Living in a sentimental house of cards is no fun. If the cards are all stacked against you, maybe it’s time to get organized and declutter some of your paper keepsakes. But how do you get organized and not feel like you are one card short of a full deck? I have a few cards up my sleeve. Watch this video for some strategies I use for letting go of memorabilia. Put all your cards on the table, and don’t let paper clutter hold the trump card to your full house.
(Click here to watch on YouTube if you can’t see the embedded player. Or watch the video at http://bit.ly/TCDExpDate.)
Transcript:
Hi. I’m Lorie Marrero, creator of the Clutter Diet book and on-line program, and today we are going to talk about greeting cards. Now, I’ve already made a video before about new greeting cards that you have ready to send to other people, but today we want to focus on the greeting cards you’ve received and you might be holding on to as keepsakes.
I spoke recently to an audience of people where there were a couple of questions about these received greeting cards. Someone said, “What do I do with the boxes and boxes of greeting cards that I have saved over the years?” And I want to make sure everybody understands that there is no rule that says you have to keep every greeting card that you’ve ever been given. And I want to give you official permission to recycle those cards. You know, you can think about greeting cards as having an expiration date on them. I was inspired by my friend and colleague Scott Rower. He is an organizer, and he sends holiday cards every year to his friends and his clients and he actually prints an expiration date on the inside of the card, kind of as a joke, but it really is a great way of looking at greeting cards. And I realize that’s kind of what I naturally do. I have these cards in my hand from my birthday in August. It’s been about exactly a month since my birthday. And I kind of feel like yeah, it’s time to say goodbye to these. I have had these displayed in areas of my home where I can really enjoy them – the kitchen window sill and on my desk – and now I realize that, you know, I’ve enjoyed them and it’s time to recycle these cards. Now, I will agree with a lot of you out there that I know are saying, “Oh, yes, there are some greeting cards that you really should keep.” And I completely understand that. I have some of those too. The very first time my child wrote his name all by himself and, you know, wrote that card to me. Or the very first card my husband ever gave me when we were dating. You know, there are some extremely special cards with poems in them or something that absolutely you want to have as a keepsake. But if you feel like it’s your job to keep every greeting card, every little Happy Birthday to You, for the rest of your life, you are going to have too many of them, and you’re going to have to wade through them and make decisions about them at some point.
So think about the expiration date concept, and be okay with letting them go after a while. If you really want to have them go to a good home, you can look in your local area for a nursing home who might want to accept them as materials for craft projects. Sometimes, I know that is the case. And if you have a lot of crafty ideas yourself about what you can do with un-cycled greeting cards, that’s great too. It’s just that you don’t want to hang on to every single one forever just because of the possibility of doing those crafts. They’re taking up space that could be useful for something else. It’s time to make decisions about those and let them go.
If you need help making those decisions, we have a team of professional organizers that are affordable, waiting to help you seven days a week in our on-line program that you can try for free for 14 whole days in our Quick Start Program. You can find out more about that at https://www.clutterdiet.com/quickstart.
See you next time, and may you always be happy and grateful for having more than enough.
You may have been searching for what to do with too many greeting cards or how to reduce paper clutter.
Hi Lorie
I loved your segment about greeting cards. I have my wedding and my only sons birth greeting cards, which i have in a binder. I just turned 50 and i am in 2 minds whether or not to keep the cards i received. Maybe some purging is in order(dupicates of cards maybe). Your segment reminded me of the cards i have and the last time i looked at them.hum…..
Great that you are thinking about it, Jill! Let us know how it works out.
Oh Lorie, I completely, COMPLETELY agree – most people here in the UK don’t really have space in their homes to keep every greetings card they were ever sent, and end up keeping them in huge boxes in the attic. And of course, up there, they aren’t even looked at! I have some cards my sons sent me, but all the rest are recycled.
Thank you for commenting, Jo! If you are going to keep something you really should honor it and keep it where you can view, enjoy, and share it. Great reminders- thank you!