How to deal with sentimental clutter

A few weeks ago I had a documentary crew out to our house. They were filming a short piece on the emergence of minimalism in Australia and asked me to be involved.I was really excited to be asked, but I won't lie: I was terrified. Terrified of being on camera. Terrified of sounding like a privileged douchebag. Terrified of being found a fraud when people exclaimed, "That's not minimalism!"Part of the shoot was done in the small garden shed we use as secondary storage. In it we keep things like our lawn-mower, my gardening gear, house paints, camping equipment, outdoor toys, a couple of boxes of Christmas decorations and one memory box per person.I was asked to open each of the memory boxes to show how I manage to keep a balance between sentimentality and clutter. I was happy to do this until I was asked to open a plastic crate down on the bottom shelf.I had no idea what was in there. I knew it was my stuff, but it could have been anything.Upon opening it I realised it was old marketing materials, catalogues, business cards, order forms, inspiration boards, design sketches and press clippings from my jewellery label. I had not thought about this stuff in over two years, and it's been more than four years since I closed down the business. The question wasn't, "What is it?" but rather, "Why do I still have it?!"I muttered some kind of excuse as to why I still had this clutter, and swiftly moved on.But over the following days I really thought about it a lot.I remember having gone through all this stuff during one of my biggest purges, and going back to look at the contents now I can see I did keep only what was interesting or had some sentimentality attached to it.It's really interesting to go back and trace your journey towards simplicity by looking at what you've held on to during various purges. By looking at the contents of this box I could see the process of becoming less attached to my business (and the goals, successes and stories tied to it) but hadn't been ready to let go. I could, however, see a big shift, and the good news was that I had been intentional about it rather than blindly keeping everything related to my business.And, when it comes to dealing with sentimental items, I think that is the key: Be intentional.We need to be intentional about what to keep and what to let go of. Instead of looking at the box of trinkets or childhood items and saying, "Argh! I can't decide so I'll keep it all," we need to make a decision.If that decision is, "I love this thing and want to keep it," then that's perfect. If that decision is, "I don't know yet," that's OK. It might be the best answer for now. But you need to ask the question. You need to be intentional about keeping things. Otherwise it will continue to be just clutter.So last week, I headed out to the shed and opened that last remaining box of deferred decisions.It was interesting to look through the contents and see what I had thought was important. I didn't feel bad for having kept it, but upon inspection more than 2 years later, I realised it had changed from stuff I had intentionally chosen to keep, to clutter.And I realised that the transformation from clutter to sentimental works both ways.When we are initially faced with the idea of simplifying our home, we balk at the idea. "But this isn't clutter! All this stuff is sentimental!"Then we move a little further into our journey and we realise that much of that sentimental stuff is, in fact, just clutter. Deferred decisions, guilt and a lack of time.We move through that clutter slowly, methodically, keeping what we believe to be important. It becomes sentimental again.It gets packed away, saved for posterity. Then we rediscover it, hiding in a dusty box in the shed, and we realise that it's no longer sentimental. It's changed back to being just clutter. Much of it is stuff that we were simply afraid to be without, but with the passage of time has come the realisation that it's OK.And so it was that I found myself looking through the contents of that box in the shed. It was interesting, but I was ready and happy to let it all go. So I did. Every single piece.I'd be lying if I said there wasn't a (brief) moment of fear as I picked up each of these items and put them in the recycling box. But, quite literally, the second I let the item drop from my hands, I felt a lightness. A relief. A release. And I knew I was making the right decision.