What’s important to you?

by Firefighter Spot via Flickr

Often when we are going through our stuff to relieve ourselves of clutter, we run into problems parting with things of perceived value. They may have been expensive when we acquired them, or perhaps they meant a lot to us at one time. While things can and do have significant monetary or emotional value, these factors can cloud an item’s true value. The true value of an item is what importance it has to you.

This little exercise may help you determine the true “value” of something. Assume your house is on fire. All living things are safely out of the house. You have time to retrieve one item from inside the house. Size and weight are not issues and collections are considered one item. With that in mind, what do you save? What is the one thing that would pain you the most to lose forever? (If you can’t decide on just one item you can start with five if you have to.)

The point of the exercise is to show you what item truly holds the most value in your mind.

I did this exercise myself, and engaged my family and friends in the game as well. My wife and I both picked our photos. My daughter was adamant that she would grab her laptop.

Someone else said they would take their filing cabinet with all their important papers. I thought this was a good idea so I changed my answer. I decided that I would scan all my papers and photos onto an external hard drive. Then, I could just grab that single item. Of course, this has the added benefit of reducing the amount of “stuff” in our house.

Do the exercise yourself and leave a comment. What is the one thing (or few things) that you would save?