Exercise #2 (of 30): Use-less to you. Useful for others.
Disclaimer: First of all — this particular exercise doesn’t rank high up in strategic value. Yesterday’s exercise was intense — and working on it left me with little time to think of a more effective decluttering exercise for Day 2 (today) of this little program.
How this came about…
I pretty much ‘fell into’ this exercise— when I noticed an empty space at the lobby of my apartment building.
Next to the mailboxes in my lobby — was an empty shelf space. And when I saw it, I thought — why not create a community book and magazine sharing program?
I immediately thought about the books that I have sitting in my own bookshelves (that I lugged from city to city); and the magazines on my desk that I kept after reading — only because I thought they were too valuable to simply throw away.
As part of my constant travel — I’ve been significantly reducing my collection of physical books (building up a Kindle collection instead), giving them to friends whenever I could find a home for them. But I still have a bunch that remains.
Books and magazines that are completely useless to me now (because I’ve already read them), but yet taking up valuable physical and mental space in my life. And the only reason as clutter for me — is because while I can’t find a specific recipient for each of them, I think they are too valuable to simply throw away.
And so in 15 minutes, I typed a short notice, walked downstairs with my first contribution — and created my apartment building’s Community Book & Magazine Sharing Corner!
Now — this is not just a one-time disposal of un-wanted books and magazines… it is now a system (literally at my doorsteps) that I can use to continually turn something useless to me (books and magazines I’ve read), into something useful for others.
The big personal insight from my reflection this morning is this:
I tend to keep things that no longer have value for me… only because I know they hold some intrinsic value. And when I cannot realize the value, those things exist as clutter.
So — when I can find a way to create value (for others) form something that’s useless to me, it motivates me to declutter.
