Saver Syndrome

My husband is a saver. He likes to keep belongings from his past. Every once in a while I will gently broach the subject of donating some of his “stuff”. He has probably sixty cassette tapes that we have been storing in our entertainment center. He has not listened to any of them in at least ten years. A few years ago, I asked him about getting rid of them. He said “no.” This weekend, I asked if he’d go through them with me and let go of those he no longer wanted. He was willing. He found several tapes that he didn’t need, because he also had the music on CDs. Then he picked out those he had rarely listened to even when they were new; more to get rid of. Now we were getting somewhere! He started picking out those he really liked and put them in the “keep” box. Slowly he narrowed down those to keep to less than half of the original amount. Yah! Now we have more room to store CDs and Wii games.

Chances are that members of your household have different organizing styles. Respect everyone’s style and together develop guidelines that work for everyone. Organizing For Your Brain Type, by Lanna Nakone, is a great book that explains different organizing styles and how people with different styles can coexist peacefully.

My second point: Make purging a part of your routine. When one new item comes into the home, one item goes out. When the shelf or closet or cabinet is full, look at what can be removed. When you notice items aren’t being used, review what you have. That may motivate you to use the item. If it doesn’t, donate it.

Now my husband knows what music he has on tapes. He may start listening to them. If so, great! If not, we’ll go through the process again in a year or two and he’ll be ready to let go of more.