You may worry that you’ll throw away something only to regret it later, and this might stop you in your tracks. But would you really regret it?
There’s an overlap here with things that are thought “sacred”—documents, mementos, books, etc.—but it happens with other things as well.
Regret is probably the biggest fear for people who can’t get rid of things. Let’s think about situations where this fear is at work.
That’s strange. It’s not here. When did I do that job? Last year? But it’s not in last year’s folder. Those documents would help with this next project. What happened? Oh, I’m beginning to remember. Yes. When I finished the job I thought I wouldn’t use the documents again, so I threw them away. What a waste… I should never have got rid of them!
Her address is still down as Osaka, but I’m sure she’s moved to Kyushu. I remember throwing her letter away in last year’s end-of-year clean-up. I thought I’d written her new address down. I got a New Year card from her, but I must have thrown that away too. How stupid! I can’t contact her now.
What? You’re planning to build something that complicated at school? Well, you’ve always been good at making things. Your teacher in Year 5 said she was very impressed. Your Godzilla was great. I remember that. What? You want to see it again? I wonder if we’ve got it. I’ll ask your mom. Oh. We threw everything away when we moved. I’m sorry. We shouldn’t have done…
Gone out of print? I didn’t know that. I should never have sold my copy. I didn’t think I’d read it, though, and he told me to sell any books that I didn’t want. I only got about a hundred yen for it. I might have got a thousand for it now. Well, I don’t want to be money-grabbing, but… Anyway, it’s worth keeping a book that’s out of print. I shouldn’t always do what people say.
Oh, how stupid! I didn’t think there was any point in keeping that receipt from last week. He told me at the time that I probably wouldn’t get it back on expenses, so I thought I’d have to cover it myself. Now he says there’s an expense surplus, so I can submit the receipt, after all. I had a feeling it might be a mistake when I threw it away. It’s so irritating!
It’s been really cold today—as bad as Hokkaido. The ice didn’t even melt in the city center. What about tomorrow? What? Even colder? They must be joking! I hate the cold. Where’s that down jacket I had when I was a student? I thought I might wear it one day, so I put it away somewhere. “Hey! Where’s that old winter jacket I used to have?” “I threw it away ages ago, dear. I checked with you first—asked if it was OK to get rid of it.” Oh, I remember now. I thought it was a mistake when she threw it away. I said I might want to wear it sometime and she said “sometime” never comes. Well, it’s come now, hasn’t it?
If you throw away something important and irreplaceable, then, yes, there’s a problem. So what sort of thing might this be? Can you think of anything straight away? A wedding ring, for example. Or something left to you by your father, which you intended to look after for the rest of your life. Or maybe a calendar packed with engagements. Or your wallet. What about documents? According to Yukio Noguchi:
Documents and memos… can still be important, even if they are old and torn. Discarding important documents by mistake can cause extremely serious problems.
Yukio Noguchi, Super-Organization 3
Is that true? I suppose it would be, if you really couldn’t obtain another copy. And while a problem would arise if they were lost or stolen, they’re certainly not the type of thing I’m suggesting might be deliberately discarded.
So what of things that we might consider discarding? Would we really regret getting rid of them? Let’s look at the situations described above.
In Situation 1 some documents have been assembled and then thrown away. To get the same documents together again would involve repeating the original groundwork. And there’s no guarantee that the data would all still be available. So it feels as though throwing the documents away was a mistake. But, in fact, old documents are seldom of any use. For people like me who use data a great deal in their work, documents that are even a few months old rarely have any application. This is because they are put together from the perspective of work being done at a particular time. The truth is that any documents that are really important would be ones that come to mind straight away. It’s unlikely that there might be something useful in a pile of documents you have no clear recollection of.
The address book problem in Situation 2 is straightforward. You’re bound to have a friend in common—you can ask them for contact details. Or you could ask the company she works for. It’s just a matter of effort.
Situation 3, the child’s model, relates to the loss of something that is valued for its associated memories. It’s a question of “sacredness,” which I’ve already covered in Attitude 5. It’s a shame, but if you took it too seriously you’d have to keep absolutely everything. Would you really want that? Parents have been criticized recently for taking videos of the whole of their children’s school sports days or school shows. If they record it all, what are they left with? Is a memory no more than a recording?
The person in Situation 4 (the out-of-print book) may regret what she’s done. But if you’re not going to read a book and it’s not that valuable, then I think getting rid of it is the right thing to do. And the person in Situation 5 is bound to regret the possible financial implications of getting rid of the receipt. But it’s not the end of the world.
In Situation 6, it’s a shame that the man wants to wear a jacket that has been thrown away, but he didn’t object when his wife suggested discarding it. And he might never want to use it again. The question is simply whether it would have been worth the jacket taking up space in his closet for this one occasion.
If something seems a candidate for disposal, you’re very rarely going to have a real problem if you go ahead and get rid of it. If it was going to cause a problem, you wouldn’t even be considering getting rid of it. Think of examples from your own experience.
And don’t worry too much about regretting what you do. Of course, there is a degree of uncertainty when making any kind of decision. But once you go ahead and start getting rid of stuff, I think you’ll be surprised how little you regret.