The house clearance

It’s going to be a busy week this week.

Alongside calls, I have to clear a house.

Moving house isn’t something I’ve done that often.

The first time was when I left home for university. All I had was my clothes, books… and a Sony portable stereo.

Six moves later I find myself with huge piles of assets. And this from a man who’s previously been pretty ruthless with decluttering.

This time it’s a near clean sweep.
I’m only taking 10% forward.~
Which means everything else must go.

But where?

There’s a lot of stuff I no longer want. When I look at it, it’s the usual “kept just in case” pile. Most of which has no value other than that.

It’s tempting to put things off. To look at sort-term storage.

But that feels like a slippery slope. I imagine 20 years of monthly payments for things that never get used again.

So disposal seems like the better choice.

The advice I got was to make three piles:

Sell.
Donate.
Dump.

And I’m erring toward “dump” for the majority of things.

Unless they’re collectables (like my Robin Day sofas), most things just aren’t worth much compared to what I paid for them.

And from a time perspective… selling a £150 thing for £150 is rarely a £150 job.

Anyway — the prospect of all this got me thinking about psychological accumulation.

How much stuff we keep… not because we need it, but because we don’t know what to do with it.

Or we don’t want to process it.

Perhaps it seems easier to put it in long term storage than to sort it out, dump what’s not needed anymore, and move on with only the good stuff.

What do you think?