Discardia_ More Life, Less Stuff - Dinah Sanders [3]
In this book, I will share what I’ve learned in great detail, but I want to tell you something right now. Regarding the daily art of Discardia, there are two big habits you can use whenever you’re faced with a choice or an opportunity:
Continually opt for that which will most avoid hassles and unpleasantness in the long-term; and
Continually make what you have to do more comfortable and enjoyable.
This is what makes the difference. Keep an eye out for a change you can make to improve things; then—here's the important bit—do it.
Can we have it all? All the good stuff and none of the bad stuff? Probably not, but if we have ever more of the good and ever less of the bad, that's a fine thing.
Three Core Principles
Core Principle #1: Decide and Do
Making decisions requires energy, but not deciding about whether to decide requires even more energy.
—David Allen, productivity guru
Celebrating Discardia begins with deciding what belongs in your life and what does not. Deciding now is the best habit you can teach yourself. Once you decide, you can act. Action changes your life for the better.
Without decisions, our lives become a constant accumulation of junk. Things pile up, usually literally. Magazines and newspapers, clothes with missing buttons, mail to read, half-finished projects, obsolete computer parts, and on and on. You know how to get rid of these things—trash, recycling and the Goodwill donation box—but the problem is making yourself get around to it. Rather than giving yourself a hard time, your first Discardian act should be to let go of feeling bad about what you haven't gotten done by now. You were doing something else; it was a choice; you're a big kid; it's okay.
Now that you’ve forgiven yourself, I'm not going to tell you to get cracking and change all your habits overnight. I am suggesting, though, that you start with a few small steps, which are the foundation for bigger changes. The key to fighting entropy is simple and threefold:
1. Slow down your accumulation of this stuff;
2. Make it easier on yourself to get rid of it on an ongoing basis; and
3. Habitually decide what you want to discard.
Act as your own gatekeeper and decide what gets in. As you control the inflow, increase the outflow to rid yourself of things that only serve to make your life more awkward and overstuffed. Ask yourself, “Why do I keep holding onto that?” and use your answer—or the fact that you have no answer—to decide whether it is time for that thing to leave. If this object or habit or emotion were only available by subscription, would you renew?
Make deciding as easy as you can. The more you do it, the easier it gets. You can even have a friend come over and help, holding up one object at a time as you lounge on the sofa with a glass of wine, giving them the thumbs up or thumbs down.
Part I, “March Discardia: Getting Started,” will show you where to begin, and Part II, “June Discardia: Core Principle #1—Decide and Do,” will walk you through seven additional symptoms of indecision and their solutions.
Core Principle #2: Quality over Quantity
My tidiness, and my untidiness, are full of regret and remorse and complex feelings.
—Natalia Ginzburg, author
Paradoxically, the best way to feel like you have more is to get rid of things. Weeding out things that no longer need to be in your home—that juicer you never use, those books you'll never reread, that old beloved decorative item that has morphed somewhere along the way into merely an object to dust—can leave you uplifted and energized and draw your attention back to those things that do still matter to you.
It’s not about denial; it’s about being selective.