Itās a rigorous process. For me, it usual comes present in times of moving, rearranging or reorganization. I think itās super easy to just accumulate and store; if itās in its space, then it falls out of the forefront of my mind as it is in a āresolvedā spot. Moving things around, reorganizing, even just taking an intentional flip through it all can help get the ball rolling, and disrupting that āresolvedā sense in my mind. The moment I have an ounce of doubt, a consideration of ādo I still need this?ā I act on it. Some things are super easy, just toss it in a donation box and get on with it. The stuff that makes me pause doesnāt get put back, it gets left out in the open for another time. This is two fold, because at some point later, Iām going to need to put it away. That then provides me with another opportunity for considerationā I either want to keep it bad enough to put it away, or I confirm my prior hesitations and decide to toss it in the donate box. Things that Iām still in the fence about, Iāll take a step further and move it somewhere elseā maybe a different spot to put away later, or maybe a different display location. Just somewhere present that Iām bound to provide myself another opportunity for consideration. Sometimes, things get stuck in this limbo loop of too sentimental to just toss, but not valuable enough to keep for a little too longā typically that is my sign to give it to someone who I believe would care about it like I do. Itās a great way to both remove stuff, while also not feeling like Iām just throwing that part of myself away, and retaining some of the connection I have to it through a shared relationship I have with the receiver. Family & friends I see frequently enough are obviously the preferred destination, but a degree of separation doesnāt hurt either. Ultimately, it is still removal, it just feels a little warmer as itās sharing that part of your self with someone else, and letās it still exist in that relationship connection in some capacity.
While the process is easier in a physical world, it can be transposed in a sort of delete or archive manner. āAm I ever going to revisit this?ā, āDo I need the information here another time?ā. Consider ā take action. Move it, store it, delete it, so on. Digital things donāt take up space the same way physical things do, so it tends to suffer a bit more in amassing a large collection of things. Itās incredibly easy to do as it doesnāt really take up physical space, itās super easy to move and store, and thus super easy to mentally āresolveā. Thatās why personally, I think itās better to make the collection process the main point of friction, as cleaning up that mess is super cumbersome. If I have to jump through a lot of hoops to acquire something, then each hoop is an opportunity to contemplate if I really want something that bad or not. For example, I personally really like the idea of using the library as the layer of friction to obtaining CDs to burn and upload to my MP3 player. Thatās a lot of steps compared to just streaming it, but all of those steps are opportunities for consideration. Furthermore, I personally strive to fill out the metadata myself as opposed to some full sweeping automation, as if I care enough about something, Iāll go through the effort of tagging it myselfā which also ensures itās accuracy. Itās tedious, but also offers the opportunity to curate, organize & tag in a way that is uniquely my own, along with opportunities to reflect & take notes too.
Side story regarding my current removal & curation through culling process regarding music
Iām currently in the middle of a multi-year digital music file clean up process that goes through spurts of motivation (currently it has been dormant for the past 6 months due to house hunting.) I had a bunch of stuff from library swapping during High School & College, but hardly any of it was properly tagged or filled with metadata. All those files sat on an external storage drive for quite some time, and it wasnāt until a couple years ago with my desires to push back into self-owned media that I revisited it. Pruning was a process, Iāve pretty much did a quick skim of everything I knew I wanted to keep, pulled those out. Then, anything I was unsure of I gave a brief listen. I have a pretty good pulse on what my preferences are, so I could figure out if I wanted to delete the track in 15 seconds (I think I did that for about 1k songs or so.) Last I left off, Iām rather sure I got through all of the metadata tagging using MP3Tag. At this point, Iām slowly bringing my files into an app called Crates, which I ultimately hope can be used as a bridge between streaming & owning. But, in the meantime, itās ability to build out tagging around genres and moods has been super nice.
Anyway, back to the main point regarding removal. This process is perpetual and always on going. But, I think thatās part of defining taste and pruning back a collection of things to a curated select few. How much stuff you can carry is always circumstantial, I had to prune back a lot of stuff when I moved and forced a lot more of that contemplation then I would normally. While at some point I may have used some of these things, or revisit the old hobbyā it was very likely something that I havenāt touched in years, and if I really want to get back into it/recollect it, then it was something that typically didnāt have such a heavy cost associated to it. (Or, if it did, I resold it anyway.) These items clearly are not as strong and present in my identity today, and so were something ultimately I was comfortable parting with. Forcing removal isnāt usually fun, but frequently, I often donāt find myself missing the things I was forced to part with.
I know with ADHD brain it can be easy to deffer things until later, so I think by implementing a ādecision byā point is important within the process. For me, thatās typically after Iāve moved something around to a new location, but it can take shape in many forms. Set a reminder to alert you in a week, month, 3 months, what have you that demands decision thenā and adhere to the rules you set for yourself.
rise above the mehs.
. I did call it a hater curator lol, people wouldnāt be so exigent about mentioning day 1 DLC and invasive DRM if they liked the games, I guess (donāt ban me plis I like it here)