Family
6 Tips On Deciding What To Keep And What To Let Go
By Marilyn Bohn
Apr 17, 2008

"We often keep items longer than we should for sentimental reasons", says Fugen Neziroglu, Ph.D. in Woman's Day magazine 6/05/07. Her surefire solutions in helping us to let go:

Find the best tribute: Instead of holding onto every single memento—greeting cards, playbills and ticket stubs—chose favorites, store in scrapbooks and toss the rest.

Use the rule of three: Decorators know groups of threes look best, so showcase only your top picks from each collection and store the rest. And I say rotate them in and out to keep things interesting. I have always been told to group in uneven numbers, three, five, seven and so forth. This does make the grouping more pleasing to the eye.

From my own experience I have found the following ideas helpful in deciding what to keep and what not to keep.

A few years ago I got a phone call from a friend saying she had gone back over thank you cards people had sent to her and she was thanking me for one I had sent her. Those cards are beautiful that we receive and we wonder what to do with them. I started keeping the thank you cards I received in a notebook and I was surprised at myself for all the nice things I have done for people. I keep ticket stubs and mementos like that in my journal and then I write about that activity. I have always joked with my girls saying, "if you can't read my writing, you can just look at my journal as it is chock full of little mementos". This makes it interesting and fun.

Let it go: Don't just store something because "you might need it one day." If you haven't used it in years, odds are you never will. And if you do need it in the future can you replace it easily? Will the cost of the new item out weigh the space it is using now and the emotional stress it is causing you for keeping it?

Family heirlooms is the exception to the do not just store idea. If you are keeping heirlooms that you aren't displaying or using they need to be stored in sturdy containers and labeled as to the contents. But don't be the dumping ground for all the relatives furniture and other things they collected during their life time. If you have been given the responsibility of being the caretaker of your loved ones things, put them in order, label boxes and after organizing them, invite other family members over to take what they want. When this is done donate the items left to a charity or have a garage or tag sale.

Keeping everything children make for you is impossible. Well, it is possible but you will be sorry as it takes up so much space and frankly not everything is worth keeping. Be selective on what you do chose to keep. I recommend taking a picture of the larger items or those that you have a hard time parting with. Place the photo in a memory album, it takes up less space but you still have the memory.

Marilyn Bohn's Bio
Marilyn is a creative organizer who has been organizing for over 20 years. She is a member of the National Association of Professional Organizers and is working towards becoming a Certified Professional Organizer. Professionally she has been organizing homes and offices for over two years. She holds a bachelors degree in Social Work. She has reared five daughters and currently lives in Utah.

Marilyn invites you to visit her website http://www.marilynbohn.com where you can find free organizing tips and interesting blogs and helpful articles on organizing.