When you live in New York you get used to periodically going on a rampage and throwing stuff out. Living in small spaces forces you not to accumulate too much for one simple reason – most of us just don’t have the room to.
Sometimes I plan the decluttering activity. Sometimes it just sweeps over me – an unplanned project that once I start – I can’t stop.
Like Sunday night. After an idyllic few days out of the city, I decided to get a head start on the week. It started by looking through a few files in search of something I needed. I still can’t tell you what that was. It seemed all I was finding was the stuff I didn’t need. Nor could I figure out why I had been saving it.
I tossed those aside until the pile toppled over. The next thing I knew I was sitting on the floor in front of my shredder watching the unnecessary transform into thin strips of confetti.
I fell into a Zen – feeding in just enough paper not to jam or overheat the machine – before I emptied the tray into a giant Hefty trash bag and started again.
I can’t quite explain the sense of peace this gives me. The feeling is never replicated when I do it electronically. Hitting a delete button on my iMac or dragging a file to the trash basket are not a substitute for the tactical release of stuff I once thought important enough to fill a file folder and now constitute junk in my life.
note: This is Day #29 of the 30 Day Experiment. Tomorrow is the last day! Don’t miss it! Here are the details on how it all started.
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