15 minute Your Memories Matter, Not Your Stuff

We have 96 intervals of 15 minutes every day, meaning you have many opportunities to make a difference. Each day this month, I’m giving you a 15-minute project idea. Pick your favorites to improve your day, yourself or your world. I promise you have time for this.

My husband’s family and I just spent our day today organizing somebody else’s things. They’d saved items for more than 50 years and we were going through them helping them to organize everything.

They’d had everything in storage for more than 30 years and at $100 a month it cost them $30,000 to store the items that long.  And the kicker is 90% of the items were either thrown away or donated. Unbelievable! Here’s what I’ve learned from our experiences today:

Your stuff doesn’t matter. Your stuff is just stuff. Don’t let it overpower you. When it really comes down to it what’s important to you it’s your friends and family. Don’t let your stuff distract you from the things that really matter.

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When you have a choice, always choose the experience. You really remember the good times that you had with your friends and family. It’s hard for you to remember the great times you had with a sweater or a popsicle. That stuff doesn’t matter. If you have the choice always always pick the experience because those memories will last a lifetime.

It only takes 15 minutes a day to make a real difference. 15 minutes today of sorting is nothing. You have time for this. If you organize your house for 15 minutes a day you’ll be able to save yourself from trying to sort through everything 50 years later and figuring out what to do with things that it ended up becoming nothing but trash.

In the end, the only thing that we saved were the photos and the memories. Let this be a lesson to not let your stuff define you. Take care of it now so you don’t have to deal with it later. Then you can focus now and later on the things that really matter.

9 comments

  1. […] Focus on What Really Matters. Sure I have tons of stuff I need to do, but really it can all wait.  Because my Immediate and Important Tasks aren’t essential to my life.  It’s these two little balls of energy that deserve my time and attention.  But when I’m realistic, I know that I can’t ignore my work and responsibilities if I want to maintain my current lifestyle. So I have to make choices. Each night this week, the boys and I spent some quality time together and then I worked on accomplishing my important tasks.  One night, we went window shopping at the pet store, to the “Big Fire” restaurant (Mongolian grill) and then we came home and cleaned the house together.  Another night, we went to a local pool for the slides and diving board and then while the kids were watching a movie, I organized my PTA notebook.  And last night, I vegged out for Project Runway with the 6 year old: […]

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