Select-an-Effort: Media

Today is Sunday, the beginning of the last week of “Select-an-Effort: Organizing Tasks for 2023.” I hope you’ve tried some of these challenges and are now enjoying the freedom that comes from living an organized life. Today we will turn our attention to media.

Depending on your age and stage, you may have a significant collection of media to consider, including:

• DVDs
• VHS tapes
• CDs
• Cassette tapes
• Vinyl albums
• Video games
• CD-ROMs

I run into all of these when I work with clients, and the decision process is really the same for all of them:

1. Gather a category of media together
2. Decide whether you use these items or whether you now access their content in a different format (e.g., streaming, digital downloads, etc.)
3. Select any favorites you wish to keep and reload them into your storage location
4. For those you no longer want, decide if you want to donate or sell them [Note: one way to get an approximate value is to look an item up on eBay and find the value for like/similar items that have sold – not simply been listed for. Click here for some selling options.]
5. Donate the items you no longer want. Be aware that some older media can be hard to donate (e.g., VHS tapes and cassette tapes).

If you have a bunch of old vinyl albums, remember that they can make a fun display in a media room, basement, or man cave.

Are you ready to get started? The choices today are fairly straightforward:

Low Effort

Using the steps outlined above, review and declutter one category of media.

Medium Effort

Using the steps outlined above, extend your efforts to include two categories of media.

High Effort

Go “all out” and work through three or more categories of media.

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Do you have a stash of old media that you never use? What kind of space could you free by tackling this project?