Decluttering Technology

 

As you all know I've been on a decluttering journey since the first of December in an effort to live with less stuff in my everyday life.  That also includes computers, audio equipment, visual equipment and all of the crap that goes along with that and it is quite a bit when you take a really good look at it.  We are talking about computers, laptops, tablets, kindles, telephones, cellphones, routers, televisions, stereos, players of all kinds like MP3, DVD, Playstations, you get it, right? It is A LOT!  And all of this stuff comes with even more stuff.  There are monitors, keyboards and mouses (mice?), speakers, game cartridges, CDs, DVDs, apps, files, digital photos, the cases that stuff comes in, screen protectors, special cleaners and cloths, cameras, ear buds and earphones, loads of accessories and let's not forget the miles upon miles of cords, cables and adapters.

 

I'm going to be completely honest with you.  I was so overwhelmed by this particular category that it took me until the middle of February before I could start to get a handle on it.  It was SO MUCH!  Just putting all of my DVDs, which I don't think I have a lot of, into one "space" filled up three copy paper boxes.  My CDs filled up a banker box.  And that is where I stopped and realized I was about to drown in all of this technology I had amassed inside of my home over the years.  I had barely touched the surface and feeling completely overwhelmed by it all so I took a giant step back and approached it from an entirely different direction.

 

Instead of going through everything and getting rid of stuff I decided to first, get real with myself, and then second, pick out only the items I truly need, want and use.  What do I need to happily exist in my life?  After a good reality check I realize all I need is one laptop or computer setup, one cell phone (although I don't love them I do acknowledge their value), one television, one music player of some sort, my favorite DVDs and CDs.  Whatever was left over needed to go.

 

Currently I have two laptops, one is really old and is about to give it up, but I plan to run the wheels off it anyway.  My other one is newer and a workhorse so I will keep it for now, purge it and start transferring any files I may want to keep.  I recently purged A LOT of files from my current laptop and backed up the rest onto a jump drive so I'll be ready to start this little project quite soon.  The old dilapidated laptop along with my very old PC sitting in the garage will be going to the recycler in about a month or so.  This will be a project of its own.

 

Along with all of the actual equipment is the intangible clutter that goes with it.  In the past year or so I have been diligently unsubscribing to automatic emails and deleting read emails, older saved emails, apps, and pretty much anything else on my computer and cell phone that isn't needed and doesn't add to my life.  In the process I've been much more selective about the media I read and pay attention too, especially when it comes to the news.  Often when I see a headline I will ask myself if reading that article will be a benefit to my life.  Most of the time I determine it won't.  With so much negativity and the horrible events going on in this world every day I have to be careful about how much of that I absorb because it will really bring me down if I let it in.

 

From this...

Then there was the box of CDs and three boxes of DVDs I had after "decluttering".  I'm one of those who has hung onto the cases these things come in because I just thought that is what I needed to do.  Well, time for another reality check and this, for some reason, was a tough one for me.  I ordered some zippered organizer cases with those plastic sleeves inside and made the monumental decision to pull all of the CDs and CDs out of their original packaging and get rid of them.  Yes I did!  And I'm really proud of myself for doing it.  The only exception will be my Queen collection.  Those CDs and DVDs (music videos & concerts) will be staying in their original packaging, simply because this is what I want.  Now I am able to store everything together in one bankers box with room to spare.  I filled up two, yes two, big black trash bags with all of those cases and they were amazingly quite heavy too.  Along the way I also found some CDs and DVDs to donate.

 

... to this!

This was a HUGE project that I worked on for about two weeks, start to finish.  It was quite the process.  Now that I'm done I feel like an enormous weight has been lifted and I can actually breathe better.  Once again, I find myself amazed at how things can weigh a person down and stress us out without even realizing it is doing that.  It is both a physical and mental burden to keep things that don't serve a useful purpose in our everyday lives.  I'm really glad I stuck with it and persevered.  Technology can take over our lives and our homes if we aren't careful.  I'm not going to let that happen.