Asklemmy

I find that taking pictures of the items gives me that “it’s nice to be reminded of that time”. Then i can get rid of the item and still keep the nostalgic reminder.

Donate it to a library, shelter, thrift store, or similar. It gave you joy, but now it doesn't. Let someone else have the experience.

I also digitize what I can. Then I separate what I actively use from the rest, separate those items into categories, pick out one or two (or three) of my favorites in each category, and donate the rest to a thrift store in hopes someone else can make better use of them. Still not foolproof though, on the shelf next to me is a keyboard and bin of cables that I haven't touched in ages.

i'd honestly rip CDs and vinyls and keep them on a spare drive. host them on slsk or smth, you''ll never know if someone might want it.

Personally I keep books and CD’s. I have lots from my teens and early adulthood. I like them, and I also like having a library that my kid can look through as he gets older. Clothes and furniture I’m not sentimental about though. Only keep what you’re actually going to use, sell, donate or throw away the rest.

Go through it, keep what is truly sir use and definitely try to sell or donate what you can, especially physical media since even without a lot of monetary value those are items that typically aren’t being made any more so are of a finite number. There are those of us that like collecting physical media and have the space to store and enjoy it so helping it get a second life is a better choice than just dumping it in a landfill to rot (almost literally) forever.

Otherwise the key is to relish the nostalgia of going through it but don’t let it color your decisions on what to keep too much. It’s okay to hold on to some things that truly matter to you just for sentimental reasons, but you shouldn’t try to keep it all. My wife and I each have a plastic tote in our basement of keepsakes, we try to limit sentimental things to just that one tote each to help keep it manageable.

I recently had to clear out my room in my childhood home and found all the schoolwork I ever produced until I left for college. I went through it, and ended up tossing everything except school photos as well as a couple of big written assignments I still remember doing.

So I guess my advice is to just stack-rank it and only keep a few particularly sentimental items.

I used to be super sentimental and a bit of hoarder, but when my parents split and were talking about selling the house I had to start getting rid of stuff. It was hard at first, but got easier over time.

First I got rid of junk in bad shape. Then I started donating stuff in good shape I would never use or display again. Then I got rid of stuff I hadn’t used or wanted to use in a very long time. Then I got rid of stuff that I had used or would want to use again that I thought I could easily replace. Throughout the process I would put aside anything I struggled to put in a garbage bag or donation box. When I finally had to go through that stuff, I had been desensitized to getting rid of sentimental things and got rid of more than half of it.

Now, all my stuff would fit in one moving truck. All I really kept were: books, games and consoles, records and my player, tools, some useful tech stuff, camping gear, instruments, some plushies, probably like a tenth of my clothes, a couple basic furniture items, and only a box worth of small sentimental items.

Pick a box or bin. It can be a large one if you want. Only keep what you can fit in that one box or bin.

The word “worked” is doing a lot of heavy lifting here.

If your goal is to justify throwing things away, there are whole self help ecosystems built to help you to toss it all, from self transformation regimens to grief processing and everything in between. Find one you like and read, listen and engage about it on social media till you believe what it says then just throw all your stuff out.

You could also not do that and listen to your CDs and records, read your old books and either store your old clothes to give to your kids or use them as patch material for clothes that do fit.

It’s a question of forgetting your past or integrating it into your present.

I keep things that are meaningful. Things don't have to be used to serve a purpose.

For me, it's about understanding the value having it provides. It's ok to have something for sentimental reasons, but it just having been present in your life doesn't make it meaningful. If you keep a piece of clothing you can't or won't wear again, what does having it do? My dad passed and I kept one of his favorite flannel shirts because it evokes so many memories for me. But it'd have been silly for me to have kept all of his socks just because he wore them.

Go through the counter argument, what would it take to keep it?

From what you're saying, you'll likely need to rent a storage facility for that. They'll advertise low rates initially, but I'd expect to pay over $100 a month unless you constantly move the stuff across different storage facilities. Then, if you move out of the area, you'll need to bring this with you.

Once you have a cost to keep it, it will be far easier to justify getting rid of it.

Might be from Marie Kondo, or not, but I use a 1 year rule. Have I used this in the past year? If not I get rid of it, knowing I probably will never use it or enjoy it again, I'm happy to leave it in my memory, to stay or fade naturally. Hardest were gifts at first, by fear of offending the person that offered it, until I realised I don't always remember what I offer others, and I wouldn't be offended. Same for the first years of kids' "artworks", took pictures then trashed them