When you come to move, and a thing you’re planning to move is still in a box since the last move, throw it out.
If you are keeping a thing ‘because it might come in handy’ and the occasion arises when it WOULD have been handy except you forget you have it, throw it out.
On smaller purchases I note that I have a danger zone of between £3 and £8 where it’s easy to just spend money without discernible benefit (it’s no coincidence that this equals about a coffee and a bun in Starbucks). So I have a rule that unless it’s something I actually need Right Now, I make a maximum of one such purchase per non-working day.
When you come to move, and a thing you’re planning to move is still in a box since the last move, throw it out.
There’s a neat little related lifehack regarding clothes that works similarly.
Each year at a good landmark point (ie, spring cleaning or 1st week of the school year if you’re a student), sort through your closet and organize/clean your stuff. Then, when you put your clothes back into the closet, put the hangars backwards, so that you have to reach around and hook them behind the bar. As you wear clothes, place the hangars in normally.
The next time you organize your closet (ie, spring cleaning the year later or when the school year ends), note which clothes and still backwards and consider throwing them away or donating them. If you didn’t wear them that year, chances are you won’t wear them next year either.
If I did this, I would know exactly which clothes would still be backwards, and if I still didn’t want to throw them out I’d wear them exactly once, effectively sabotaging the system.
Well, if on reflection, you don’t want to wear them, and don’t want to throw them out, you could at least store them more compactly rather than taking up valuable closet space.
Huh. You and I live in completely different climates—I’d be shocked to go through a winter that doesn’t require warm clothes, or a summer that requires cool clothes. I might not put on snow gear each year, but I wouldn’t consider that “clothes” for the purposes of this maxim.
Is it really that unusual to expect both summer and winter clothes to get worn every year? I know it’s true of Minneapolis and Seattle as well, and I’ve been lead to believe it’s true for most of Canada and Alaska.
I think in terms of layers that can be added or shed. (So it’s less “winter and summer clothes” and more “winter and year-round clothes”.) They are in order: shirt or T-shirt, cardigan, jersey, other jersey, thick woolen monstrosity. This year I’ve never needed the outermost layer, but I expect to next year. I also wore a light coat, but next year I’ll probably need a winter coat.
When you come to move, and a thing you’re planning to move is still in a box since the last move, throw it out.
If you are keeping a thing ‘because it might come in handy’ and the occasion arises when it WOULD have been handy except you forget you have it, throw it out.
When you come to move, and a thing you’re planning to move is still in a box since the last move, throw it out.
If you are keeping a thing ‘because it might come in handy’ and the occasion arises when it WOULD have been handy except you forget you have it, throw it out.
On smaller purchases I note that I have a danger zone of between £3 and £8 where it’s easy to just spend money without discernible benefit (it’s no coincidence that this equals about a coffee and a bun in Starbucks). So I have a rule that unless it’s something I actually need Right Now, I make a maximum of one such purchase per non-working day.
There’s a neat little related lifehack regarding clothes that works similarly.
Each year at a good landmark point (ie, spring cleaning or 1st week of the school year if you’re a student), sort through your closet and organize/clean your stuff. Then, when you put your clothes back into the closet, put the hangars backwards, so that you have to reach around and hook them behind the bar. As you wear clothes, place the hangars in normally.
The next time you organize your closet (ie, spring cleaning the year later or when the school year ends), note which clothes and still backwards and consider throwing them away or donating them. If you didn’t wear them that year, chances are you won’t wear them next year either.
If I did this, I would know exactly which clothes would still be backwards, and if I still didn’t want to throw them out I’d wear them exactly once, effectively sabotaging the system.
It would still help you identify clothes you were overlooking rather than either wearing or throwing out.
Well, if on reflection, you don’t want to wear them, and don’t want to throw them out, you could at least store them more compactly rather than taking up valuable closet space.
If a given year is warm, you’ll throw away all your warm clothes and be screwed the following winter.
Huh. You and I live in completely different climates—I’d be shocked to go through a winter that doesn’t require warm clothes, or a summer that requires cool clothes. I might not put on snow gear each year, but I wouldn’t consider that “clothes” for the purposes of this maxim.
Portland has an unusually small thermal amplitude.
Is it really that unusual to expect both summer and winter clothes to get worn every year? I know it’s true of Minneapolis and Seattle as well, and I’ve been lead to believe it’s true for most of Canada and Alaska.
I think in terms of layers that can be added or shed. (So it’s less “winter and summer clothes” and more “winter and year-round clothes”.) They are in order: shirt or T-shirt, cardigan, jersey, other jersey, thick woolen monstrosity. This year I’ve never needed the outermost layer, but I expect to next year. I also wore a light coat, but next year I’ll probably need a winter coat.
Hell yes.