I like to write on a variety of topics. Sometimes I write about memories from my past history. And sometimes I write about what is happening right now and the string of thoughts that is triggered by the present experience.

This morning I spent time cleaning out and organizing storage areas in our home. I like cleaning out and organizing storage areas. It appeals to my obsessive-compulsive nature, to being a minimalist and getting rid of things I do not need, have not used, or forgot were there, and to my sense of completing a task and standing back to admire it with a feeling of satisfaction.

When I finish with a storage area, I am able to clearly see every item in it. I have a largely unobstructed reach for anything that I might want or need. I like a little space between items so that they are not actually in contact with one another. In that way, I can retrieve what I want without several other items tumbling out with it and on top of me.

This all helps to keep me out of the trap of “stuffing” a storage area rather than making the hard decisions about what to keep and what to toss, recycle, or give away. For the most part, I try to see storage as a temporary, rather than a permanent arrangement. I am often surprised by what I find hidden and am happy to rid myself of “stuff.”

That is why I am periodically cleaning out and organizing storage areas. Things have a way of piling up when I stop making decisions about what I really need to have in my life.

My minimalist tendencies have influenced my grocery shopping. In the division of labour in our home, I do most of the cooking. I tend to shop for what I cook that day. I have glorified and romanticized my grocery shopping by referring to it as the “European way” but, in all honesty, I hate to part with a lot of money at one time.

Mary advised me that by buying in quantity on “10%” Tuesday, I could actually save a little money, 10% to be exact, even if the total cash outlay would hurt at the time. And we might just have the ingredients on hand if we decided spontaneously to cook something special and different from the planned daily fare. Or wanted to be prepared for natural disasters.

So I have changed my shopping ways a little. I now come home often with several bags of groceries. One of my minimalist idiosyncrasies about grocery bags is that I usually carry them in the house two at a time rather than several at once, to avoid the awkwardness of having multiple bags bouncing off of my legs and throwing me off balance.

My view is that “walking is a lot easier than lifting” so making multiple trips to the car beats multiple bags on one trip. I try to arrange the pantry shelves so that all of the extra stock is visible and reachable and no more than loosely packed so that the extra cans of diced tomatoes do not roll out on to the floor when I pull out a can of tuna.

My best cleaning out story is when I took an early retirement from my university career. I had watched retired colleagues pack the professional inventories in their offices and cart them home in boxes to sit in permanent storage. It seemed to me an issue of not being able to let go of a career and to let something new come into the large space that was created.

As soon as I signed off on the early retirement package, five years before actually leaving the university, I decided that I would initiate a letting go process that involved cleaning out my office. I did not want to remain attached to my career or take any boxes home to be stored.

For five years, my closing ritual for each day of work was to select one item from my professional inventory, a book, a file, and dispose of it by tossing it, recycling it, donating it to a library, or giving it to a colleague. I asked myself, “What am I ready to let go of today?” and then I decided.

I loved watching the contents of my bookshelves and file cabinets gradually shrink over time as I ceremoniously let go of my career a little every day. On my final day, the only things left in my office to take home were my coat and myself. I felt complete.

In those five years, I also did a number of things to assure that I would have an interesting life after a university career. Our website is a reflection of that preparation. Letting go works best with its complement of letting come.

Cleaning out and organizing are important to me. That is the way it is for me in general. I like a little space between activities in my life. It is a way to keep from getting too busy and moving from one commitment to another with little rest and reflection time in between. I do not like to “stuff” things into my life or to carry to many bags at once. I would rather walk than lift.