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Moving and decluttering. Wow. What an experience. After living in the same house since birth it was time to move on and I'm now in a different town in South London. Someone asked me if when I wake up do I think I'm still in the old place. The answer is no, as I guess this is a move Ive wanted to make for some time.

A jump from a family shared home to my own place. The time was right. One thing that surprised me though was how much clutter I had acculumulated over time. Why did I choose to keep so much stuff? Why does anyone refuse to part with certain things?

Emotions.

We get attached to things for sentimental reasons and its hard to let go. This whole experience forced me to look at what I owned in life and decide what I really wanted to hold on to. I had to justify every single thing. As I was moving into a smaller place, I literally couldnt keep all my stuff so had to cull certain items. I decided to give a lot of it to charity and my local library. Once I started the cull I was surprised at how easy it became.

I owned a whole load of books and realised what was the point of keeping them after I'd finished them? Unless it was something I could reference again and again there was no reason to hold on to it. But books are becoming digital so why take up valuable space. Things that I couldnt see myself not being without suddenly appeared unimportant.

For example, I love comic books so over the years I had amassed quite a few. This was for enjoyment and reference as I always wanted to create my own one day. I'm now doing so in the GrowlerVerse. I never wanted to reduce what I had but, for the first time, I looked hard at what I had and decisions were made. Why was I keeping them? Where they really the best comic book stories of all time? All of them? Of course not, they couldnt be. Truly great stories are rare.

I have a low tolerance for poor quality, but over time, this sense had dulled. Emotions got in the way. Looking through some comic book titles in their boxes I realised that they just werent doing it for me anymore. I look for particular things in a comic book story. Great artwork and great writing. It has to inspire me. Anything else just isnt worth the time.

So, with this new mindset in tow, I wielded an axe to my collection. Two thirds of it were given away. The space saving alone is something to be grateful for and believe me, I can't wait for digital reading to become widespread. I truly believe that the less stuff you have to move should you need to, the less hassle you have when that time comes.

But it doesnt stop there. I intend to further reduce the amount I own to have a clutter free life. After re-reading and using for reference I will give more to charity. I find, when I'm surrounded by clutter, I feel claustrophobic and a little more stressed. So decluttering is healing and revitalising. My new place is clear except for the bedroom where I've dumped stuff and I really notice the difference when in different rooms.

This has been a major move so I haven't spent as much time on the site and developing content as I would have liked. On the plus side, the time apart has helped me to focus on where I want to take the site from here. Things are settling down now so I can get back into building GrowlersWorld and continue the journey of discovery.

Click here to check out No More Clutter by Sue Kay  

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