OK, I’m spending the day trying to get rid of the crap in my apt. Doing pretty good so far; I have TWELVE boxes of books loaded up in my car ready to go to LiteracyAustin on Monday and a goodly stack o’boxes for Goodwill.
Problem: I have something like five boxes of textbooks and notes left-over form college (I graduated in 2000). I just can’t freaking though these out.
Has anyone ever had a reason to go back through their college notes? Will I ever miss these? Can I throw them out?
I have not gone back through mine. Either you were gonna learn it, or you weren’t–if you were, you did, if you weren’t, you won’t. Anyway, knowledge changes, and your notes will slowly become obsolete. I’d trash them.
Throw em out. Any knowledge you might need you find on the Internet.
I never saved any of my notes or books. I never wished I had. Toss the notes and give the books to Goodwill or whatever.
OK, I just needed someone to give me permission. I’m gonna log off right now and go toss these in the dumper and outta my study. Yay to getting rid of stuff! I am so tired of owning things. 
They’re gone! And I didn’t even stress out trying to save the binders. This is great. Now I need to be ruthless with those four boxes of desktop items/office supplies I’ve been hauling around since 1998. Not to mention my essential card board box collection ('cause you never know when you’re gonna need a box…). I’m finally rediscovering my floor.
sigh Would that I had got here sooner. I consider disposing of old textbooks to be a sin of biblical proportions ( well, if it’s a sin I guess it would have to be 
). I still have all my old texts and I was a professional student for well over a decade. In fact I have boxes and boxes filled with old paperbacks in my garage I refuse to part with. Verrry reluctantly I have disposed of old magazines before, but I still mildly resent my step-mother for talking me into getting read of all my old children’s lit when I was a teenager.
I’m not pathological about it ( no moldering corridors of newspapers in my flat ), but I’m generally a big fan of packrats. I despise most reality shows on general principle, but the one that really filled me with rage is that one were organizers come by to organize your life. I’ve seen it twice at a friend’s house and both episodes triggered almost incoherent fury. Throw out photo negatives!? Heresy! If I’d been walking by when that was being filmed, I likely would have gone to jail on assault charges :D.
I guess I’m glad you feel better, but…
…still :).
Freudian slip. See how much I want to read what I was talked into getting rid of :p?
Oh, I didn’t toss the texbooks. I’m an engineer and the majority of my textbooks are useful as references (the ones that aren’t like, English lit, I sold back). BUt I tossed three full boxes of hand written notes, tests, etc. that I haven’t looked at once since I graduateed six years ago.
I agree that sometimes the organizing shows go too far. But, on the other hand, I’ve realized I don’t need to keep every single book I’ve ever read. I don’t have the room for thousands of books and having so many meant, I could never find a specific book I knew I owned but had misplaced. Books that I didn’t enjoy, had no intention of rereading, or that concerned subjects I’ve lost interest in, I’ve culled to donate. Now I’m left with seven full bookshelves and no overflow stored in boxes.
I’m tired of feeling like my posessions (too many books, clothes, CDs, videos, etc.) take up too much space in my life. I’ve been seized with a desire to disencumber myself and, truthfully, it’s hard but it feels really good to let go of things like that organizer/calender I bought back in '95 and have held onto 'cause it has such pretty photos…
Hope I keep my resolve tomorrow.
OK, I just returned from donating my books. Woohoo! For the first time since maybe, um, I moved out of my parents house (in 1985), every single book I own is on a bookshelf. Nothing is in boxes! (we’ll ignore those videos and cds for now)
Gosh darnit, in a week or two, I’ll actually be able to call the maintainence man without embarassing myself.
BTW, I completely realize I’m just blathering to myself now. If anyone wants to chime in with inspirational tales of finally letting go of stuff and how good it feels, I’d love to read it.
I threw out my old notes when I left grad school in 2000. It felt good- I was finally leaving behind my grad school experience for good. I’m an unrepentant packrat, but I had to do that.
I hardly even used my notes for studying when I was in the classes- usually, I used the textbook for that instead of trying to decipher the scrawls from my sleep-deprived, coffee-jittery, incoherent brain.
But it might not be explained in a familiar way that will trigger your memory of having learned it. I keep my calculus textbook, just in case I ever get asked to integrate anything by parts, because it has an explanation that I can follow.
Pho… to… neg…a…tives? What’s that?
Tamerlane, is it OK to get rid of textbooks if you have really bad memories of the class or the instructor, and you thought the book sucked, or is it still sinful?
About a month ago, I threw away my school notebooks. I flipped through them first to see if there was any reason to keep them, and reached the following conclusions:
[ul][li]Thirty years later, my penmanship has improved significantly over my kindergarten self;[/li][li]My drawing skills have not improved one bit (“Honey, is that a dog?” “No, mom, it’s a castle with Rapunzel and the prince.” “Oh, I thought I could make out four legs…”);[/li][li] I knew some big words as a kid, and once in a while I even used them correctly.[/ul][/li]
But it was so hard to throw those notebooks out, even though they are completely useless and I haven’t looked in them in 30 years. Funny, it was easier to throw out my notes from law school than my notebooks from grade school.
Huh, I don’t have any notebooks from grade school; I think that’d be pretty interesting. I did find a sketch book from high school tho’. It’s filled with embarassing, angsty drawings of David Bowie…
Likely better than my illustrated history of British royalty. I think my theory was that women look like Christmas trees with no trunk and a head, while men look like Christmas trees with an extra long trunk and a head.