Archiving Options

St. Valentine Reminds Us of One Kind of Love

It is that time of year when everyone seems to be focused on romantic love or its absence. We see hearts, candy, cards and everything related to St. Valentine everywhere we look. But these elements are focused on the current loves in our lives, not necessarily the ones from the past.

Many people keep old love letters and revisit them every once in a while. It is surprising how those letters can transport one to another place and time. It is quite sweet to think back on happy loves from our younger selves. A little music and a glass of wine can make this a very enjoyable way to whittle away a rainy afternoon.

Hmmm … But Maybe It’s Best To Not Remember EVERYTHING

Some people ceremoniously burn love letters from unhappy relationships with the notion that all of the related pain, anger and hurt will dissipate like smoke. Not sure that works. Even the unhappy relationships have some good memories one can reframe and smile about, but perhaps that acknowledgment only comes with age. So don’t be too surprised if you notice a few bonfires burning around February 14 – there are some who simply enjoy the angst. Let’s leave them to it, shall we?

How Do You Remember the Other Kinds of Love?

And then, there are the loves that are not romantic, but familial and friendly. Framed photos seem to be a standard way to keep those important loves present in our hearts and minds. But there are so many other inventive ways to memorialize people that mean something to us, or are no longer with us.

I keep an old-fashioned monogrammed silver lighter on my desk. It has my late mother’s initials on it and was a gift from my father to my mother when they were courting back in the 1940’s. I can’t say I ever saw my mother use this lighter but somehow, keeping it where I can see it daily, soothes me. I don’t think the lighter even works – I just enjoy seeing it.

There is a new book on the market that examines this topic – looking at the possessions people keep to tell a story or provoke happy feelings. What We Keep: 150 People Share the One Object That Brings Them Joy, Meaning and Magic by Naomi Wax and Bill Shapiro (Running Press).

I love the book’s title because it reinforces the notion that things can and do inspire joy and meaning when correlated with memories. The consistent theme among the folks the authors spoke to (many of whom are celebrities) is that the monetary value of the items they keep is minimal. The emotional value is huge. These are the items they live with to remember the loves in their lives. And these items will be the first things grabbed when disaster strikes.

A few examples:

• 1st computer (from the 1970’s)
• Chipped and broken mug
• Old straw hat from boarding school
• A sea shell repurposed into a pin cushion
• A boxing glove
  
  

What Types of Things Do You Keep to Remember People You’ve Loved?

I like to create montages of of 3-4 items to frame or display on a shelf. The items become so much more meaningful and lend themselves to conversation starters when the displays are visually interesting. I recently created a couple shelf displays for someone that incorporated disconnected items that, brought together, told a little story about their grandparents in a delightful way. It is so fun to create these little displays with what you have.

I invite you to describe what you keep to remember your loves in the comments below. Or better yet, submit a photo! I love to see the unique things that bring people joy. That would be a terrific Valentine’s Day gift! ❤️

All for now – thank you friends! 

© 2019 Archiving Options

Be sure to visit me on FB too! https://www.facebook.com/ArchivingOptions

Check out my FREE How-To Guide Archiving 101 – STEP 1: Protect What Matters where you get the tips to BEGIN taking care of the things that matter. GET YOUR COPY NOW!
‘How-To Start Archiving 101’

… Serving Those Who Need It

I wanted to take a moment today to explain why I am in this space.

Last year I posted a pretty personal blog on the “WHY”. You can find it here. That blog post provides the backdrop for WHY I am interested in history, archiving and the stories of the past.

What may not be clear is WHY I am creating a space to help others with their personal story telling and archiving. 

As I have mentioned, it breaks my heart to visit flea markets, estate sales and see so much personal history cast aside in old cardboard boxes and paper bags … treated like yesterday’s garbage.

The only reason people don’t keep artifacts and heirlooms and all of the stuff is that THEY DON’T KNOW HOW TO.

I Really Want To Change This 

You will benefit from knowing how — I want to share that with you.

Over the last week or so I have been conducting one-on-one interviews with people interested in becoming their own family archivists in order to better understand theirs needs and challenges. People between the ages of 40-80 who feel overwhelmed by the task of organizing and displaying the contents of boxes stashed away in garages, basements, attics, closets, wherever have been speaking with me on this.

Who Are These People?

Some are “Mighty Moms/Dads”who are feeling terribly guilty about not keeping their children’s analog and digital photos organized and accessible. These Moms and Dads aim to present their children with ‘The Story of Your Life’ when they become adults. The current state of clutter and disorganization is driving them MAD.

Others are in the “Sandwich Generation” have kids who have left home to begin their own life journey and parents approaching their twilight years. Or they have boxes overflowing with generations of stuff that may have stories they want to share with extended family.

Another distinct group includes the “Savvy Seniors”who are in or approaching retirement and have the time to dig in on projects like this. The Savvy Seniors understand (because they have experienced it themselves) they can’t leave all of the family history in boxes without the stories that accompany them for next of kin to unravel. Not cool! They also are thinking about downsizing their homes and getting rid of things. 

Shared Challenges

Everyone of these unique people share a sense of overwhelmin terms of HOW and WHERE TO BEGIN. 

My work is focused on providing that solution as well as specific solutions (analog and digital) for all the stuff that matters. 

Understanding all of your challenges and pressure pointswill help me provide answers you can use – easily and quickly. And in case I have not mentioned previously, I have over 33+ years of experience in creating visual storytelling presentations. I’ll describe that more fully in another dedicated blog post!

So, here is my ASK. 

If you have time and are interested in a 20-minute phone call with specific questions, I would very much like to speak with you. Contact me at info@archivingoptions.com and we can set that up.

FOR THE REST OF YOU … please add your biggest challenge(s)in the comments below ⇣⇣. 

Things like:

• SORTING
• EDITING
• HOW to DISPLAY
• HOW to SHARE DISPLAYS
• PHOTOS
• DOCUMENTS
• JOURNALS
• ARTIFACTS
• LETTERS
• BOOKS
• HEIRLOOMS

The more info I get from you, the better I can SERVE you. 

I will teach you how to manage all of these things so it doesn’t overwhelm or end up in a flea market stall. I can get you from HOT MESS to ORGANIZED and it will be fun.

I am so curious to know what YOUR specific challenges are! ⇣⇣

All for now and thank you friends! 

© 2019 Archiving Options

Be sure to visit me on FB too! https://www.facebook.com/ArchivingOptions

Check out my FREE How-To Guide Archiving 101 – STEP 1: Protect What Matters where you get the tips to BEGIN taking care of the things that matter. GET YOUR COPY NOW!
‘How-To Start Archiving 101’

It’s Expensive To Pay Someone To Archive Your Stuff!

GETTING STARTED IS HARD

I’ve discussed how difficult it is for people to dig in and get started on archiving in earlier blogs.

*For any new readers here, archiving is a practice that allows you to honor and preserve the stuff that matters – the things that help tell the story of your life, or your family’s. A prerequisite to archiving is to complete the declutter, sort and edit steps which allows you to identify the things that matter and get rid of the things that don’t.*

Folks can’t get started on the archive because they often get hung up on the declutter, sort and edit steps for a variety of reasons. Lack of time, amount of time the items (boxes) have been waiting for attention, guilt, emotions – all the overwhelming feelings that convince you to wait and start the process another day.

LET’S TALK ABOUT DOWNSIZING

For those folks who are considering downsizing, this post is really meant for you.

This may sound harsh but …

…it is not going to cost less money or less time if you procrastinate and wait to declutter, sort and edit your things that matters.

Quite the contrary, mon ami!

In recent years, the downsizing, home organization and decluttering industry has been rapidly growing. Why?

   1) Growing aging population interested in downsizing

   2) Growing popularity of minimalistic lifestyle trends

   3) Growing weight and burden of too much stuff

SO, WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?

Well, there are a lot of seniors (with a lot of stuff) in the U.S. 8,000 Americans turn sixty-five EVERY DAY. There are also many people interested in simplifying their lives and moving to smaller quarters. Great idea! But first you have to get rid of one to two thirds of everything you own. Everything you inherited, acquired and paid good money for. Where would you start?

Check this out — the average U.S. home holds 300,000 items. How many items can you count? How many items do you need, love and use?

Home sizes have also increased, yet we still have stuffed garages that cannot be used to park our cars because … they are full of stuff. And a large number of us are paying $ to store more stuff offsite!

So, we are spending a lot of money acquiring things and then will likely spend more money storing or getting rid of things. Crazy. In the meantime, the stuff that really matters (the heirlooms, the photos, the documents, etc), the things that tell your story are somewhere in the garage, basement, attic or house. I hope you know exactly where they are – I mean those are the things you need to grab and protect in an emergency, right? RIGHT?!

THE EXPERTS CAN HELP YOU … AT A PRICE

I recently attended a seminar on decluttering and downsizing sponsored by a local realtor’s office. Various companies described the work they do to coordinate and manage downsizing moves for clients. It can take 100-200 hours to process an entire home and can cost $750 a day for two people, working 8 hours a day. (Bonus: I share a few tips I learned at the end of this post).

This growing need to reduce ‘things’ and ‘space’ has lead to the following list of experts you can now pay to help you with the tasks surrounding decluttering, sorting and editing your stuff:

• Estate Sale Coordinator
• Appraiser
• Home Organizers – (this field alone grows by 10% a year)
• Declutterers
• Moving Managers (specifically for seniors)
• Special Relocation Services

Fellow Archivist, these experienced providers (typically bonded and insured) come at a price. No doubt their services are worth every penny. I’m just not sure everyone anticipates needing these services when they plan and budget for their own downsizing. Unless you start digging in and tackling a corner or closet bit-by bit, you will likely need to hire experts at some point.

I hope these thoughts will inspire you to take the steps you need to declutter, sort and edit in order to get to the fun stuff – archiving. It will be so satisfying to create storytelling displays with the things that really matter. The things you love, need and use.

BONUS!

For those who read this whole post – here are a few fun facts I gleaned from that recent downsizing seminar I attended. The following items are actually worth quite a lot of money so if you come across them – save them to sell:

• Used dentures can yield $125-150 a set!
• Used hearing aids can be sold for $700-1,500!
  (A knowledgeable buyer will invest $300 to recondition them.)
• Old sewing supplies
• Fountain pens – any maker
• 125+ year-old chocolate molds – the old ones sell for $300!

What other unusual items sell for unexpectedly high prices?
Let me know in the comments!

(and how to fix it)

You and your family have a unique history and plenty of stories worth telling and sharing.

So why aren’t you doing that?

Why aren’t you creating fun and unique storytelling displays that reflects the awesomeness of your people?

You’ve been to others’ homes and seen the cool collections of their kin and want to create the same for your own family … what’s holding you back?

Here are the 3 top reasons why you’re not archiving and how you can fix it:

REASON 1: Avoidance

We all have those corners, cupboards, cardboard boxes and collections in our attics, basements and garages that must be decluttered, sorted and edited. Why – oh why – do we try to forget they don’t exist? We attempt yoga-like moves to step around them and strain our backs to lift and move them out of the way. It is time to STOP avoiding all that stuff and time to deal with it.

Look, wishful thinking will not make all this stuff go away. You want to clear that space, you want to ‘feel lighter’ and you want to stop feeling guilty about how this stuff that you think matters is being handled and stored. You’re not feeling great about that, so do something about it.

There will not come a day when your family history magically appears in wonderful displays and scrapbooks. You have to create it, but first your have to declutter, sort and edit it.

Get started NOW. Take one step and identify what box, corner, cupboard you will begin with. Put on some cool music and grab your favorite beverage. Think about how great it will feel to clear out that first box and find and display the stuff that really matters!

THE FIX: Identify where you will start. Pick ONE box, corner or cabinet and commit to it. Then do it.

REASON 2: Emotions

This is a biggie so let’s talk about it. I avoided going through my mom’s stuff for a long time. I know how hard this can be. But I can tell you that the process is so worth it and that grief will yield to happy memories.

Perhaps guilt is the emotion holding you back. Guilt about the time and money you invested storing and moving the stuff in these boxes around and with your every move. Ugh.

Maybe you can’t imagine sorting through or parting with any of the things that belonged to your dearly departed love one or your own dearly departed youth. Chances are you aren’t even sure what’s in those boxes and haven’t looked at them in a very long time. How attached to them are you really?

Look, you have to see what’s there and decide what you love, what you can use and what you will keep. The rest … donate, sell or dump. It is that easy.

THE FIX: Remind yourself that keeping stuff you don’t love, need or use is not honoring the stuff that matters. And if you do let stuff go that you don’t love, need or use, remember that the memories remain with you. Keep only what brings happy memories and … let the rest go.

Reason 3: Lack of Time

We’ve all said it: “I’m just waiting until [fill in the blank]”…. No. Let’s not do that. Tackle it now and live guilt-free without the weight of these things.

We only have so much time for all the things that matter in life. Approach this like any other to-do event in your life. Calendar it and stick to it regardless of how you feel that day. You manage to get to work, attend to school or charity functions and still deal with all the family – in-laws and all, regardless of how you feel.

Apply the same approach to archiving your stuff. Decide what box, corner you will tackle and when. Set a timer and get to work. Done. Try this several times a month and watch the clutter dwindle.

THE FIX: Set a doable goal and target — and use a timer.

If you need more help just getting started, check out the free guide ‘How-To Start Archiving 101’