De-stuffocate
Becoming older has put (unexpectedly) all of my material stuff into question. Last year's moving can be considered as the main reason. I remember packing my things into all the suitcase I own - it still wasn't enough storage. Fear, stress and fatigue all around. There was always something left behind and I was totally afraid to throw it away.
What if I will need it one day?? ( Not to mention my ,,big cleaning" and decluttering the whole room, which brought up few kilograms of ,,I-don't-want-it-or-use-this-anymore" kind of things. )
Packing
Being frustrated and stressed out during these cleaning sessions ended up in a realisation. I was wondering, where did those things came to the power to put me in this uncomfortableness. (?!) Why can I not simply decide, what to pack or what to throw away? Overthinking and never ending reasoning was so energy-consuming I got angry easily. This needs to stop immediately. When asking this question myself, I got it. Metacognition works. And so does my totally irrational behavior. At one point, I made a conscious, objective decision on my own, not to get nervous about any of the STUFF or about throwing it away and made a promise to myself I won't buy any unnecessary items .Since then, when shopping and grabbing some stuff into consideration, metacognition has proved to be a a useful strategy. I'm simply asking myself at least twice ,,Do I really need this? When I'm gonna use it?". It really helps.
Just a few of my other personal hacks:-
If you didn't wear the item in a year and a half, throw it away ( yes, year and a half - there can be some piece laying in the closet for a year that still has a chance )
- If you're not sure what to do, rely on the first feeling. The kind of mixed feeling mostly predicts you can safely get rid of it. Any other realization is just rationalization based on weak reasons.
- Organizing stuff makes not only order, psychological comfort and convenience. It shows up duplicates and items that are in the need of replacement.
- Stressed out, when backing-up your HD? No stress. Except personal documents or photos (that are already in Cloud, aren't they?), 75% of the data you need are on the web and can be downloaded easily within seconds. Credits to Spotify, Popcorn time...Recently I had to pack for a month into 20kg suitcase. (Winter time.) This was a proof I can really make it quickly and yet effective - in fact, I didn't wear almost one third of clothes I packed.What are your strategies?Read more about Suffocation by James Wallman.
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Čím som staršia, tým viac prehodnocujem veci, čo vlastním. Prelomové bolo minuloročné sťahovanie - Pamätám si, ako som vecami zaplnila všetkú batožinu čo vlastním. Stále to nestačilo. Nervózna v kombinácii so strachom som stresovala, čo s tými vecami spraviť - čo keď ich ešte niekedy budem potrebovať? Škoda vyhodiť! To sa predsa zíde! ( A to nespomínam upratovacie sesson, ktorých som mala pred balením niekoľko a z ktorých vzišlo niekoľko kilogramov nepotrebných atefaktov.)Tento stav nervozity ma prinútil sa zamyslieť - čo je to za ,,nadprirodzená" sila vecí, že ma vie tak rozhodiť? Prečo sa neviem jednoducho a rýchlo rozhodovať? Prebytočné premýšľanie a nekonečné zdôvodňovanie mi žralo energiu tak, až som bola nahnevaná - to predsa musí ihneď prestať.Opäť som si zopakovala tú istú otázku a vtedy mi to doplo - metakognícia funguje. A takisto funguje aj úplne iracionálne správanie. Urobila som vedomé rozhodnutie, že ma nejaké VECI alebo ich vyhadzovanie nebudú znervózňovať a že nebudem kupovať veci, ktoré ozaj nepotrebujem. Keď som v obchode a čosi sa mi pozdáva, predtým, než sa rozhodnem vec kúpiť, pýtam sa samej seba minimálne dvakrát - či to naozaj potrebujem a kedy to budem používať.
Zopár mojich ďalších grifov:
- ak kúsok oblečenia nenosíte rok a pol, zbavte sa ho.
- ak neviete, čo s vecou, dajte na prvý pocit. Zmiešané pocity indikujú neistotu a ďalšie rozmýšľanie by bola len neopodstatnená racionalizácia.
- poriadok neprináša len psychickú pohodu a prehľadnosť, zistíte, ktoré veci máte duplicitne a ktoré je treba vymeniť.
- máte stres zo zálohovania svojho počítača? Nie je to také zlé - okrem osobných dokumentov a fotiek (ktoré máte aj tak v Cloude, všakže?) je väčšina obsahu - ebookov, hudby, filmov - na internete a máte ju stiahnutú v priebehu sekúnd. Malou satisfakciou mi je, že som sa naposledy zbalila na mesiac tak efektívne, že mi nevedomou rezervou bola tretina oblečenia, ktoré som nakoniec nevynosila. :)
Aké sú vaše stratégie?