I love Urban Out­fit­ters. My sis­ter intro­duced me to the store when she lived in Chicago. They have a col­lec­tion of eclec­tic clothes and weird stuff that I occa­sion­ally spend money on.

So this book on their shelves caught my eye. My wife Heather spent the bet­ter part of six months deal­ing with this very issue at her par­ents’ house. They were pretty much too old to deal with get­ting rid of a house full of stuff before they moved into a much smaller home, so that joy fell to Heather. I helped some, but she did the vast major­ity of fill­ing the shelves at the local char­ity shop.

My dad was a huge col­lec­tor. After he died, it took my mom more than six years to clear out all the stuff that he col­lected, before she was able to move into a 1-bedroom apart­ment. (She didn’t want to buy a condo, as she felt like it would be a bur­den on her kids to have to sell the place!)

So I guess my only point is that if you don’t buy that junky thing that catches your eye, your kids won’t have to give it away later.

Foot­notes:

1. Spe­cial thanks to my friend James, who inspired this post.

2. Here are some related posts I wrote: Not going to buy it, Let it go, Recap­tur­ing that lost child­hood and That col­lec­tor gene.

3. I did not buy the book. And I was amused to see that as of this writ­ing, it was sell­ing for just $1.48, used. Appar­ently sev­eral peo­ple decided they didn’t want their kids to have to give it away, much later.

A gen­tle­man not far from my house has a Fire­bird in his garage. It’s a shelf for things to rest on dur­ing their jour­ney to other des­ti­na­tions. And it har­bors a major dust collection.

My guess is that it’s a source of guilt for him. Every time he sees the car, he thinks, “This week­end, I’ll start ren­o­vat­ing it.” The week­end starts and he real­izes he has lots of other things to do. The week­end fin­ishes and the Fire­bird has been neglected. Again.

If I knew Mr. Fire­bird owner, I might sug­gest that he sell the car and give up that dream of restor­ing it. He’d then free up a slot in his garage — less snow removal on snowy morn­ings for the car in the dri­ve­way. He’d release some cash to be used in what­ever fun or wor­thy cause he can come up with. And the Fire­bird might end up being restored by the new owner.

My point? Give your­self per­mis­sion to get rid of that project you’ll never do.

I took the photo with my phone’s cam­era; thus the poor quality.

Recently I went on about how great it is to go ana­log — by writ­ing or receiv­ing a let­ter. Today I’ll backpedal. I think you should not save every­thing. Sim­ply take a dig­i­tal photo and then throw what­ever away (or give it to your local char­ity shop). You will save your­self the has­sle of throw­ing it away later.

At one time in my life, I may have saved this lit­tle mov­ing tag. It’s a rem­nant of an era that passed sev­eral year ago. I may have put it in an enve­lope for look­ing at on a rainy day. (It rarely rains in Den­ver, though.)

And those ana­log let­ters you receive? Recy­cle them. If you really like them, save a few — but not all. (If your dad lives in a dif­fer­ent town and never writes — and you finally get a real let­ter from him — by all means, save it! Just strive for balance.)

If you liked this post, you’ll like this other post.