Discardia is celebrated by getting rid of stuff and ideas you no longer need. It's about letting go, abdicating from obligation and guilt, being true to the self you are now. Discardia is the time to get rid of things that no longer add value to your life, shed bad habits, let go of emotional baggage and generally lighten your load.Be sure to check out the various posts on the site, which include great strategies for getting rid of stuff and the mental benefits of a less cluttered mind.
Of course, it would be nice to gradually integrate some of these strategies into one's daily practices. But there is something beneficial I think also in having set dates for clearing things out -- making it into a kind of ritual. Because stuff has all sorts of emotional effects, and for me, certainly, attachments, or their residue, rather than laziness or disorganization, is, I think, usually at the root of the clutter that bothers me. I really like Dinah's phrase about "being true to the self you are now." Since we are ever-changing beings, our stuff should change too.
I've been celebrating Discardia early this year, selling off a bunch of books I no longer needed. That was a nicely defined project that has been really satisfying. More of a challenge will be the boxes of papers in my study that I need to sort through -- much of it I know can be shredded or recycled, but it takes time and mental effort to look at each piece and figure out its importance. Julie Morganstern has a great tip for the sorting stage of a pile of papers: take a bunch of small post-its and a pen, a paper bag for recycling and a paper bag for shredding. As you sort through the papers, the recycling and shredding go immediately into those sacks. For the rest, write on the post-it where it should be filed or the action required and make two stacks. It does make the sorting go a lot faster. The biggest drawback is that you wind up with a pile of filing, which for many people tends to get shoved aside and forgotten about. But the post-its do make it easy -- I've even filed stuff while on the phone, since I don't have to actually read the piece of paper, just the post-it. (Of course this assumes you have a workable filing system set up, but that's never been an issue for me.)
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