Five Steps to Freedom From Clutter

Clutter holds you back from living your dream.

The more stuff you have, the longer you are going to put off embarking on your journey. Conversely, as you start dealing with all the clutter you’ve collected over the years, an extraordinary feeling of lightness and freedom will come over you. You will be able to move forward with organizing your travel plans.

My five steps to freedom from clutter:

Scan important and sentimental documents. This includes tax documents, birthday cards, letters, award certificates, doctor’s records, unpaid bills, and so on. Just make sure to keep hard copies of certified/notarized documents. And, of course, your passport.
Write down membership numbers and store them on your computer or online (in your email account is good). This includes video membership card numbers, airline frequent flyer accounts, gym membership numbers, and so on. Unless you are actually required to present the card itself, there’s no point hanging on to it.
Photograph sentimental items that you cannot take with you and are unlikely to actually use again. This includes your childhood stuffed animal, knickknacks, your Y2K outfit, and a Titanic poster.
Sell anything of value. Try Amazon for electronics, craigslist for furniture, and cash4books.net or bluerectangle.com for books. A yard sale can be worthwhile if you’re in a populated area and you make enough money to justify sitting around all day while strangers rifle through your stuff and go, “Wudja take twenny cents for this, huh?”
Donate anything that someone else can use. Friends are best. Freecycle is next best. If you have no local Freecycle and no friends, use the free page on craigslist. (Actually, you could probably find friends on craigslist if you put up an ad. So then you’ve solved two problems.)

100 million rupee question: sell or donate?

When determining whether to sell or donate, ask yourself, “Is the money I receive for this item fair compensation for the time and effort I’ve put into selling it?” Don’t be greedy. It’s often less stressful and more emotionally rewarding to donate to charity or give items to friends. I’ve given away desks, chairs, designer clothing, televisions…even a beat-up Volvo once, because the pleasure I received in knowing my friend would make use of it was more valuable than the couple hundred bucks I could have scrounged for it.

Donating has another benefit: you can promise items to friends but organize to keep using the items until the last minute. If you are going to sell items in preparation for your trip, start several weeks in advance. It’s annoying dealing with last-minute cancellations from buyers or dashing to the post-office in response to Amazon’s “Your item has sold!” email.

What if I can store my stuff in my (mom’s attic/friend’s basement/Pete’s laundry room)?

If you have a semi-permanent home where you can store stuff, or you don’t mind paying for storage, then you might not feel that your clutter is a problem. However, even though I have headquarters on three continents, I prefer to own as little as possible and to end my time on one shore with a quick declutter. It just feels great.

What do you think about clutter?