Maggie's Farm

jeez --look how squared-away his shop is --no wonder he can turn from wood to words so deftly --no piles of half-done projects nagging every lookaround, no months-old chips n dips still standing ready, no fluorescent orange "eMerGencY MuSt dO nOw" notes spray-painted all over the walls and ceiling (*sigh*)

once you find yourself needing a certain item, and you find something you can use over there in the dump pile, it will never be a dump pile again. It will have just become the 'rough' storage area.

This is a legit behavioral therapy for 'hardware accretophilia' which you can self-diagnose via a simple scan of your stuff, asking, "did I buy this when i was looking for something completely else?"

of course, "rough storage" is a mere "category dodge", a coping therapy for the symptom. The cure itself requires the invasive & risky "building a shed in the backyard".

You're gonna have to be careful here. You don't want to come home and find your whole extended family arrayed around the pastor waiting for you in the living room.

Try this --make those trips to the landfill. But pack your vehicle 'loose' --lots of empty boxes & such. Pull over out of sight and repack 'dense' --put the stuff in the boxes and whatnot.

When you get home the reduced volume will be highly visible (the carry-back of course will be problematical but can be covered by hems and haws and a little lite groveling["Yes i'm way too sentimental, i admit it"] plus many enthusiastic references to that reduced volume).

With any luck, you'll get this afterglow of appreciation which may last up to through the next weekend or two.

During it, THAT's when to get started on the new shed!