Motivation logo

How to Curate Your Crap

Identifying what matters

By Kris DowneyPublished 3 years ago 8 min read
2
How to Curate Your Crap
Photo by Erda Estremera on Unsplash

Leaving our sprawling house in Ohio in 2014 was a project. Good thing I’m a project nerd. At the time we were in the 10th year of our most recent ten-year plan. Simultaneously, Hubs and I had just celebrated our 35th anniversary, also the anniversary of our we-might-need-that-someday plan.

As a retired couple, downsizing is an expected right of passage. It marks the time when you side-step the everything-for-the-kids mode of living and step into the it’s-now-or-never mode of living.

The right of passage goes something like this — you let go of the ‘big house’ and find a condo or a small house in an active adult community full of other retirees who’ve also let go of the big house.

That wasn’t our plan, at least not initially. Although I’m writing this from our small house in an active adult community full of fellow downsizers.

Our initial plan had a step between the big house in the suburbs and the small house in the 55+ community. That step was the Big Rig. The Big Rig was a nearly 40' motorhome. Our plan was to live in it full time and travel the U.S. The plan was open-ended. We had a start date but no predetermined end date. The end date showed up on its own nearly three years later.

How we went from the big house to the Big Rig

This is how we pulled off emptying out a 3200+ square foot house, not counting a 2500 square foot finished basement, a packed 3-car garage, a stuffed to the gills bonus room (above the 3-car garage) and a backyard garden shed.

We also said goodbye to my Lexus RX350, my Mother-in-law’s pink power scooter, and a freaked-out Lovebird — all so we could head off into the sunset in the Big Rig.

We started our downsizing journey with a skill we’ve fine-tuned over the decades. That skill is procrastination. Procrastination takes many forms. I’m an active procrastinator. I kept busy on less-than-essential activities, things like reorganizing the junk drawer. Hubs is a passive procrastinator. He spent his time “thinking it through” with his eyes closed in his recliner.

No doubt about it, we were overwhelmed and stuck.

I wish I could say we broke through procrastination and in a blaze of glory pulled it off. That would be a big fat lie. What happened was we sold the house. The thing about selling your house is it comes with a get-your-butt-out date. We had a deadline. A non-negotiable deadline. That’s how we broke through procrastination.

A lot of stuff…for real

The scary part of getting started with the downsizing process is realizing just how much stuff you have. We all know we have a lot of stuff, of course, we do. But knowing you have ‘a lot’ is different than realizing exactly what ‘a lot’ means.

Take a minute and quantify your stuff. Do a quick count of the items in your line of sight, or take a gander at your junk drawer or a coat closet. If you’re feeling brave take a peek into the garage or the basement. This will freak you out a bit, but it gives a feel for the lay of the land, which helps with perspective.

After my third cup of courage, I took a morning and walked through the house, the garage the storage shed, the bonus room, all of it. I took a deep breath and told myself:

Decisions brought all this into our lives.

Decisions will move it out.

Easier said than done.

Some things that helped

Following, in no real order, are some things that helped us process through our stuff. It’s not easy and it takes way more time than you expect. And one more thing to be aware of — decision fatigue will kick your butt. It’s inevitable.

Give your downsizing project a name

This might seem corny, and it is. Do it anyway. It helped us to acknowledge this project as deserving a name since it basically lasted as long as a full-term pregnancy.

We named it Curate the Crap. Curate is a great word. It means to select, to choose, to consciously decide what you want to keep, to enjoy. The concept of curating framed our downsizing. It wasn’t about getting rid of stuff — it was about identifying what not to get rid of.

Start with the easy stuff

Pick a starting point with minimal emotional attachment. This is harder than you think. Attaching meaning, even to mundane things, is just what we humans do. For example, that stapler that sat on your desk at work for years is now in your junk drawer right next to the newer, fun-colored stapler that actually works.

You get the idea, emotional attachment does not always line up with logic or practicality. You get to decide.

Determine categories, you’ll be glad you did

One of the earliest decisions we made was to determine categories. It became apparent early on that we needed a framework to work within. What’s the point of handling all your stuff — each and every item — if you’re not simultaneously making decisions about the future of each and every item?

The future of each and every item. Yikes!

Categories help

Here are the categories we used: Take, Store, Gift, Sell, Donate and Pitch.

Take: Making the cut

When you’re moving into approximately a tenth of your usual living space what you decide to take with you is serious business. I went through and pulled my absolutes first. That helped some.

My absolute pile expanded and shrunk throughout our Curate the Crap process, as did Hubs’ pile. After a couple of testy conversations, we agreed not to comment on each other’s absolutes. That was a good decision.

Store: To store or not to store, that is the question

What to store was a hotly debated topic. Initially, we thought we’d store most of our furniture just in case we couldn’t take the close quarters and needed to bail ASAP or get a quickie divorce.

We came around to the decision to only store what would fit into a 10 x 10 climate-controlled storage unit. This decision put a defined border around our curation. It also meant all the furniture had to go. This was scary and a little sad as we watched our carefully selected pieces get loaded into pick-up trucks and taken to new homes.

Gift: What, you don’t want my stuff?

Before we sold anything we offered it up to our kids and extended family. This will probably come as a shock to you, but there wasn’t a lot of interest. It seems my Noritake china, my 30-year old mixer, and our crappy coolers weren’t exactly sought after.

We were able to help a recently married niece furnish her first house, upsize a TV for our grandkids in Maine, and provide an electric keyboard to our grandkids in Ohio. The family took a few other things, but really not much.

Sell: Your stuff is not worth what you think it is

We expected selling stuff to be a colossal pain. It sort of was, but not as bad as we thought. Our furniture went quickly and mainly to friends.

We decided to hold not one but two garage sales. That was a dumb and time-consuming decision. Hubs managed to be MIA on garage sale days. The first one went pretty well, but the second was an exercise in tedium.

We quickly realized the literal meaning of pennies-on-the-dollar.

Donate: Habitat for Humanity made out

The biggest benefactor of our donations was, by far, Habitat for Humanity. Hubs had an entire workshop full of tools, hand tools, power tools, weird tools, sets of weird tools — you name it he likely had it.

He also had his Dad’s tool collection. He sold a few things and made multiple trips to Habitat. By the third trip, they asked him if he was a contractor going out of business.

Goodwill and Salvation Army also made out well, as did a start-up bead shop, a teacher’s resource center, a few daycares, and an assisted living facility.

Pitch: And then there’s the junk

Deciding what to pitch was easy. It’s amazing how much actual junk we had. We forwarned the garbage collector as our trash pile got bigger every week. We also sorted the metal out to make it easier for the scrappers to pick it up.

Decision fatigue hit hard

Towards the final days of our Curate the Crap project, before we handed the keys over to the new owners, our decision-making got sloppy. Not sure we recognized it as decision fatigue at the time, but it definitely was and we were both suffering from it.

We handled our decision fatigue by revising our initial procrastination. Hey, sometimes procrastination is useful. This resulted in tossing whatever was left into our 10 x 10 climate-controlled storage unit. We knew we’d eventually have to deal with it. We didn’t care.

We made it.

Our crap got curated! Once we got past procrastination, named our project, and decided on categories, we kicked butt. Throughout the process, we cut each other lots of slack and did our best to acknowledge small victories along the way.

Our Curate the Crap project took close to 9 months. At times it felt like giving birth. In a way, we were giving birth to a lighter more streamlined life.

No regrets.

advice
2

About the Creator

Kris Downey

Kris Downey is endlessly curious. She's a woman who pays attention and fills up journals in barely legible cursive. She finds insight and humor in the adventure of everyday life.

Reader insights

Be the first to share your insights about this piece.

How does it work?

Add your insights

Comments

There are no comments for this story

Be the first to respond and start the conversation.

Sign in to comment

    Find us on social media

    Miscellaneous links

    • Explore
    • Contact
    • Privacy Policy
    • Terms of Use
    • Support

    © 2024 Creatd, Inc. All Rights Reserved.