Discardia_ More Life, Less Stuff - Dinah Sanders [11]
Now, what do you do with this bag once you’ve filled it up? Take it to a used bookstore, which buys or trades books and possibly turn it into cash or books you actually want, or you can drop it off (or at least the books that didn't sell or trade) as a donation to the library or charity.
Big warm things. A big plastic garbage bag might be better than a paper grocery bag. Go through any extra blankets and sheets, and put the ones you haven't used in the last year into the bag. Check the winter coats, scarves, gloves, sweaters, and rain boots, add any you haven't used in the last year, and take the bag down to the homeless shelter.
Toys and sporting gear. You know the drill: Get a big paper grocery sack. Today, it's toy patrol. Grownups of all sorts: You have toys, so don't think this doesn't apply to you. To those of you with kids: This can often work better if the kids help with the game of sending old toys on to a new home, and will spare their later resentment over something precious having been thrown away. Discardian and Ann Arbor community organizer Edward Vielmetti said, “My kindergartener and I did this with his bookshelves, and he picked out a bunch of books that we should save for his baby brother when he's a toddler.”
With those set aside, you can donate the others. Go through the house and find the toys and sports equipment you never play with anymore. Got any little desk widgets that you're completely bored with? (Can you hear the sound of a hundred little plastic gewgaws flying into the bag around the world? Lovely, isn't it?) Did you upgrade a console game system but keep the old one, thinking that you'd break it out now and then? If it's covered in dust, send it off to a new home. How about those electronic gadgets? Anyone with more than one universal remote control, I am looking at you! Two-pound digital camera from 1999 in the back of a drawer? Ahem—bag it.
A small percentage of this stuff might worth selling on eBay or offering on craigslist, but weigh the hassle of selling against the possible outcome. It’s often a better return on your time to give it away. Think of the happiness your cast-offs can bring!
Foldy clothes. Grab one of those trusty paper sacks and a trash can and head for your dressers. Purge all the clothes you don't wear anymore because they don't quite fit, are worn out, are the wrong color, etc. Trash the rags and donate the rest. This is a great exercise for the day when you desperately need to do laundry. What have you still not chosen to wear even when your choices are limited? You may find that you have a whole category of clothes heavily slanted toward the bag, so buy new ones that don’t suck. You deserve nonholey socks, nonstretched-out and nonstained undershirts, and underwear that have functional elastic.
Not quite ready to wear. Revitalize your currently unusable investments! Fill a bag with clothes you like a lot and fit you, but which need to be dry cleaned, repaired, or altered. Take them to a professional and get them back into your active wardrobe. Bonus round: Take along a bag of excess wire hangers to be reused.
Pantry purge. Go through all your cupboards. Pull out anything old and nasty and put it in the trash—duh—as well as anything unopened that you aren't going to eat in the next 30 days, which should go in a bag and be taken this week to your local food bank. If you have time, pull everything out, wipe down the cupboard and dust out the cobwebs, and put back the keepers. Update the shopping list with those staples you would eat in the next 30 days if only you had enough of them.