June 30 Days Writing Challenge - Life Hack - Day Twenty First: Decluttering - Set A Lifespan To Every Object You Own
Hello and welcome to the twenty first day of the June 30 days writing challenge. If you want to know all the details about this specific challenge, have a look at the introductory post. In short, I will be posting every day a short tip, or technique, or opinion, something that you can call a "life hack". Feel free to join the challenge and post your own life hacks. I will do my best to upvote each day at full strength (about $3 at the current STEEM price) 3 posts tagged #challenge30days (leaving a link to your posts in the comments will also help).
Declutter As You Go
The other day I had to find some official papers and went into a searching spree on our tiny, yet packed balcony. It's a small veranda and, unfortunately, it's completely packed with boxes full of, you know, stuff. We're renting now, and it's a very tiny apartment, but, over the years, I lived in many places, some bigger, some smaller.
And I always had like a trail of objects following me everywhere I was moving.
So, just to give you an idea, I had to move around 10 boxes just to get to the boxes that I actually needed. And still didn't find those papers.
While browsing through old papers, covered in dust and fragile, I realized I was keeping things from more than 20 years ago.
So, today I decided to implement a new life hack - keep in mind this is just the preliminary, aspirational version of this life-hack, but here it goes:. what if I would assign a certain life span to each and every object I own?
For instance, invoices will be around 4 years. Electronics, not more than 2 years. Memories, well if they are tiny, probably "for ever", but even in this case I decided to throw away some of them that are really old, like from trips I made 8-9 years ago. Everything else must go instantly. Or placed in a storage facility.
This weekend I'll go through the entire balcony (which is about 15 boxes), browse and sort all the stuff I have and aim at remaining with maximum 3 boxes.
Let's see how this goes.
I'm really curious to read about your life hack today. Leave a comment with a link to your post, if possible.
Previous Posts In The Challenge
- June 30 Days Writing Challenge - Life Hack - Day Twenty: Creativity - Go From A To B In 5 Mental "Fractures"
- June 30 Days Writing Challenge - Life Hack - Day Nineteen: Write A Short Story About Your Future Self
- June 30 Days Writing Challenge - Life Hack - Day Eighteen: Pop Out Balloons Fast
- June 30 Days Writing Challenge - Life Hack - Day Seventeen:Replace Re-Action With Action
- June 30 Days Writing Challenge - Life Hack - Day Sixteen:The 5 Minutes Meditation Box
- June 30 Days Writing Challenge - Life Hack - Day Fifteen: Create - And Maintain - A Morning Phrase
- June 30 Days Writing Challenge - Life Hack - Day Fourteen: Improve 1% Per Day
- June 30 Days Writing Challenge - Life Hack - Day Thirteen: Get Rid Of TV. For Good.
- June 30 Days Writing Challenge - Life Hack - Day Twelve: Save 10% Of Your Income - No. Matter. What.
- June 30 Days Writing Challenge - Life Hack - Day Eleven: Set - And Keep - A Monthly Personal Expense Budget
- June 30 Days Writing Challenge - Life Hack - Day Ten: Set A "Main Task" For Each Day
- June 30 Days Writing Challenge - Life Hack - Day Nine: Keep A Journal
- June 30 Days Writing Challenge - Life Hacks - Day Eight: Keep An Activity Log
- June 30 Days Writing Challenge - Life Hacks - Day Seven: Implement A New Habit With A 30 Days Challenge
- June 30 Days Writing Challenge - Life Hacks - Day Six: Put It In Front Of The Door
- June 30 Days Writing Challenge - Life Hacks - Day Five: The Pomodoro Technique
- June 30 Days Writing Challenge - Life Hacks - Day Four: Keep A Clear Mind By Unloading Ideas Immediately
- June 30 Days Writing Challenge - Life Hacks - Day Three: Intermittent Fasting
- June 30 Days Writing Challenge - Life Hacks - Day Two: The "2 Minutes" Time Management Rule
- June 30 Days Writing Challenge - Life Hacks - Day One: Avoid Fighting With A Simple Visualization Technique
- Announcing The June 30 Days Writing Challenge - Life Hacks
I'm a serial entrepreneur, blogger and ultrarunner. You can find me mainly on my blog at Dragos Roua where I write about productivity, business, relationships and running. Here on Steemit you may stay updated by following me @dragosroua.
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When I was working in the automobile industry, there was a japanese methodology they used to teach us. The 5S. You can go over it but basically, it is about keeping your stuff in order and clean and every once in a while, check and get rid of anything you have not used for a few months, it just means you do not need it. I agree you can store some old memory stuff but it should be kept out of the way of your regular living area.
Try to implement depreciation on Everything and when the amount of object depreciate completely. throw that abject out.
For example you bough a cell phone for 80 $, and it depreciate 10 $ a month, so you can throw it after 8 months. simple as it.
Not being too optimistic I set for my smartphone 3 years so it's half of its life span. Hopefully Samsung will not kill it with updates.
Here you have my post for the day :)
https://steemit.com/challenge30days/@acesontop/june-30-days-writing-challenge-life-hacks-day-twentieth-crypto-inspiration
Have a great and sunny day! Mine is a bit cloudy, but at least it's cool enough.
So you found papers or not?
4 years is enough i think.
This will save you from a lot of hardwork of finding the things.
Nope, I didn't....
so now you have to buy new papers.
Ammm now that can be very interesting
It is good to declutter but I have things that I a not using. It is about time I get rid of them.
I have a similar motto 'if you don't use it and won't use it, lose it'.
Have you looked at the legal requirements for keeping invoices? I need to keep tax records for 7 years. In fact, because you reminded me, I just threw away incoming and outgoing business invoices from 2010.
Nowadays, most incoming invoices arrive by email. I scan the ones I get on paper, back them up on Dropbox and Sia, and throw them away. This makes it easier to find stuff.
Since I stopped reading newspapers years ago, there's not a lot of paper that enters my home anymore. Which gives me time to deal with the hoarding from the past.
Before I moved two years ago, I asked a friend and my sister to help me sort my collections of magazines, souvenirs and newspaper cutouts. By helping I mean repeatedly saying: "No, throw it away!"
I've always been a terrible hoarder, so over time "things" really pile up. And in a creative environment, this is terrible.
What I've found recently is that getting rid of clutter, not only on your work surface (i.e. a desk), but also in the surrounding area - especially in your line of sight - can really boost creativity.
I've even started looking into the whole minimalism movement, and really paring back. But I think what suits me is organisation - putting the things which create clutter into some type of [hidden if possible] storage device.
I certainly find I'm more creative, less distracted and am able to focus a lot more. And it's also more inspiring to sit down/stand-up at a clean, clutter-free work area.
For me, being a Minimalist is the way to go. I hope you'll like my entry:
https://steemit.com/challenge30days/@emdesan/june-30-days-writing-challenge-life-hack-day-twenty-first-be-a-minimalist-c9eb21c4bc11d