Too Much Stuff, Not Enough Space… WHY?!

A small thought that’s been swirling around my head for the past week or so. Especially with the weather being colder, since that has me staying inside and by myself. Looking around my apartment… I simply have too much stuff for the space in which I exist.

I know it’s a combination of moving with everything I own from place to place, then acquiring more and never really committing to clearing things out, whether that’s selling, giving away, etc. and it’s gotten harder in the past few years of being a creator/influencer. It can feel like a fun perk that others might envy: being sent stuff for free, especially physical items, often ahead of release.

But managing and organizing that stuff can quickly become overwhelming, if you don’t have a plan for donating or giving things away (or at worst just throwing them out), they pile up. And it’s not always strictly OK to resell them (without a clear agreement in place ahead of time).

Regardless I keep looking around my place and thinking how I’ve lived in larger places than this and had less stuff. If I owned a larger place, it wouldn’t seem to loom like it does, but like George Carlin taught us, having a bigger place now would just mean I’d get more stuff because I’d think that I have room for it.

So I’ve been getting out the garbage bags, I’ve been giving items their exit interview, “What exactly is it that you do here, and how do you provide value to the space?”

I’ve been doing the hard thing which is tossing out items that I know are perfectly functional, but just not for me. I’ve got older books set to occupy little free libraries around me once the weather gets warm. I’ve got newer books slated for donation to local game stores–not to resell, but maybe as a community copy or something.

And I’ve made decisions to purposely not pick up any new hyperfocus hobbies that also seem to bring with them the need for more stuff. I am headed to a Magic: the Gathering convention, and have already decided that I’m not going to super-dive into the hobby. But while I’m there I will look for a storage solution for what I have, so that I can perhaps learn to play with what I’ve got, or one day hand it all over to someone else.

Decluttering is always a hard process for me, but I’m trying to see it as more of a project. Something that doesn’t have to be completed in a single weekend, in fact even taking out one item (or hopefully one bag of items) every day is an accomplishment. I can’t imagine what my place would look like with 365 less tchotchkes in it, large or small.

Even if it does nothing more than allow me to move places more easily, or considering the current climate, cut and run without leaving too much of a mess on anyone else’s hands, it’s at least something.

And look, if anyone out there wants to buy me a home with tons of storage space, call me. I can live my pretend minimalist lifestyle with a horde of boxes on the other side of the doorway that I never think about! 😬💖