I’ve been digging through the 18 years’ worth of articles, editorials, blogs, contests, interviews, promotions, and announcements over at Simple Talk. There are over 5000 posts, and many are quite outdated, especially those announcing beta versions of software or other time-sensitive content. Some articles haven’t seen the light of day for 10 years, yet some seemingly outdated articles still get lots of hits. I’m trying to figure out what should be archived and what might be worth promoting again.

Like so many others, I’m also going through some closets and drawers at home. While cleaning out a cabinet, I found the floppy disks for QuickBASIC from 30 years ago. While the language has some sentimental value for me since it’s where I first learned programming logic, I don’t even have a way to load the disks. Sadly, they went in the bin.

There is a big movement to clean up popularized by Marie Kondo of KonMari fame, but it isn’t easy to let things go. While sorting and organizing, one will find so many forgotten objects. Suddenly, that object feels valuable even though no one has thought of it for years – or decades.

It gets worse the longer you live in one place. If you relocate frequently, you are forced to deal with your clutter. Just watch out for those storage facilities where excess junk lives on. If you stay in one home for a long time like I have, it’s easy to accumulate so many unnecessary things.

A few years ago, I had an 18-month consulting engagement where I had to be onsite every other week. I found a hotel a few miles from the office with comfortable three-room suites each with a small kitchen. I just needed to bring clothes and electronics with me each time I visited. Traveling that much made me realize something important: I really don’t need that much stuff.