Disclaimer: This is not my office but it surely could be.  Is this your office? Kitchen? Pantry? Spare room? Closet? Storage drawers? 

While back, I came upon this little book: The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning, by Margareta Magnusson. While the title sounds a tad foreboding, the premise is simple and profound: Rid your world of stuff…. stuff you don’t want, don’t need, never used and never liked and do it now!

My favorite presentation to give to fellow genealogists is “Leave A Legacy and NOT A Mess.” I teach that YOU collected all that stuff, and while it means the world to you, it may well not mean a sniff to your descendants (immediate descendants anyway). It is imperative that YOU do something with all that stuff. No excuses. 

This premise 100% applies to your clothes-shoes-Tshirts, your kitchen gadgets, your shelves of unfinished projects, your unused collection of clipped recipes, your 200 books, your dozens of different baking pans that you never use anymore. You get the idea. 

At my age, and facing a domicile move, this is rather uppermost in my mind. And I assert that it might should be in yours too. Be nice to your descendants. Consider it a Pre-Death House Cleaning For the Benefit of Your Children.

And know what? You’ll be FREE! No more looking around and being dismayed at all the stuff that’s cluttering your life. Free! 

P.S. Does any library or genealogy society want all your genealogy? Those books, binder and boxes of research notes. NO WAY, JOSE. You collected it; it’s up to YOU to dispose of it all. And this is 100% true: If you want your family to value your life’s work, leave it to them in an organized fashion…. preferably online.