amyece
New Member
Joined: December 2009
Posts: 14
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Post by amyece on Dec 27, 2009 4:34:39 GMT -5
I have always had a "thing" for books. And papers. I LOVE how they feel. I have always loved stacking my books and thumbing through them. Its a high almost. Which is why it is super hard for me to get rid of any. When I start trying to organize them I get wrapped up in the feeling.
I also have gotten somewhat this way with information. I make tons of documents on the computer with recipes, early childhood stuff... Sometimes I print it. Sometimes I put it on cd's and sometimes I just leave it on the computer.
We just got a new external hardrive so that will help some.
In actuallity the computer has helped me in some ways to not aquire so many books because I can download the same info online. But I still have a huge thing about magazines.
Anyway, anyone else? how do you deal with it?
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Post by shopgirl on Dec 27, 2009 5:50:03 GMT -5
I used to love books in the way you describe. Packing and moving them across the country 3 times diminished my love for them. I have surprised myself in the past 5 years: it's been pretty painless for me to donate hundreds of beautiful books to the Public Library. They sell them at their used book store for a buck apiece to raise money for the Library. Get to know your Library and fall in love with it. That will make it easy to be generous on book donations.
I am like you: collecting many TBs of files on external HDs. But the HDs are compact and the files are very easy to find, so it's not a concern... YET. Ask me in 5 years when I'm buried in a stack of HDs to the ceiling!
Not into magazines anymore, and I did love them a lot. I really don't like reading things printed on paper anymore. Too spoiled by the computer, where you never need to sit by a good reading lamp and you can make the type as big as you want. I even prefer looking at photos on the computer over seeing them printed in a magazine. I love reading my online NY Times subscription every morning with my coffee. Try an online magazine subscription and see if you like it, too!
Although nothing says "don't talk to me" on a long flight like cracking open a fresh, new National Enquirer! And if you have The Star or Weekly World News, even the flight attendants are too scared to talk to you. Vogue and Vanity Fair are ineffective in warding off talkative passengers.
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Post by fluffernut - now Jannie on Dec 27, 2009 12:41:06 GMT -5
I had a bunch of cokbooks. Recipes are my "thing." But DD took all my cookbooks and toseed them in the garbage. I now find I can get any recipe on the Internet. No need for all those books.
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Post by Rory on Dec 27, 2009 12:58:31 GMT -5
My problem was in getting rid of books when I had studied subject because I felt I might be going back at some time to study the subjects again. Getting rid of the books was for me an admission that I would not. I have got rid of all my books except those on money and debt which I have kept as I was writing a book on the subject. I need to decide if I am to finish the book or not. Otherwise I have a few books on travel, spiritual etc and these I keep and use.
Regarding other information I do not store it. I rapidly reach a point where the problem of accessing the information is greater than finding it from an internet search.
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Post by zen on Dec 27, 2009 14:07:46 GMT -5
This is a topic very close to my heart - as it seems it is not only my issues but also a family one - aunts, uncles, cousins, my mother - all share the same challenges regarding paper and reading materials - I know part of it stems from our hobbies (reading) and our occupations/avocations (attorneys, academics, professors, administrators, and accountants etc.) Though I have made little swipes of progress over the last ten years at handling books and my own "paper tiger" i have found that this last year has seen the greatest changes. In terms of books, I have donated over a ton thus far in 2009, literally 2,000+ lbs of wonderful books that hopefully someone else is enjoying right now. I will always have a lot of books, it is one of my deep loves - but i have made some serious decisions regarding the ones I hang onto. This past summer I was ruthless in culling my own library. I ask myself the question - no matter how much I loved this book, will I ever read this again? If I hadn't read it, will I be reading this soon? It seems to take a few passes to get down to the volumes that would cause deep anguish to part with, and would be difficult to replace (IE a comprehensive and out of print volume on the history of Still Life in painting, published in Germany, that is selling for $2700 on Amazon) I also got rid of enough old paperwork that I was able to get rid of 2 huge legal sized filing cabinets. A goal for me is to be as paperless as possible - I don't know if I will ever be completely paperless, but my family has not printed one piece of paper since last August - I would call that a significant triumph, especially considering I am a graduate student about to start her master's thesis. I have many scanning projects to get to this year, along with much shredding. I also have a ridiculous magazine pile that needs to be recycled - just writing about it makes me want to go set it on fire ha-ha. I am planning to let all of my magazine subscriptions lapse this year, other than two to cut down on the paper that enters the house - I can read on line versions of I miss them too much (Hi, The New Yorker). I have photos of the books I have let go - I pretty much ran around and took digital snapshots of every bookshelf in the house - I haven't even looked at them. I got rid of pretty much all of my cookbooks other than a handful - as when I really thought about it, it was the fantasy and promise of all those delicious things that kept me hanging on to them - I didn't actually use them - i use all of the ones I saved, and pretty much any recipe I can find on the web. The great thing about digitizing information is that it becomes searchable - much easier to use a keyword when scanning a hard drive for what you are seeking, rather than rooting through a musty old box, hoping beyond hope that your search will bear fruit. I would love to scan the magazine articles that I have pulled, so I can more easily find them. Though digitization makes life much less cluttered, I also am very mindful of my digital packrattery tendencies. I try to make it a habit to clean out old files, and usually find some great stuff that I had forgotten about when I do so. I look at is all as a cycle - materials and informations is always, will always be coming in - so I need to be mindful of how to handle that flow - when to stem the tide when it is necessary, and when to let it wash over me. As an artist and academic i can live life very much in my mind and can deal with life almost exclusively through the intellect - so a personal, ongoing goals is a more holistic approach - which seems to address the accumulation issue. My body and spirit does not like to stumble over things, even if they are books and magazines, my spirit is weighed down by too much, so I have learned, and am learning the fine art of discrimination when it comes to what I allow in - in my mind, my heart, my house. It is an ongoing cycle, and something I will always be working at. Amazingly, I feel so much better after doing some really excruciating letting go - of who i thought I was, it was just stuff. I feel that I know who the authentic me is a bit more - I didn't and don't need all of those papers with words on them to tell me or anyone else who I am, I now know in my heart  |
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salmon
New Member
Joined: December 2009
Posts: 54
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Post by salmon on Dec 27, 2009 15:47:52 GMT -5
If I look around at the mess I am living in, I'd have to say that paper is a big part of it. Thank goodness for the Internet- I get all my news there now, so I don't have newspapers piled up like I used to.
10 years ago I had a job which involved traveling, so I had to save receipts and submit them in order to get reimbursed. I had never done this before and I had to learn the hard way: no receipt, no reimbursement.
Unfortunately I made too good a habit of it, and I have receipts all over the place. Coffee and a donut at the gas station in 2003? Yes, I've got it somewhere around here. I get a receipt for EVERYTHING just in case I might need it. But I've never needed it except for occasional job reimbursements for trips. And I'm someone who hardly ever returns things... and I don't itemize my taxes.
I don't have an organized system for storing receipts, that's something I should work on.
salmon
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Post by success19 on Dec 27, 2009 20:56:37 GMT -5
You sound like your a very tactle person - bet you learn that way too - I love books because their friends - they don't hit you, yell at you, back stab and or gossip about you. Books are my escape from the cruel world.
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Post by MsHavisham on Dec 27, 2009 21:40:00 GMT -5
I have the same feel for books and magazines. They were my friends as a child and my first jobs were - what else? working in Libraries and museums where I was an assistant library/museum tech. It was my job to catalog and repair books and artifacts. Can you think of any better job for a hoarder?  I recall favorite issues of old magazines the way some recall favorite books of their childhood. Since tossing them seems wrong, I've given some away and sold others on ebay. I'd like to try sites like LibraryThing in the future. There are some sites that let you catalog and set up your own lending library and search others libraries and borrow books. I'm not at a point where I can tackle a big project like that so right now I'm trying to stick to digital as much as possible. I have a digital subscription to MAKE zine. I wish more magazines would offer this. I also purchased the Kindle app for iPhone and the last two books I've read were Kindle books. I miss the smell and feel of a real book - and I don't dare read them in the tub like paperbacks! - but oddly I've found it is very satisfying to read them in bed. I can turn off the lights since the screen is illuminated and it is a bit like reading under the covers with a flashlight when I was a kid. |
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Post by homesteph on Dec 27, 2009 22:15:19 GMT -5
Oooh books and paper are biggies for me too. Grew up with a family bookstore, so books were sacred. I finally did what poster#2 did and made friends with my local library, it was so liberating to deliver all those boxes into the hands of people who love books as much as I do, and can help books get more attention than I can give them here! And it is usually the last tax deduction I take advantage of. I'm actually making my year-end pass this week. Our local police department had a free shred day recently, which helped so much for me to drop off boxes of stuff I hadn't gotten around to shredding. Sorting the daily mail used to take too long, deciding what needed shredding and what doesn't. Too many decisions! That is the root of all of it for me. So I don't decide anymore - unless its a bill or something I need to take action on, in the shred box it goes. If I don't wnat to wait for a free shred day there's a local place that charges $7 per bankers box or something, I first hated the thought of paying for that but realized I would not say no to myself for a $7. meal out, and this could just be a different kind of treat. Not having to stuff junk through the shredder for hours! My time must be worth something? .... I don't have an organized system for storing receipts, that's something I should work on. salmon I used to try to file receipts and paid bills by category, and never got it done. It made for a huge system that had too many variables and too many possible ways to organize it. Then I read in a book that it is valid to file them by time period. Since then, I have gotten a single 13-pocket expanding file each year. Every month, the bills paid and receipts and statements just go in that pocket. I use the 13th pocket for things that are tax deductible. This one thing has simplified things greatly. When I get behind, it is not too difficult to catch up, because the only sorting is by date. My rule is if I find something from a previous year, I just stuff it in that 13th pocket. I do have to go back and look for things sometimes, and I find I remember by month pretty well what I need, and have no problems finding stuff. I've been doing this for about 6 years now. What is still a problem is the boxes and baskets and sacks of papers from previous years, before I had a system, where unsorted stuff is just piled together. I bet 95% is useless, but there are a few important things buried in there probably. I dread the sorting and making 10,000 decisions and touching each piece, I get so derailed and start to second-guess myself. I'm tempted to just toss it all, people live through losing their paper histories due to natural disasters, so maybe I can jsut consider my paper backlog a disaster.As long as I can put my finger on SSNs, birth & marriage certs, current insurance, tax returns, and mortgage, I'd be okay, right? I mean, why do I have my report cards from junior college, utility bills from 1993? |
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