I’ve written a little about decluttering and a lot about time management in the past. And this stuff is important, because the number one reason aspiring writers maintain day jobs is because they simply don’t have enough time in a day to write.
I think if I did a study on how I spend my day, the activities taking the most time would be taking care of the kids and going to work. But after that, it’s cleaning and picking stuff up. After that, probably writing and sleeping. And every now and then, my wife and I are able to squeeze in a minute or two to talk.
But back to cleaning and picking stuff up. We were at a pretty nice antique mall the other day. Don’t worry; we didn’t drag four kids through a packed and crowed antique mall. It was just us and the baby.
But here’s the interesting part. No matter how much I may enjoy browsing through old toys and games, and hoping I stumble on an unopened booster pack of Unlimited Edition Magic: The Gathering, there is nothing there I would want to take home.
My wife’s been this way for a few years, so my big revelation isn’t really anything new for her, but for me the trip to the antique mall told me one thing: This is the stuff I’m trying to get out of my house, not bring more into it.
And get of stuff is really something we’ve been doing for a while. My CDs have been imported into iTunes and sold (even the rare Pink Floyd imports), my DVDs have been liquidated. The remaining AD&D books are on ebay right now, and my PS2 games are slowing working their way to ebay as well. Oh, and my house is also (thankfully) a comic book free zone.
So what does any of this have to do with writing? Indirectly, not a lot, I suppose. But here’s the thing about stuff:
You don’t own your stuff. Your stuff owns you.
I know that sounds crazy, but hear me out. We spend SO much time cleaning, and if not cleaning, then rearranging stuff to make room for more stuff.
How much of that stuff sits in boxes and only comes out when you need to reshuffle the boxes to make room for more boxes? How much of that stuff will ever be used again? How much of that stuff was even used in the first place?
Your time is precious. And if you have to waste it taking care of things that don’t really mean a lot to you, and thing that have no practical value in your current life, then they need to go.
And if having some boxes stacked in your closet doesn’t seem like it’s that big of a deal, ask me about how much fun I had moving ten long boxes of comics not once, not twice, but three times.
And what about clutter? It may not bother some people, but it drives me nuts. And I can’t write when I’m nuts. Especially if I bump into something and knock it down every time I turn around.
So while stuff management, isn’t necessarily writing-related, it is sanity-related. So cut back on the clutter, get rid of the stuff, free up your time, free up your living space, and get to writing!
Does stuff get in the way of your writing? Leave us a comment and let us know what you do about it.
I can really relate to this one. I have moved several times and often move boxes that never got unpacked from the last time I moved. I just don’t need that stuff.
Last year, I moved to Beijing China and had to seriously purge everything. All that can to China with me and my wife was what we could fit into three suitcases. That’s it. Our entire life in 3 suitcases. That’s maybe 2% of all our possessions.
Since getting here, we have realized that all that stuff that hurt SO MUCH to give up, we don’t even miss. We didn’t need any of it. We have vowed to maintain this lifestyle. It is so much less stress.
Oh I love to hear that. Especially that you don’t even miss the stuff that you gave up. I don’t really get sentimental about any of my things, and I actually get excited every time something sells on ebay, but I do get sentimental about some of our kids’ toys. Our oldest just turned six, and I still get all mushy when I find some of his favorite stuff from a few years ago.
But we just have to keep purging right? Otherwise, we just end up with boxes and boxes of things that we never even look at. And then we die (hopefully about 100 years from now) and leave our kids with this giant burden of stuff to deal with. Hope that didn’t sound to morbid 🙂
Good luck with your minimalist lifestyle, and everything else as well. I checked out your blog (http://transformednonconformist.blogspot.com) and like what I see.
I don’t get too sentimental with the kids’ toys, but I do feel bad when I think about how much money was spent on the toys, only to be thrown away later, tossed aside, or passed on to someone else. Happy Meal toys are the worst junk toys. My kids won’t even play with them any more.
It is sad to see how much we (as a society) produce that simply ends up getting thrown away 🙁