As I’ve posted before, I’ve become a big fan of the KonMari method of decluttering as outlined in the book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo. So far I’ve gone through clothes, and books, and papers, and I’m on to the miscellaneous.
But here’s the problem. The bins of clothes still sit in our entryway because the money-minded trying-to-pay-off-debt part of me wants to sell them rather than donate them. We took some books to a used bookstore for credit, but the ones they didn’t want are still in a crate in the garage. We went through the boys’ Legos, and weeded out some of the less-played-with packs so they don’t have so many, but the unwanted ones are still in a box.
I’ve gotten rid of things, except I haven’t really.
I’ve tried setting dates. If I don’t sell this by __, I’ll take it to the thrift store. And then I ignore those dates.
The good news is that we’re not using any of the stuff I’ve “gotten rid of”. The bad news is that it’s still in the house.
Why can’t I let go of this stuff? Why am I letting it take up space in my house? Why am I so bent on making pennies off of things instead of just clearing them out and enjoying the space?
I don’t have answers for any of this. I think part of it is I’m hoping that putting it out there will motivate me to actually take care of the stuff, even if that means taking over part of the garage to store things until we can have a garage sale (because January in Iowa is not prime garage sale season). If nothing else, maybe I’ll make someone else feel better about their efforts.
Tell me I’m not alone. Have you started decluttering and then stalled on the actual getting-rid-of-it part?
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