1999 as in the year or the number of boxes? Yes and yes. Both.

In our Mission to Minimize our possessions, one of our most arduous household tasks was to go through the dozens of storage boxes in our garage which haven’t been opened in years (literally, we had been hoarding some since 1999). In these boxes, we found a ridiculous amount of stuff. Boxes that we previously deemed to keep “forever until the end of time” caused us, now, to seriously question our adolescent judgement. Our garage was absolutely full of containers housing too many “sentimental” objects to number, too many things that we will never use, and taking up entirely too much space.

Trust me, I’m a complete sucker for sentiment, but some of the things we found were knickknacks for which we couldn’t even remember the source. A bunch of pennies strewn about a box classified as “important to keep” really could be put to better use in the kids’ piggy banks. (Were these, perhaps, magic pennies?). Apologies to whoever it was that gave us a rainbow terra cotta elephant plate a decade ago which didn’t make the cut. Thank you for the wishes that accompanied said plate. The good news is that the plate will soon find its way into the hands of its rightful owner who is looking for just such a purchase at Goodwill. (And so will the hundreds, if not thousands, of miscellaneous items that made their way to the Goodwill Express near us. I’m actually embarrassed at this point at the frequency of our visits to the donation center. I always imagine the employees rolling their eyes when they see our car – I know, it’s ridiculously egotistical to think they remember us so well. The poor souls probably just remember our crap. [For the record, we’re aware the Goodwill is not the most socially conscious enterprise of its kind, but when you have an intense need to purge your possessions immediately, we convince ourselves that the lavish car driven by the CEO matters less than someone walking into the store and being able to excitedly purchase a $50 doodad for $2.]).

When we started this venture, our one-car garage was packed. We have been in our current home for eight years and the garage has always been much too full of boxes to walk through, let alone allow our car to fit inside. We’re now down to about half the garage being filled with boxes and the empty space keeps increasing. Our goal is for our car to actually fit in the garage. We periodically go through all the remaining boxes in order to weed out all the superfluous items. We have noticed that it gets easier each time. Things seem to be less difficult to eradicate. The strange knickknacks get easier to let go of. The once sentimental credit card receipt from ice cream just suddenly doesn’t take as much precedence as the ability to reach for a broom in the garage without tripping. All of those “receipts” add up to an enormous amount to wasted space. And once that ice cream doesn’t mean much to you anymore, why keep the relics that don’t actually remind you of anything?

Challenge – Forage Your Storage:

• Find your old boxes. Go into your garage, basement, or storage closet. Pick out a box (or 5) which you haven’t looked inside in years.
• Set up sorting containers. Set up manageable “keep,” “donate,” and “garbage” receptacles.
• Money. Money. Money. (Use your best ABBA vocals). If you’re the type of person who is likely to sell things successfully on eBay, Craigslist, garage sales, or whatever other realm, by all means, do so if you’re up to it. Set up a “sell” receptacle as well. BUT, if you don’t intend to sell the items in that box immediately, just know that they will all return back to the storage clutter. You have to choose whether space or any possible money from those items is more valuable to you during this process.
• Purge the obvious. Right away, eliminate things that you, without question, no longer need. Sort these between the donate, garbage, and sell areas. Irreparably damaged toys, puzzles with several pieces missing (there is nothing more annoying than almost finishing a puzzle to find two freaking pieces missing), broken beyond repair kitchen crap will just perturb people, don’t even think of donating that nonsense.
• Sort your keepers. Sort through the definite keepers. Can any of these items find a better use somewhere else instead of sitting in storage? We found a number of such useful items that we’ve missed for a decade and sent back into our living space rotation. Cool wooden kitchen organizer, anyone? Yes, please!
• Question your intentions for the rest. For the remainders, ask yourself a few questions: Do I need this? Have I ever used this? Will I ever use this? Does someone else have a better use for it? Can this item be easily replaced? These questions should help you understand if you can sort any particular item into the 2 or 3 “get out of the house” boxes.
• Decluttering happy dance. That’s self-explanatory. Be proud that you were able to organize at least one somewhat forgotten area of your home.

I hope these ideas will help you simplify your clutter-trouble areas. Happy minimizing!

Related posts:
Mission to Minimize
Phase I: How does that pirate shirt make you feel?
Phase II: The Toy-Free Family Room