Everything must be touched. It is a curse.

One of the hoarding habits I have is an odd compulsion to touch everything I plan to throw out before I throw it out. I look it over, relive a few memories and then decide if I’m really going to ever use it again. Because of this, it’s impossible for me to simply throw out a box of stuff I haven’t touched in months without going through it first. Luckily, I’ve gotten a lot better at throwing stuff out.

I bring this up because the end of the school year marks an annual ritual I have where I purge the old school related stuff and make room for new school related stuff. I do this at school during exam pass backs and whilst waiting to check final marks.

I also rethink my desk space at home and try to declutter it by rethinking how I use it. (Lately that means “less space for writing” and “more space for gaming”.)

The problem is that rethinking the spaces on the desk requires rethinking the spaces in the file cabinet and “variety drawers” (which is totally not a dirty phrase). Moving stuff off the desk, if it’s not to a trash bin, requires moving other stuff.

At the same time, I’m culling my pen collection to get it down to the stuff I use (including stuff that stays at home) and to implement a one in/one out policy. I’ve already chosen several pens to sell. I also have 15 bottles of ink around that I hope to resell. (I acquire interesting stuff as it becomes available and then hope I can sell it. So far, so good.) Then there’s a number of knives that need to be culled.

Note: in an odd way, reselling the ink has made it easier for me to decide which pens to sell as I’m more comfortable with online buying and selling. I’ve also managed to arrange PayPal accounts to get money from my US account to my Japanese which makes She Who Must Be Obeyed Happy.

Today I cleaned one space–a trick recommended by Leo Babauta in his Sea Change Program–and plan to do another space tomorrow.

The trouble is, I start to think about why I filled that space in the first place and why i want to keep that stuff.

Or I’ll just buy some ink. Or play some games. We’ll see.