The Joy of Decluttering

This morning I took an enormous bag along with a suitcase and a couple of smaller bags down to the basement, where the trash and recycling room can be found. There I deposited the items and hoped that they would either find new life in the homes of other people (an ideal scenario) or at the very least, no longer hold a choke-hold over my apartment.

I suspect that other bags will follow as my wife and I continue to clean and de-clutter the apartment.

I have lived in this apartment for nearly five years, and it is absolutely amazing how much completely useless junk I have found myself keeping over the years. Every time I have tried to clean, I spend just a little bit too much time looking at things and thinking about a pleasant memory or two, and then wanting to keep it a bit longer. After reading a few articles on minimalism and keeping an active subscription to Rowdy Kittens, a blog about tiny homes and minimalist living, I decided enough was absolutely enough.

Enough of keeping broken space bags that are only useful in that they take up space and prevent things from falling — we don’t even need the things that are falling!

Enough of keeping a thousand stuffed animals in the closet — we are about to have a second child, don’t the kids deserve to have some fun playing with them as well?

Enough of clinging on to the name badge that I got when I worked at New York Law School in 2002 — what good, exactly, has it served me in the last twelve years since I left the job — and why have I so stubbornly held onto it as though I were suddenly going to get another job there?

Why did I keep that seemingly random copy of a free daily newspaper from two years ago?

Why did I keep the charging cable to a phone I haven’t had since 2009?

All of these are questions that you may find yourself asking — and for the most part, the answer to the question does not really matter so long as the followup to the answer is stuffing it in a rubbish sack and removing it from your home. When you have a box on a bookshelf that is stuffed to the brim with things that you have not touched or looked at for over a year, is there even a point to having any of the things in the box?

Liberate your home from the useless junk — and if your apartment is anything like mine, make sure to vacuum immediately afterward, as dust will get kicked up as you clean!