purging is good for the soul

[llcoolvad]

So lately I've been prepping for moving out of my Mom's place; I move out August 1. I decided that this was going to be a purge move, where I could hopefully get rid of a lot of stuff. I have too much, and it's been bothering me.

One of the things that I have that bothers me the most is bin after bin of papers. I find paper especially hard to get rid of. I have the whole "but what if I need it some day?" thinking, along with "but it might be cool to have this information later" obsessiveness. Ugh!

A coworker of mine has been facing the same thing, as she has been moving into her very first condo. Her solution, something I'd thought of but never implemented, was to take all old paper and use the work high-speed scanners and scan everything into .pdfs, then shred the original. Electronic files are MUCH more portable than physical ones!

A couple of weeks ago I decided to emulate her. I stopped by storage, grabbed a couple of big bins, brought them into work, and during some weekend down time I began wading through my past. Some of the stuff I had:

• Every pay stub I've ever received. Ever. Since 1981.
  
• Every bank statement I've ever received. Ever.
  
• Car insurance statements
  
• Credit card statements
  
• Car repair receipts
  
• Student loan bills, promissory notes, info
  
• Cell phone bills; random other bills
  
• Loan information
  
• Teaching stuff: evaluations students did on me; grade sheets I did for them; prep material; offer letters for each semester; student checklists and phone lists
  
• Prior job stuff: reviews, articles I wrote for company newsletter, other things I designed and implemented
  

I have scanned all of those things, so far, into neat little pdf files, backed up in two places. And then I have shredded things that needed to be shredded (bank statements, check stubs, car repair info if they wrote down my license before I got a generic license number); I have recycled things that didn't need to be shredded; I have put stuff in the confidential shred bins at work that didn't have my specific info but still probably should be shredded. Our scanners are sheet-feed ones, so basically I drop a neatly stacked pile into the top tray of the printer and a minute or two later I have a pdf emailed to me by our server. I've cleaned out three big bins and three small bins so far!


The three small bins

I have about seven more to go, stuff that might be harder because it's not all business-y. Some things are keepsakes. Some things probably should go in a scrap book. When I get to the end of the bins, I plan to do something similar to my filing cabinet.

IT. IS. AWESOME. I cannot recommend this whole process more highly. Seriously. So liberating to not have all this...cruft!

And maybe someday I'll just delete the files!

Comments

[livingdeb.livejournal.com]

I keep thinking of uses for those things. Nooo!

Every pay stub? That means whenever you get one of those horrible job applications where they make you list every job you've ever had, with start and end dates, you can do it! And you can fill in your starting and ending salary! You might still have trouble with your supervisor's name, title, and phone number, though.

Car repair receipts? Good ammo for selling your used car. (Unless the maintenance has been horrible, in which case nevermind.)

Loan stuff? I always think that keeping the latest statement, especially the final payoff statement, would be good enough. But what if the company claims that was a typo, an error? The entire history of paying off the loan would be more difficult to refute.

Teaching evaluations? Now you can check your progress. Maybe have some laughs.

Things you wrote, designed, and implemented? Perfect portfolio fodder.

Not helping, am I?

[llcoolvad.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's exactly the problem. So I met my crazy midway, and now I can overcome!

I am a little nervous about what's still in storage. That should be fun. Grad school stuff. Letters from friends. Random stuff! UGh!

[kicking-k.livejournal.com]

Having spent hours and hours scanning stuff for work, I would never have the courage to start something that huge at home, so I salute you!

I am terrible at throwing stuff out as well. I have boxes of paper memorabilia which will never be of interest to anyone but me, and which I look at once every couple of years (if that). But I can't bear to get rid of it.

[llcoolvad.livejournal.com]

It is SO worth it, the time invested feels like nothing! I will get to the harder part soon, where pages are different sizes and there's illegible handwriting and whatever, but for the now it's all good. And the shredding? Feels awesome.

You might find as you get older that you hit a point like I did, and suddenly you have to either slide into being a scary hoarder, or you need to purge. I have tentatively accepted "purge" as my decision. Here's hoping I stick to it!

[queenlyzard.livejournal.com]

I envy your cleaning skills.

[llcoolvad.livejournal.com]

If you saw my storage unit, you'd probably retract that! :-)

[liddle-oldman.livejournal.com]

Remember -- your biographer will thank you for keeping all of this!

(Cleaning out my basement last week, I found a file box of papers from summer camp. 1967-1971. I'm keeping them! Ha!)