Valuable Lessons on Simplicity — from Trash

Every Wedneday is Simplicity Day on Zen Habits.

This is a guest post from Mike Elgan.

Let me guess: You have too much stuff, right?

Your garage, attic or basement — maybe all three — are loaded with random possessions ranging from precious to useless. You have at least one box full of electronics, cabling and defunct gadgets you’ll never use again, plus AC adaptors and other accessories and peripherals you can no longer match to the devices they once belonged to. You have “junk” drawers full of stuff that might be useful someday, but that you actually haven’t used in years. Your closet contains clothes and shoes you never wear anymore.

All this stuff creates clutter, makes the useful stuff harder to find, takes up valuable space that could be put to better uses, and stands in the way of you simplifying your life.

There’s a very simple reason why we all have too much stuff: We have scheduled and unscheduled rituals and habits for acquiring more stuff, but we don’t have counterbalancing rituals and habits for getting rid of it.

“The Holidays,” birthdays, anniversaries and other gift-giving rituals; random shopping; vacation travel; product obsolescence — all these events bring more stuff into our homes like clockwork. But when, how and why should we get rid of stuff?

The one shining example for the right way to balance “getting” with “getting-rid-of” is — wait for it! — the garbage.

When you make garbage — you eat an apple down to its core, blow your nose into a tissue or empty a bag of frozen peas into a pan — you immediately identify it as something destined for removal, and spring into action.

You have a trash can, bin or bag in the kitchen, plus probably a small trash can in the bathrooms, possibly a trash can in the bedrooms or office. These reserved spaces in your home provide easy access for the temporary storage of stuff you plan discard, and you know exactly where they are.

Once a week, it’s trash day. You might empty the little trash cans when they’re full, or on trash day go around emptying them. It all goes to the curb, and some kind gentlemen with a giant truck come around once a week and take it away.

Here’s the problem. “Garbage” is only one category of stuff you need to get rid of. What about objects too valuable or bulky to simply throw away with the weekly trash pickup? Most of us have no process.

So create one, using trash as your guide.

I recommend taping off sections of your garage, and labeling them with your categories of stuff to get rid of — categories like, “Sell,” “Donate,” “Recycling Center,” and “Dump.”
Whenever you encounter something not worth keeping, get rid of it as if it were a Kleenex full of snot. Take it immediately to its designated area. Put valuables in the “Sell” space, clothes in the “Donate” space, etc.
Set a weekly “alarm” in your electronic calendar or set up a recurring task to fully process one category of stuff every week.
To process the “Sell” category, use Craigslist for big stuff better sold locally, and eBay for small valuables worth shipping. Contact local charities that accept donated stuff, and find out when they pick up or where you can drop off. Figure out where the local electronics recycling center is, and learn where the dump or local junkyard is.
When you find that all categories are empty, force yourself to go find something to get rid of. Don’t let yourself off the hook. Find something and get rid of it, every week – and watch your life improve.

What’s the benefit of all this? Simplicity, space, freedom and cash for yourself; help for the less fortunate; and even minor contributions to protecting the environment.

That’s worth a half hour a week, isn’t it?

Mike Elgan writes about technology culture for The Raw Feed, Computerworld, TechGear, Datamation, Ziff-Davis and Mike’s List, and he’s worked as chief editor for Windows Magazine, HP World Magazine, Inside HP, HP World News, The Palm Reader, Palm News, Road Tricks, Portable Life News, Laptop Life, BuzzWords, Pocket Windows and Portable Windows — all of which he founded and launched (with the exception of HP World Magazine).

Valuable Lessons on Simplicity — from Trash

Every Wedneday is Simplicity Day on Zen Habits.

This is a guest post from Mike Elgan.

Let me guess: You have too much stuff, right?

All this stuff creates clutter, makes the useful stuff harder to find, takes up valuable space that could be put to better uses, and stands in the way of you simplifying your life.

The one shining example for the right way to balance “getting” with “getting-rid-of” is — wait for it! — the garbage.

So create one, using trash as your guide.

I recommend taping off sections of your garage, and labeling them with your categories of stuff to get rid of — categories like, “Sell,” “Donate,” “Recycling Center,” and “Dump.”
Whenever you encounter something not worth keeping, get rid of it as if it were a Kleenex full of snot. Take it immediately to its designated area. Put valuables in the “Sell” space, clothes in the “Donate” space, etc.
Set a weekly “alarm” in your electronic calendar or set up a recurring task to fully process one category of stuff every week.
To process the “Sell” category, use Craigslist for big stuff better sold locally, and eBay for small valuables worth shipping. Contact local charities that accept donated stuff, and find out when they pick up or where you can drop off. Figure out where the local electronics recycling center is, and learn where the dump or local junkyard is.
When you find that all categories are empty, force yourself to go find something to get rid of. Don’t let yourself off the hook. Find something and get rid of it, every week – and watch your life improve.

What’s the benefit of all this? Simplicity, space, freedom and cash for yourself; help for the less fortunate; and even minor contributions to protecting the environment.

That’s worth a half hour a week, isn’t it?

Posted on 31 May 2007 in Simplicity |
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Comments (12)

Steve Says:

May 31st, 2007, 6:27 am

Don’t forget http://www.freecycle.org/

I use it all the time for old shoes, clothes, bike parts, etc.

Rian Orie Says:

May 31st, 2007, 6:39 am

First off, good article.

A few thoughts come to mind though.. This is sporting a somewhat minimalistic approach to life.. materialism is bad, it costs money.. If you get rid of something every week eventually you really are going to run out of junk/stuff/trash to throw away until new food is purchased.

I agree with the sorting and doing mentality.. but I think doing this every week is a bit over the top!

Just my thoughts, keep it up, I really enjoy reading your articles.

Leo Says:

May 31st, 2007, 7:30 am

Hi Rian … as a declutterer myself, I know that every week isn’t too often. If you declutter your house all at once, for example, you’ll be surprised how fast things get cluttered again. There’s a steady stream of stuff coming into our houses — more than we’re aware of, most of the time. Gifts, things picked up at the grocery store, the hardware store … and especially if we have kids. I’ve found that weekly trips to my local thrift shop to drop off donations is not too often. But everyone’s different — you might only need to do it every other week.

Great post, Mike, and thanks for doing it!

Carey Says:

May 31st, 2007, 8:38 am

Hi Leo and Rian…

I have to whole-heartedly agree with Leo! Weekly is not too often… and we don’t have kids. I did a major declutter two years ago and I’m amazed that I am still finding bags of stuff to donate every week. We consciously try not to bring too much stuff into the house, and we still have plenty to get rid of!

Great posts Leo - I’ve been enjoying them.

robyn Says:

May 31st, 2007, 9:01 am

hey there. great post today! it inspired me to write a response here. (http://www.warmwithlove.com/?p=192)

i’m a big fan of simplifying, and love that every single day there’s a good tip for me!

Isobel Says:

May 31st, 2007, 11:48 am

I use the “buy one, drop two” method to keep on top of things, e.g. buy 1 t-shirt, get rid of two old t-shirts; buy a book, I give away two books.

Marina Says:

May 31st, 2007, 12:53 pm

You could also just eat the perfectly good apple core and not have to worry about disposing of it at all.

AgentSully Says:

May 31st, 2007, 19:35 pm

After the last time I moved I realized how “dangerous” every little thing that I bring into the house is and so I try not to bring stuff in without getting rid of stuff too. Stuff owns you. You don’t own it. Great post!

Jeremy Jacobs Says:

May 31st, 2007, 20:00 pm

Isobel raises an important issue. I find it terribly hard to get rid of books & old magazines.

Have to be tough I guess.

Noma Says:

May 31st, 2007, 20:52 pm

I have a stack of New Yorkers stashed under my house, so I can relate. At one point in my life I had a stack of chess magazines. I was an absolute lunatic about chess.

Then my wife asked me, with great ardor, would I please throw them away?

I knew that if I did I would earn major points. So I did. It felt great. We both engaged in frenzied junk ejection.

One rule of thumb that works for me: Every time I bring in a non-food, possession -type item, I try and find one, about the same size, and donate it, chuck it, give it away, sell it — get rid of it.

Andy Says:

June 1st, 2007, 9:52 am

I am NOT a declutterer. Throwing out stuff you’ve grown bored of every week because you want your house to look pretty seems to me the ultimate in vanity. It says “I have a great deal of disposable income, and I use it to buy things that are of no value to me.”

When you don’t have much money, you are always wishing you’d found a way of *keeping* the thingy you threw out last year - because you could improvise it into something useful now. The best way to recycle something is to reuse it yourself; the less money you have, the less choice you have about this.

If there is such a thing as genuine decluttering, it involves making the distinction between things that are genuinely useless and things that will be useful later - a very difficult task. If you are tripping over junk, then the article is very useful. I keep to the rule that everything must have somewhere to live, even if it’s the attic; if there’s no room for a new thing in the place that it should live, then it’s time to throw stuff out.

Monica Ricci Says:

June 1st, 2007, 13:23 pm

I do a lot of speaking, and one of the things I say to my audiences is exactly what Mike has said… your life is a steady stream of INCOMING STUFF AND INFORMATION. If you don’t move stuff OUT at the same rate it comes IN, your life backs up, just like a clogged drain pipe. It’s simple math. However, it doesn’t just happen… it takes a conscious shift in awareness, clear priorities and a willingness to make frequent decisions BASED on those priorities.

When priorities are unclear, decisions are difficult because you don’t know what your life is about, therefore you don’t know what “stuff” you’ll actually need to support your life’s endeavors. Therefore, you end up keeping everything out of fear and indecision.

Great post Mike Elgan!
~Monica