Clean a couple of the things?

[owlectomy]

Dear internets, I have a confession!

I moved in May. Here we are halfway through January and I still have boxes I haven't finished unpacking. Mostly because when stuff is in boxes, I don't have to figure out where to put it.

I have been doing bitesizedcleaning for a week now.

Hyperbole and a Half was kind of a revelation for me in that I realized I'm not a unique failure as a human being for my inability to clean all the things. It's a cycle that happens to kind of a lot of people. However, my best intentions to spend fifteen minutes a day cleaning up tended to be undercut by the amorphousness of "cleaning" and also "day." (Yes, really: I had a tendency to shunt it off until evening, when at best I am tired and hungry and at worst WHY DO I HAVE TO GO UP ALL THE STAIRS? STIEG LARSSON HAD TO GO UP ALL THE STAIRS AND HE DIED! It's true, look it up.)

Anyway, I'm doing okay now but I know better than to get over-confident after just a week. I need to cull my books again; I need to unpack my boxes just to get stuff out of them; I need to make a scale diagram of my room and figure out if there's some more efficient way to arrange my furniture once the boxes are out of the way. And I need to return my unused bridesmaid shoes to Zappos, AAAGH.

The unfortunate consequence of culling my books and very carefully choosing what I'm going to buy is that there's not much left to cull, but there are still a lot of books. I believe that I don't own nearly enough books and it's just that my apartment is too small, but I don't know how to fix that short of moving to the midwest.

It's a problem that a huge portion of my closet space is being monopolized by flattened boxes, but I don't really want to get rid of them either, considering that I would like to move as soon as I can afford to, and may have to move before then.

Comments

[daedala]

Thank you for the linked to bitesizedcleaning. I'm in. :)

I followed the trail to the unclutter community, which you may find helpful, too. It looks neat -- it's just that my current MO involves lots of selling, and making money at it would change the community.

[owlectomy]

I've been keeping an eye on the unclutter comm, though I'm not sure it would be useful for me as I still have some anxiety issues over pressure to get rid of stuff (because of LOTS of moving as a child...)

Thanks, though!

[daedala]

I can sympathize about the pressure to get rid of stuff. I had some pretty bad moves, too, and ended up collecting Stuff as a defense. Some people have security blankies, I have a security library.... But I don't really need it any more. And really, I'm not going to read most of it; much of what I might actually read is available in the library; and the proliferation of penny books on Amazon and my current financial situation means I can buy anything I want again when I want it, instead of holding it against that day.

The point of selling, for me, isn't so much the making money (though that doesn't hurt) -- it's confirming for myself that things have value, and getting them to someone who wants them. I sell things first; if they're not worth enough to sell, I donate (and keep kind of crazy records for the IRS, pictures and inventories and receipts); then I may toss. Donations go first to Books for Africa, then the library, then Goodwill-equivalent.

Um, I'm not saying you ought to do this! I'm trying to sympathize and explain how I am dealing with that anxiety, in case it helps.