I suppose that a pruning purist would challenge every box, space, and piece of paper in the house, but I have to draw the line somewhere. For me, I’ve decided that I simply don’t have the time or will to go through four crates (40 years) of photo albums and five file cabinets of folders. (OK, the photo albums probably only cover 30 years since the last decade has been largely digitalized.) The industrious organizer would convert all those old photos to CD’s or whatever the modern electronic form would be. I’ve scanned some photos for posterity but it’s quite a task and I’m not up to doing them all. (That would make a nice Christmas present, kids. 😉 )
The file cabinets are packed. Yes, they are organized but I admit they are overflowing to my desk, where I keep my most active files. A truly virtuous person would go through them all and pitch outdated information. It’s a daunting task and I get tired just thinking about it. Even though much of the information I use is on the computer, it would still take a lot of time to go through each file and decide what’s worth saving.
Giving away stuff is already taking over a chunk of my daily life. I think that adding photos and files would be an example of the perfect being the enemy of the good. Besides, no one else would benefit from my used papers except the paper recycling industry. Call me a slacker, but a sane slacker.
