Lessons From a Life on the Move (via A Clean Surface.)

My goal is to have a home that I could drop everything and be able to move in a week if I wanted to. I want the freedom of being able to say I live that light. That I could do without most of the things I own.

I had a discussion about what I would grab if my house was on fire with my friend Lisa last week. She had several answers. I was stumped. Beyond my dog and wallet, I have no idea what I would want to save. Yes, there are things I would be sad to lose but I could live without them.

I tend to be the kind of person who gets rid of things. Mementos that others carry around for the rest of their life get tossed by me. I stunned a friend when I told him I had tossed my school year books. I am currently in touch with 1 person from said year books. Why would I keep them?

I run items through my head, the jewelry I have been given, handed down quilts, crystal…and if there was a fire raging I would leave all of it and grab just me and my dog.

One of the clearing clutter tips I try to live by is to pretend that you are moving overseas. You have to get everything pared down to a set number of bags and the furniture has to be pared down to what you cannot live without.  Could you leave 90% of your belongings and move somewhere? I think I could. Would I curse everything the first month? Probably, but I know I would get over it and move on.

I recently did a house wide clean and purge of items. I do this several times a year and keep a “Toss” box sitting in one room. As I go through each room anything I can grab that I can see myself possibly getting rid of goes in the box. If after a month or two I can live without it then it gets donated or sent to the garbage.

This time I went through my books and movies, tossing the ones I knew I would never watch or read again. I then took them to a new thrift store in town and got store credit for more books later. I plan to keep doing this with my books. The store is massive and has a great selection. I picked up a French dictionary and a book on learning French for 5 dollars while I was there.  This is one of my life list items, learn a language and about the culture of one country. Since I am planning to visit Paris, I thought French would be a good language to look at. I doubt I will ever get fluent since I have no one to speak to but it would be good to have a bit of a base line when I do manage to go.

via A Clean Surface.