ever been in older houses you've probably noticed that they don't even have that much closet space (if any at all) let alone room for piles and piles of junk. People just didn't have more than they needed back then. It was a principal, just common sense. No one really thought about it. It just happened!

Okay, you're probably thinking your stuff is not junk it's important ... but how much of it have you used in the past year? What about in the past two years? If you haven't used it in that long, odds are pretty good that you're never going to use it again! It's just taking up space and sometimes even costing you money to keep it. Think about how hard it is to find what you're actually looking for or how much you're paying for your storage unit or how much you're paying for extra weight when you're moving (and volume if it's a self-move). Get rid of it. Today!