clean out that scary closet

ALL the scary closets ( 3!) have been purged and what remains is stuff that I use and it is organized.
I could be 100% done if I donated all the remaining items I want to get rid of, but I want to recognize some $ from this stuff, so I’ll hang on to the remaining stuff until I can sell it. But psychologically it is gone already.

Clean, straighten and organize my living space. Give items I no longer use or need to the needy. Complete by end of 2006!

BOTH scary closets have been emptied, cleaned, reorganized. The exccess clothes and posessions have been donated, freecycled, sold on ebay, sold on consignment, recycled , or dumpstered. The hardest part was not letting go of things, but how to dispose of them in lucrative, charitable, or responsible ways.
A friend who is impressed that I have overcome my packrat tendencies wants me to help him do the same. I don’t think I have it in me to do it all over again, but maybe.

One closet done, but since there are in reality 2, not 1 scary closet(s) this is not quite complete. I could give all the extra stuff away, but I do need the money so I need to sell this stuff, even if it takes longer. But it is progressing and I have made $200.00 from the things I have sold on ebay and craigslist.

I am trying to use this policy to get rid of excess stuff, aside from books and CDs. ( Though I am trying to listen to every CD I own and read every book I own, and I have gotten rid of some of each) This policy would still enable me to keep things i use one a year like Christmas decorations. I have made strides in eliminating obvious excess posessions, like the bread machine I had not used in 5 years, so this is a refinement of what I have already been doing.

Recently I read somewhere that most people have at least $2000 of unused items in their homes and in the last year I have made that much selling on ebay and Amazon, and I have given away items worth that much to Goodwill. Some of things were never used, so following this plan makes you think about your spending habits.

One is an outside storage closet. I was forced to clean it out when I discovered a water pipe in the ceiling had been dripping onto my stuff for possibly months. I had to throw some stuff away, and then take everything out so the maintenance guy could rip out the ceiling and fix the pipe. My goal is to put nothing back in it. If I hadn’t even looked in that closet in a year, I don’t need anything in it.
The other scary closet is in my apartment and I am working on it. That one has some childhood mementos and some othe sentimental things so I can’t just get rid of it all.

I cleared out the junk in FRONT of the scary closet, so now I can at least GET to the scary closet. I don’t even know what’s in there. I wish everything in it would magically disappear so I wouldn’t have to bother lugging it to the trash, or to Goodwill, or think about selling on ebay. I can let go of stuff emotionally, I just can’t master the getting rid of it physically part.

a lot of my junk problem is that once i am organized, I do not want to deal with getting rid of the stuff I no longer want. Throwing it away , selling it, or finding new homes for it is just more work, and once the closet is organized I don’t want to do any more work. This is why my organizational projects tend to get bogged down in the middle, and often this is why I do not even start them.

Apparently I am TOO scared of the scary closet to clean it out.

but cleaning out the figurative closets is good, too.