Blog: Helping Kids Become Organized
The ABC's of Organizing Kids: W is for What is it Worth?
When we think of what to keep and what to discard we must think of what it is worth. What things are worth fall into the category of either monetary or emotional value. These values are not always in concert with one another. Sometimes things that are very valuable to us in an emotional way have no real monetary value; like the things that are young children make for us on those special occasions. Sometimes things with high monetary value have no emotional value; like an expensive piece of art that is not a style we appreciate.
Really understanding these concepts can greatly help us in making decisions on what to keep, what to discard and hopefully in some cases what to buy, take or bring home to begin with. If you are keeping something for only its' monetary value, you need to think about several things. First is this an investment that will bring you greater return in the future and is worth taking up the space that it is using? For example, a coin collection is usually more valuable over time and it does not take up too much space if you have a modest collection. But, you could be collecting old phones or other antiques that do take up a lot of room. This is where you need to determine if the space they are taking up and time to maintain them is worth their value or the growth in the value over selling them at this moment. Confirming the value of items in today's market can also be very important in determining their worth to us. The value of things of course changes over time and if we don't do a little checking we could think something is of value really is not or vice versa. Having E-bay in our lives is a great way to check out the value of items. Unless you have a very specialized item or something that needs a specific appraisal for value you can get a reasonable idea of its worth.
Often times we keep things because of our investment only to find that the item is really not of value today. This is often found in our wardrobe. We have those expensive suits, shoes, purses, etc. but we don't want to get rid of them even though we have not worn them in a decade or two. They are no longer of monetary value and they are not even in style but because we paid a great deal of our hard earned cash to purchase them, we cannot seem to part with them. The worth in this case has to do with how much closet space you have. If you have lots than great, if you don't and are struggling to put things in or find things in your closet you might want to revisit their "real worth" to you.
This brings us to really describing emotional value. Here whether we paid a little or a lot of money we are keeping items just because we are emotionally attached to them. This can be an area that can get very much out of hand if we don't have a mechanism in place for a sanity check every once in awhile. National Geographic magazines are a great example of this. Those of us who have or ever had this subscription find getting rid of them a very hard thing to do. There are many people who own decades and decades of them. Why? Well, we do pay for them but not anymore than most any other magazine. It has some great photographs but do we go back and look at them, find them and really take advantage of the info in them years later? If today, we want to know about the a great adventure taken in one of the monthly magazines, do we go find it, suffice to just remember we saw it, or do we go log onto the internet and find our favorite search engines to find the info? That is the important question. If you are referring back and using, enjoying, etc whatever you are collecting than by all means keep it. But if you are not using them, but collecting them and finding it hard to find places to keep them, you should revisit their importance.
As always, the time and space in our lives should be filled with things that are of worth to us now and in the future. If we are keeping things that do not have worth or do not make us happy they are probably only taking from our lives either physically in the form of space or emotionally in taking away happiness. Make sure the things in your life and the life of your children are of worth and feeding you in a positive way!
posted on: 3/10/2008 9:00:00 AM by Rosanne Larkins
category: Family
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Helping Kids Become Organized
by Rosanne Larkins
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About Rosanne:
Rosanne Larkins, Defining Time & Space Professional Organizing, Helping people put peace into their life through simplifying things around them. Reduce stress through creating order, save money knowing what you have, save time knowing where to find things.
Rosanne's Website:
www.definingtimeandspace.com
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