congratulations on that

by bj , Sunday, March 29, 2020, 16:46 (1700 days ago) @ Paul

Some folks and their hobbies and interests promote packrat behavior more than others. I'll try to make this short but it will be a long story.

This guy that tinkered with classic cars always had a lot of old parts stored in his garage and never could clean out and throw things away. (You never know when you might need that turn signal light.) He looked for sources of relief but couldn't find any. One night he was at a party at a friend's house, a person who also tinkered with classic cars and had a lot of "stuff". At some point they were in the garage talking and the visitor noticed all of the boxes on shelves, some with dates written on them. The host said "if I find a box that hasn't been opened in a year, I figure I haven't needed it so I throw it away without even opening the box to look in it". The visitor thought that was horrible but kept thinking about it and decided it might work for him to reduce his clutter. Before leaving the party at the end of the evening he asked the host about this again- "can you really throw out a box without even looking in it". The host said "of course not, don't be silly". So there is no solution for the true packrat, just don't be a hoarder like the people you see on TV.

I had a friend who threw away old screws and hardware when he finished with a project. He figured when he started another project he would just go buy whatever he needed. This way he didn't have to store a lot of stuff. OTOH I keep everything and have some old cookie tins full of screws. But frequently when I need to repair something I can find the exact bolt or screw that I need without taking an hour round trip to the store. Ore more complicated projects that require 3 trips.

Lets not get into some of the old brass and dies that I have stored.