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Reading the comments on my
post on junk I was
surprised to see the extent to which people's relation to rarely used
possessions varies.
Some people forget rarely used possessions, and get minimal benefit
from having them stored. When they need something, they don't know
whether they already have it, and the effort to maintain an index [1]
wouldn't be worth it. Ben writes:
I end up with curtains I don't need. I decide to store them for the
future in case they are helpful. Years pass. I need new curtains. I
have forgotten the ones I kept, so I buy new ones and put them
up. Months later I find the ones I kept while looking for something
else.
Other people know exactly where everything is, and can walk down to
the basement and make a beeline for a tiny thing they put down there
years ago. Sarah writes:
I can remember where I put a specific doohickey that my
brain labeled as "this could be useful" years later with very little
recall effort; something will come up that actually matches the need
for the thing, a little triumph, and I go to the spot where I buried
my acorn and get it.
I'm somewhere in between, though closer to Sarah. I usually remember
what I have stored when it could be relevant, though I'm less
good at the where. One strategy I use a lot is to imagine I'm
putting the object away, and I'll even walk the path. Wherever seems
good now has a good chance of being the place that seemed good when I
actually did have the thing to put away. Other times, though, I have
no idea whether any of my stuff might be useful for a problem or
project, and I'll just wander around the basement looking for ideas.
Then there's another way people vary, which is how much having stuff,
even out of sight, weighs on them mentally. For some people,
including me, it's mentally costless. Just like it's not a problem
that I "have" 2,615 blog posts, or that I've read hundreds of books, I
don't think about the objects in the basement when they're not
relevant. To others