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Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio.
Good morning.
This is Laura.
Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.
Today's tip is to get rid of old things that you aren't using or that you won't use now that you have new items from the holidays.
Doing this will reduce clutter and probably save you time when you can more easily find the things that you do want to use.
So I recently had a revelation while looking in my sock drawer.
I have eight pairs of winter socks that I wear on repeat from mid-October to May.
I also have about half a dozen pairs of workout socks that I wear regularly because well, I do my laundry weekly and it is the rare week when I am exercising more than six times.
There are definitely six favorites.
I never dip out of the pool of favorites for any kind of sock.
And so I know exactly which 14 pairs of socks I actually wear.
And yet oddly, I have many more pairs of socks or worse, individual socks sitting in my sock drawer.
Why are they there?
I guess I wore them at one point in my life, or at least acquired them.
But they are never in the rotation.
They have no chance of actually being in the rotation, since if something happened to the socks I wear, I would just replace those socks.
These socks I don't wear were taking up space and making it mildly more challenging to grab the socks I do wear.
So I got rid of all the stretched out old ones and the ones with holes.
Hey, at least it's a start.
Perhaps you too have things in your home that you never use.
I am guessing you may also have gotten some new things over the holidays, which is very exciting.
If so, take some time today to think out with the old.
You can grab a big trash bag for trash.
You can find a box or hamper for anything you plan to donate.
Just because you are getting rid of something doesn't mean it can't be used by somebody else, though we do need to be realistic here.
If you are donating clothes or household items, in many cases, the nonprofits that accept these items accept them in order to sell them, in order to raise funds, which means that if they can't be sold, they will likely be dumped.
So either you are dumping them or the nonprofit is dumping them.
It might be easier if you just do it.
You can schedule a pickup for donation items from a group like Green Drop if you have a lot of stuff to go out the door.
But honestly, this out with the old mindset as we come into the new year doesn't need to be a huge purge.
You can just recognize that in many cases when we use things in our daily lives, we use the same things over and over again.
I have my favorite pens.
I will never use the cheap free pens I got once in my drawer because I have a favorite type of pen.
If my favorite pen goes dry, I will buy more of my favorite pens.
The old pens are never going to get promoted into regular use.
So they can go.
When you get rid of the old things you don't use, you won't have to wade through these old things that you don't use in order to find the things that you do use.
We almost always have our favorite things.
In general, it is better not to have too many items beyond the favorite things.
So getting dressed or finding a pen or even finding a mug in the morning is a straightforward process.
The start of the new year is as good a time as any to think out with the old.
Then it is in with the new and a much less cluttered life.
In the meantime, this is Laura.
Thanks for listening.
And here's to making the most of our time.
Thanks for listening to Before Breakfast.
If you've got questions, ideas, or feedback, you can reach me at laura at lauravandercam.com.
Before Breakfast is a production of iHeart Media.
For more podcasts from iHeart Media, please visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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