“Ridding up”

The Oxford Dictionary defines “rid” as “freeing a person or place of something unwanted.” In the Midwest I’ve often heard people refer to the cleaning up process of a place as “ridding up.” Well, maybe we should also refer to the task of uncluttering our life as ridding up.

After last week’s post on Remnants of the Rack, I’ve been thinking of the monumental task I have before me of “ridding up.” It seems that I need to rid up both person and place.

I’ve written previously about uncluttering my life (the person). Well, I also need to work on my living and working space (the place).

My wife and I are fixing up an older house I grew up in, and plan to move next spring. At that point we will need to fix up the house where we are currently living so we can sell it. We’ve lived in our current house for over twenty-five years…and I’m a hoarder. Consequently, I’ve collected (hoarded) way too much to move, i.e. I need to rid up a bunch of junk. But that’s hard to do. Where do I start? I feel so buried. It’s hard to part with some of those things. Besides, in the past, when I’ve thrown something away, I’ve needed it two weeks later.

Last week, after the post, I woke up in the middle of the night overwhelmed and in a panic. I couldn’t sleep, thinking of all the tasks ahead. I had to make a plan.

So, I’ve decided to shift gears, to move from the “save” (hoard) mode to the “pitch” (throw away) mode. My goal is to look at everything through new lenses, lenses that are constantly asking of everything I see, “Can I do without this item? Can I throw it away? What in my field of view is something that needs to be discarded?”

It’s not easy for a hoarder. It will be an uphill battle. I’m certain I will need to continuously start over. I’m hoping this blog will help keep me accountable.

How do you approach the problem of keeping your physical space uncluttered?