Many people, when they first hear about minimalism, or as they begin their own personal journey towards it, typically run into this question: What do I do with the sentimental things I’ve collected over the years?
It is a question I am asked often. And an important one.
Here is my advice:
1. Remember that less is different than none.
No one is saying that you have to get rid of everything you have an emotional attachment to—but I do think you will find benefit in owning less.
Here’s what I mean by that: When my wife’s grandmother passed away a number of years ago, she came home with a small cardboard box of things collected from her grandmother’s apartment—items that reminded her of her beloved grandma. We then promptly put that cardboard box in the basement and would only notice it when we were cleaning up the basement—which rarely happened.
After we found minimalism and began getting rid of the stuff we didn’t need, we eventually ran into this cardboard box in the basement. When we did, my wife asked herself, “Okay, what am I going to do here?”
Eventually, she decided she would keep three things from the box, the three things that “most represented her grandmother.” She kept a candy dish. She kept a lapel pin, and she kept a Bible. The candy dish is now in our living room, and we see it every single day. The pin, she put on one of her coats, and she wears it occasionally. The Bible, she put in her nightstand next to her bed.
And now, because we own fewer things, they have brought a greater sense of value to that relationship. These items, now being used, serve as a more faithful reminder to us of her grandmother and her influence on Kim’s life. Less became better than more. This is often the case with sentimental belongings.
2. Your memories do not exist in the item.
The memories we cherish exist in our minds, they exist in our hearts and our souls, not in physical objects.
In our heart is where the memories live, where the influence of the person resides, or the accomplishment surrounding an event takes root. When we remove an item, we think sometimes we’re removing the memory—but we aren’t. The memories remain.
You may find it helpful to take a picture of the item before you get rid of it, just so you can look back and prompt that memory. But removing the item is not going to remove the memories.
3. Our emotional attachment to things can actually provide motivation for owning less.
Think of the sentimental things, and the things you have an emotional attachment to. They typically represent one of three things: 1) They represent an important relationship; 2) They represent an important accomplishment; or 3) They represent an important experience… so you bought the t-shirt to bring home with you.
These, you see, are the activities that add meaning, and purpose, and significance to our lives. Our relationships, our accomplishments, and our experiences. This is where the value of life resides.
But if all the things we’ve accumulated over the years are keeping us from relationships, accomplishments, experiences, then we should get reduce the number of things we own. Remove the burdens that are holding us back from those experiences, so we can enjoy even more of the things that mean the most to us.
Lastly, keep in mind, if you are beginning on your path to minimalism, and sentimental things is where you’re starting, you are going to have a hard time.
Let’s start easy, okay? Get rid of some of the things you know you don’t need. Go through your closet. Or go through your kitchen.
Begin removing some of the possessions you know don’t need to be a part of our life anymore. Remove those, and as you do, you’ll find increased motivation to own less. You’ll learn the lessons that will equip you perfectly for when you do get to these sentimental things—and you’ll be far more equipped to handle them effectively when you do.
I had a revelation last week. I figured out that the clutter (old picture, kids papers, baby clothes, cheerleading outfits, etc.) that I was saving was bringing me sadness. I had hoped for grandchildren but that window has closed. Looking at pictures and gifts from people in my life who have passed put me in a stall. Trying to throw away things took me so long as when I touched them I had sadness. Realizing this has allowed me to donate or throw away many things recently. It will take some time, but I am. throwing out a few things daily. This course is very helpful to me. Getting an email reminds me to keep working on this project. Thanks you.
Thank you.Its helped me realize I also have sadness..More motivating nowto give them away.Otherwise I’m locked into grieving the past
I’m very glad that you two have mentioned how sad these sentimental items make you. It’s really true for me. I think if I don’t look at them I will be better off. Thank you for your comment.
This is very wonderful – thank you so much for sharing these insights you have realized.
I have probably 4 sixty-quart bins full of photos that belonged to my father, mother, grandmother, etc. Most of them were taken before I was born. These are the memories of people who are gone! I have no children and am about the last person standing in the family tree. I’m moving in 6 weeks, and I’m not paying to have these digitalized and don’t have the time to do it myself. I need to throw them away. It’s sad in a way, but I come from a fractured family, whom I’d rather not think too much about going forward. Besides, I’m in an apartment and need the space.
Thank you for saying this. For I too am moving in 3 months to a small apartment
I can relate with respect to several photo albums. I was apart of these eras and recall many of the wonderful times shared by all. But I could not tell you last time I pulled them out and took a drive down memory lane. Although I own a home I don’t need to hold on to photos as I remember enough that brings smiles and beautiful memories. I as well find sadness in doing this but in due time I will move on.
We lost years of digital photos due to an electronic storage failure and the company wanted hundreds just to see if they could retrieve them. Our kids events are on video tape and multiple other types of storage no longer available. Having them transferred to current media is incredibly expensive and you probably don’t remember the quality to decide if it is worth it. Web storage is free for a while then you have to pay for storage or lose them . Who knows what the next media will be.
My aunt had Alzheimer’s for years and old pictures became incredibly important for her and family.
When our son died at 42 I am so glad I have childhood pictures for his kids when they have their own families.
Even living through a Cat 5 hurricane most of the pictures survived in Rubbermaid totes and are priceless to us.
Please sort but save photos both as prints and online if possible “things” can be replaced future retrieval of photos is questionable.
Larger items can be photographed then passed on, reused by family members or donated.
After a house fire I had enough photos of a loved one’s kids to create an album for each of them or could make copies for them.
Old photos can also be touched up or recreated for later generations.
A couple tubs of photos sorted or not take up little space and could be priceless.
I have a small container with pictures of my parents and grandparents, that I can grab and go in case of emergency
Yes, with alzheimers in the family, I’m definitely keeping physical copies of my photos x
Baku pu important photos and docs on 3 separate flash drives. One of them goes into a bank box or friends safe. You are never truly backed up until there is a copy out of the house
thank you! This blog is what I’ve been looking for regarding a beginning to clutter and also it articulately and simply answered my question regarding tackling sentimental clutter first versus things that I may like and hold dear but are not such a mental challenge. So thank you again for adding that made a lot of sense.
Life is sort. Did you ever think about what it will be like for the people who must go through your rooms, attic, basement, garage, and rented storage spaces after you die? Is that intense, all-consuming labor the thing you want them to inherit from you? Will they appreciate that task and remember you fondly for it?
Or do you want to leave your gift of an easy transition for all involved?
Life is sort and short.
Sort & short, like that.
My father had a ridiculous amount of things he collected over the years. When he passed it was mine and my sisters responsibility to go through everything. We actually had a really great time laughing and crying over all the random stuff, things we thought our mother had thrown away and we’d never see again, and countless new memories were made going through it all and remembering him. The amount of things someone has doesn’t define the transition, for some it helps bring closure, others may be upset. We chose to view it as “this is so dad” and laugh.
Love this! We too experienced this with our parents…some great laughs and chuckles!
I have a ring from my grandmother…It means a lot to me! When she passed away 3 years ago this ring became something beyond any explanation for me…I am very terrified to even think about losing this ring! I have no idea if this is something normal or not…
Saeed, my wife inherited a ring from her grandmother that actually belonged to her great-grandmother. She had the ring re-set with a stone that she liked and it is now one of two pieces of jewelry she wears every day along with her wedding ring. Perhaps your grandmother’s ring can find use again for someone special to you!
I had inherited my mother’s very unique rings from the 1950s plus an ugly ring from a great aunt. They were too big for my fingers but I would take them out and look at them from time to time. Then a burglar stole all my jewellery including these items! The insurance company gave me a ton of money to replace it all. I bought a beautiful gold bracelet which I wear a great deal and which I never could or would have afforded otherwise . And I think of my mum and great aunt whenever I wear it!
Just a thought, there is so many sentimental stuffs in my spacious office. I have no intention to rid them, ‘cos they are giving the room a great atmosphere and helping me go through the day smoothly. I just don’t like to have an empty office with only fax machines, printers, or computers. Whenever possible, I choose to set a higher shelf for my pictures and clock, lights… would an empty office works best…just askin’
What recommendations do you have for dealing with my very organized (all in dated albums) but extremely large collection of family photographs? I must have 40 albums chronicling my two now-adult children’s lives. Help!
I’m facing the same thing on a smaller scale. I’m going to go digital by getting a photo scanner. Scan them in, upload to Google Notes or Microsoft OneNote, etc, and organize them into catalogs. Send links to anybody who’s interested, then everybody can have access instead of just the person holding the physical catalog.
Search google or Amazon for a photo scanner, some have easy feeders to help the process go faster.
I’d rather save them on CD’s but thanks, love the tips.
CDs are fine as long as you have something to read them with. My laptop quit working so I now have the box of CDs I spent so many hours recording but nothing to read them. Would have been much smarter to save them to the cloud, etc.
I tried to do this myself, and it was like another part-time 20 hours + job!!!
Maybe just try to chip off a few at a time. Maybe on a rainy day. Say you’ll scan 25 each day. I do the same with emails when they pile up. I thought if I eliminated or filed 25-30 a day, I’ll be done in no time!
My email got so huge Gmail was going to dump it. I spent weeks unsubscribing and eliminating it. Now I empty everything, including spam and trash, every day. I only save a few in individual files. Feels so much better.
I have some old precious photos from my grandparents and my parents. Back when people didn’t have very many photos. I treasure those. I would never be able to part with them and besides there’s so few. I feel like the boxes of photos that I have someday will be found by and appreciated by my family. When I’m gone. Digital stuff will go off into the internet somewhere and no one will know where it is and no one will ever look at it. I feel like digitizing everything makes certain that it will be lost…
Oh, Dear this was another story, when my grandchildren were grown up and now moved out, I missed them the great time and now I have a collection of memories to keep and I wanted to only preserve the latest. My target had so much choices on sale and this wasn’t at all a waste in spending. That was my most loved project for keepsakes and didn’t wasted my time.
I took the time a few years ago to sit down and downsize my photo albums. I had duplicates or pictures that were similar to one another and I just kept one. Pictures that weren’t very good were thrown away. I now have half the albums I once did.
Could you gift them to your children? If they have children of their own their kids would love to look through them. If not, it’s always fun to look back on your childhood memories.
I sent my husband’s niece a small photo album of her wedding, because I also have digital copies. I put a note indicating in box that perhaps her 4 children would enjoy this. She was really appreciative to have that extra little photo album of their special day.
My sons gave me a digital picture frame for Mother’s Day— you upload scanned photos and they stream one at a time via Wi-Fi. No need to keep the paper copies! I love looking at them as I work.
I just had all my mother’s, grandmother’s and my own photos digitized. I sent them to a company. Since there were well over 2,000 it got expensive. And they did not fix or sharpen the photos in any way.
The app Photomyne is great for this. I came across three of my photo boxes that I forgot. I am now using Photomyne and my cell phone to digitize them. I can edit them in my phone or laptop, save them in files, copy them to a separate hard drive and copy the ones I want onto a flash drive that I can plug into an electronic frame.
I got rid of at least 20 containers and boxes! And I don’t have to worry that my daughter will just throw them into a dumpster when I leave this earth.
After living with chronic illness since 1986 that flared up acutely in 2010 and two major back surgeries in the past two years, my husband finally had me call in a professional organizer to help bring some order to our house. We have been married for 38 years and collected a lot of stuff!!! It has certainly helped having outsider eyes look at items and ask do you REALLY want to keep this? One day she explained why it was so hard… you never buy something because you don’t like it. We hit the garage this past week and came upon boxes of my mother’s things. She died from cancer when my children were in early grade school, so I feel she died before her time. She was my best friend besides my mother. The emotions that this has brought about have been overwhelming. On Father’s Day I took gifts to my daughter and her children of things I had found in the items. I was able to let them go and they were all thrilled to have something of her’s. I have also been able to look at most of the items and decide if there is a use for them or if I should give them away. I never would have been able to do this before we brought in our wonderful organizer. Sometimes you need an unbiased eye to get you started.
I’m trying to convince my friends that we don’t have to exchange gifts every Christmas but they don’t share my opinion. Each year wr exchange small things for home decorations but we don’t actually need them. Do you have a tip for something like that?
Hello Ivailo, if your friends insist on giving gifts, could you suggest making the gifts something consumable, like fancy chocolates, gourmet coffee, or movie tickets, instead of useless knick knacks? Just a thought.
I agree. I used to get a lot of cutsie things from my kids for fathers day, Christmas, and birthday. As the piles grew, I asked them if they could just bake me some cookies instead. Now I love getting gifts that I can eat, and no more stacks of things piling up.
This is so great. I enjoy this simple gesture more than gifts. Edible and man made are best .
What I prefer to get the most (for special days from my folks) are gift certificates for my boys then we could go to the stores together and enjoy the discounts and sometimes get nothing but only the minimum. Or, then save for the other people gifts on occasion. I also show them my CVS coupons, how to scan to get them, coupons from newspapers, online ‘cuz some of them just don’t have an idea. Just a few things they have to learn before they have their own account for deposit & withdraw.
Yes, sentimental stuff is hard! I completely agree with this, though – especially the fact that it doesn’t mean you eliminate all things sentimental – but you narrow it down so that you are really intentional about it’s meaning. So often people keep their best china, fancy candlesticks and fine silver in a hutch, only to be brought out once a year for Christmas dinner, if even that. What is the purpose of it if it never is used?
I love that my mother always treated us as her top VIPs – we dined on the fine china and used cloth napkins on an average Monday. We enjoyed the items we had in our home. If we were holding on to them, we were using them and enjoying them!
When we downsized from 1450 sq ft to our 240 sq ft travel trailer over a year and a half ago, we put a lot of sentimental items in our attic to go through later. What we found is that all those things we held onto lost some of their luster once we realized how easy it was to forget them. Each time we go back to our house, we head up to the attic to sort through another box or two, and really determine if it’s worth keeping. Drawings and precious items by kids may end up getting a photo session before we throw them in the trash, and the precious items that do pass the test and prove their value to us end up having a turn to be displayed, used, cherished and enjoyed. Memories don’t do any good simply sitting in a box in the attic, so narrowing it down and then having an ever present memento that you see on a regular basis can have so much more value!
As we are currently driving to our 45th State in our travels, along the way we’ve collected many pictures – which all go into a Chatbooks little paperback flipbook – we grab a few each time we go back to visit family, and our family loves to look through and reminisce about all the places we’ve been. These are thumbed through regularly as a sentimental memento we intentionally sit down to enjoy. For souvenirs, we’ve gathered rocks from creeks across the country that now are the rocks in the bottom of our betta fish tank. Or, if it’s super awesome, we’ll look for something that isn’t so awesome in our home that we can exchange it out for. For every one thing in, 2-3 things go out. And we gather consumables – we experience local foods in each area vs. another kitchen magnet or knick knack.
For us, the pictures have been a great way to revitalize memories – and we intentionally make time to go through them. :-)
Yes – consumables are great! We always gave homemade fudge and apple pie moonshine to our friends/family, and they looked forward to it every year. You could even make it super fun and have themes – like childhood/family recipes, something highlighting their cultural heritage, or picking a theme, like “Danish Desserts” and everyone attempts making or finding something to give that fits that category.
Another idea is giving to charities instead – each person gets a letter with information about the charity you donated to in honor of them. Or go to Kiva.org and each person pick a person to fund in honor of another.
If gifts are too hard to pass up, consider at least having a go-to list of ideas for people on things you really DO need. As we travel, there have been things we really wanted to get, and it’s been great having family step up and help us out with getting them. They know that flip flops, restaurant/amazon/event gift cards, quick-dry clothes, etc are things we actually want.
You can do a “stock the bar” theme and it’s all alcohol, or teas, or even a project or something they can contribute to – for example, I want to replace all the drawer knobs in our little travel trailer with different fun knobs. That’s a lot for me to buy – 20 knobs at $5 each isn’t really where I want to throw my money. But it’s a great simple and small gift for someone to get – so when a friend asks what to get me, I tell them to buy me a knob. Cheap for them, and I love seeing something that reminds me of a friend every time I go to the cupboard!
I told my children MANY years ago, ONLY to give me consumable items>>>restaurant gift card, bodywash/lotion etc. My children have abided by my requests. Sooooo thankful!!
What i did was, i immediately ask somebody else if they need what i have and actively look for people to regift it within the next week, if not it goes to salvation army box. Somebody else might just love it!
I can’t discard pictures UNLESS I’ve scanned them into my computer. (and I have back ups for my computer–just in case……..) AND I think it’s a great idea to take pictures of sentimental things before parting with them. Of course, it’s the experiences we treasure, BUT for me, the picture triggers the memory cause otherwise, I might not remember.
My mom passed away 20 months ago and it’s so hard to know what to let go of and what to keep. Especially when it gets down to just a few (less than 5) boxes. This article, so well written as usual (!) will help me as I go through her things again. There are items I will definitely keep, and others I can let go of now. Thank you again Joshua.
It’s as if you wrote this for me! I have inherited small items from loved ones, not to mention the gifts of elderly relatives who are at an age when they want to give their possessions away to other family members. (The latter may be a cultural thing.)
I somewhat solved the problem by getting rid of stuff I bought; e.g. using the fancy salad bowl gift and donating mine. But there’s still too much, so now the hard part has begun!
I am very sentimental also. I had a hard time getting rid of an old rusty enamel pot that was my mother’s because it reminded me of great memories in her kitchen. I finally decided to keep just one vintage pan that we made brownies in and I’m still able to use it!