A few days ago, I decided that once and for all, I’m going to get rid of all the crap in my house.
I just have way too much stuff, collected over the years, all stashed up in boxes collecting dust (amongst other things). Why? I keep saying to myself: ‘Hey, I’m going to hold onto that… I won’t sell it for much, and I may use it some day again’.
I’m sure you can relate.
But I’m about to change that all. A friend of mine recently explained how the stuff around you affects your physical/emotional/mental headspace.
As woo woo as it may be, I do now agree with him. For example, I find that whenever I travel, I just seem to become more ‘productive’. Same as when I am sat in a coffee working on my laptop; there are just fewer distractions.
So I decided to start on a quest of selling my old stuff to clear my head, and here’s a few tips on how you too can do that.
I’ve attempted on many occasions to sell them off, but always found the listing on ebay process a bit of a pain. Same with Gumtree, esp when they cancel your ad!
I’ve been looking to get my VAs to do the ads for me. This went pretty well in the past, but being the picky bastard I am, I always find that I’m having to edit through their ads, and might as well just write them myself.
There is progress however; as this week, I managed to clear a nice portable DVD player which has just been sitting around the house collecting dust. I also managed to sell my extra 3 mobile broadband dongle and a couple of mp3 players.
And I realised there are a few things that really help:
1. Just do it – no matter how much rationalizing or organizing you do, you’ll find that no techniques or tactics will help move along. So you just have to say you’re going to sell xyz, and just do it.
2. Take photos – This was my first big step – I went around the house and took pics of all the stuff I want to sell. Instead of doing 1 ad at a time, I found that by having all my photos, it rewires my subsconscious into thinking that I am about to get rid of all this stuff.
3. Get them onto the PC, and make it accessible – I had old photos of stuff I’ve been saying I will sell, but I just never got around to. And part of the reason is because it was hard to find them. I now stick them into Picasa and upload them online, so that it makes it easy for me to write listings.
4. Don’t aim for perfection – you own’t get your retail value, and you may even make a loss. Go for the 80/20 on this, and just clear the space by writing a basic description. Once you have the ball rolling, you’ll find it easier to complete.
5. Keep trying – you may not sell the item on the first run, but keep reposting / listing / looking for new places to sell. The most recent items I sold have all been from listing in a place I would have never previously considered – an offline classifieds paper for free. I also managed to sell a couple of things that were sitting on Gumtree for yonkers, because it made it to the front page of Google!
6. If you can’t sell it, just give it away – like Gollum, we all want to hold onto our precious – but ask yourself whether you see yourself using that item in the next month. If not, you probably don’t need it. And if you can’t sell it, why not do something good – give it away. You’ll feel better after.
I suppose in that list, one can also include going to car boot sales. I however am not a big fan of waking up at 6am on a Sunday, so this has been out the window for me. Maybe if I still don’t manage to clear stock, I will have to consider this for next year.
If you have any other tips for getting rid of your old stuff, please leave your thoughts below.
