I’ve been cleaning my room for a while, and it’s still pretty bad. My goal is to be able to fit all of my possessions into this 10′ x 12′ room (it also has a 28″ x 36″ closet). I think it’s safe to say that Americans accumulate too much stuff, and though I’m not much of a consumer by that standard, I clearly have TOO MUCH STUFF. My room has been a pile, with a bed and desk embedded in it. I’ve always been a casual housekeeper, figuring if I can find things without frustration then it’s probably OK. But as my life has busied, I’ve become more negligent. This came after a few moves where I procrastinated and packed in a frenzy at the last minute, dragging boxes of disordered junk with me from place to place. Now I only work outside the house two days a week, and I’ve snapped into this mode of reorganizing and getting rid of things. At one point I recycled nearly half the contents of a 2-drawer filing cabinet (which hadn’t seen proper use in quite some time).

I’ve found that making multiple passes helps a lot. I eliminate the things I most obviously don’t need, and when I revisit what’s left, things I wasn’t able to pitch before are now the least-valued members of the set. I find it especially hard to part with books, but using this method I’ve donated multiple boxes & bags of them to the library. The library! I must use the library rather than constantly buying books. Reorganizing has revealed to me that, at the rate of one week per book, I own about a year and a half of unread books (most came to me free or used). Time to get cracking! Over time I may be able to send some on their way unread, much as it pains me.

I had to make a speech when I graduated from high school, so I spoke about the importance of having few possessions (at least no one laughed out loud). At the time I was interested in Zen, and also in the idea of being able to travel willy-nilly without leaving anything behind. I’d also been to the Mountain School program in Vermont, where among other things we read a number of essays on the virtue of simplicity; and now, years later, a desire for simplicity drives me. I don’t want to deal with “mortgages” and our insane credit (or rather, debt) system, and I don’t want my life cluttered up with a bunch of stuff, no matter how cool. Also: the Earth will not support everyone on the planet gathering mounds of manufactured products. I can’t help what I already have, but I can try to keep reducing my impact. Ironically, part of the reason I let things pile up so much is that I couldn’t bring myself to just throw it in the landfill (ours has no swap shop), and didn’t know what else to do with it. Thrift shops only accept donations during certain hours (usually during work), and how much will they actually take? I’ve started using Freecycle now; that’s helped, and I’ll keep going – I still have a long ways. The pile is much reduced and the shelves are neater, but it’s still TOO MUCH STUFF. Now that I’ve changed the layout of the room, it’s even harder for me to find things in the remaining piles.

I wish I’d taken pictures along the way, because although I know I’ve made big progress, it still doesn’t look too great. It amazes me how long it’s taking…but I’ll get there. I’m pretty close to having everything in the room; most of the things that aren’t, I can get rid of. The big job now is to get rid of enough to make it all fit comfortably.

[formerly at http://www.colintedford.com/downpower/2007/11/14/stuff/]