Doing a little döstädning

The past few years have been tough. Filled with loss (my Mum, both of Julie's parents), joy (birth of our Grandson), and upheaval (Josh's family moving in, me getting laid off).

All these events have had me dealing with "stuff". Especially other peoples stuff. Packing, clearing, cleaning. Do we keep this? Should we keep that?

So in the gap between jobs I decided to do a little döstädning, or Swedish Death Cleaning.

Though I haven't read Margareta Magnusson's book, I've consumed enough content based off it to get the gist.

Take responsibility for your items and don’t leave them as a burden for family and friends.

This isn't a deep purge, throwing away every drawing, photo, and letter from my past. Nor is it as superficial as giving things a quick dust and re-packing them.

It's more being critical. Do I have a use for this? Will this be useful when I'm gone? If not remove it. That be throwing away, recycling, or donating.

Though I'd love to be a minimalist, my sentimental streak steers my more towards the hoarder. But going through it a couple of times now has sharpened this guilt of having someone else have to deal with my "stuff".

Combining this with the 'dated box' method, I picked up from Merlin Mann for some time ago, has been working well.

To clean out a junky drawer, remove the contents and put it in a box. Only when you've used one of the items in the box twice is it allowed to live in the drawer again. After a month, pitch or donate the remaining contents—or move the precious or useful stuff to deeper storage. But, yeah, you should probably just pitch it.

This week 3 large bin bags went out, as well as some appliances that we haven't used for ages, to the rubbish. I also have a collection of items to donate.

This is an ongoing practice. I feel better. Lighter. Even after this small amount.