Barriers Behind Throwing Out Stuff & How-to Overcome Them

I finally got around to cleaning my room, aka gutting out all of the clothing I don’t wear anymore. It took me a couple of hours and a few trips down memory lane, but I finally managed to remove every article of clothing that I realistically do NOT see myself wearing in the near future (you know Ecko jeans and long shirts aren’t cool any more unfortunately).

It took me forever to throw all of my junk out. This is in fact the reason as to why I want to take a look at some barriers behind throwing out stuff & how to overcome them…

Reasons for getting rid of the clothing in my room:

Change in taste. Your clothing style in high school varies greatly with your clothing style once you begin to move through your 20s. Tastes & preferences change. And yes sometimes life or that new career forces us to change styles or to cut that ponytail.

Change in size. I didn’t technically lose any weight because I’m still around the same weight but due to various new training regimens that I’ve tried out over the years, my body build has changed. Some clothes is too small for me, while other pieces of clothing are way too large for me.

Time to grow up. What I wore in high school won’t work now in my 20s.

The reason it took me so long to throw out this stuff? There were certain psychological barriers and certain non-psychological barriers preventing me:

Why it took so long to clean out my room:

Emotional attachment. Every shirt or pair of pants I looked at it brought back memories. This also holds true for stuff around the house. I find that we all have a difficult time getting rid of certain stuff (see: junk) simply because we’ve had it for so long and it possesses sentimental value.

Money invested. I’ve been purchasing my own clothing ever since I started working as a teenager. Now I obviously earn more now, but back then some of those Ecko jeans or American Eagle (don’t laugh) shirts cost a lot of money. It’s so much easier to hold on to something than it is to throw it out. Every time we buy a new book, DVD, or random decoration for the pad, we’ve spent money on it that we pretty much will never get back in full. This in turn creates a barrier for us and we end up keeping junk way longer than we should.

Religious reasons. Being a Christian makes it difficult for me and my family to throw things out. My Mother keeps absolutely everything. She refuses to throw out anything (sorry the pre-junk removal pictures got deleted by accident). Regardless of your religious beliefs, many of us are raised to value and cherish our possessions (yes, even junk).

How to over come these barriers:

Donate to charity and family

We have relatives that live in other countries that don’t live in the best of conditions. Whenever clothing doesn’t fit one of us or we simply don’t wear it any more then we put it into a box. Once we have a couple of boxes full of clothing & shoes, my Mom wraps it all up and sends a big package overseas. This certainly beats throwing out the clothes and someone else benefits from this.

If you don’t have any relatives to pass down your clothing or old stuff to then charity donation is the next best thing. In my area there are many Goodwill drop-off boxes. If you can’t find any then you can always give the company a call and in most cases they will come to your home to pick everything up.

Think Space=Money

You pay lots of money for your home (mortgage, interest, repairs, etc.) or for your apartment (rent, appliances, etc.). A portion of this expensive space is now being used to store junk. That may seem a little messed up but it’s how I see it. Do you really want keep all of that junk or would you like to turn the “storage” room into your own office?

Hold a yard sale

Yes it’s true that one man’s junk is another man’s treasure. This is why a garage sale is the perfect way to get rid of your clutter/junk while making some money. Everyone knows how a yard sale works so I won’t bother explaining it to you. It’s a good excuse to spend a nice summer morning outdoors, meet the neighbors, and sell your crap.

Just do it

Honestly, the best way to get rid of clutter is to just do it. There’s just some crap that you can’t sale or can’t even identify (broken skateboards) and all you can do is get rid of it. On a warm summer morning I called a friend that runs a waste disposal business and ordered a large waste bin for the day. We loaded up the bin with all of our junk and a couple of hours later it was all gone. Now I realize that it may seem counter-productive to pay to get rid of junk, but you won’t care because you’ll be too busy with trying to figure out how you can turn your now empty garage into a bachelor room.

Note: I wrote this past last summer but never ended up posting it for reasons unknown. Unfortunately, for the life of me I can’t find the original pictures that I took. I do promise that next time I throw out junk from my room I’ll post the pics asap.