when in doubt, delete.

Great quote in the comments of a post by Raymond Chen @ Microsoft about his attempts to simplify his office layout:

"The older I get, the more I realize my best tool is my trash can."

I still have about 40 boxes of books in my garage that I've yet to move into our house, three years on.  On sum, I bet I've actively thought about three boxes worth.  I'm seriously tempted to sell or donate the rest of them.  Who needs all those books?

Comments

[Matt Haughey]

After a recent move, I found myself in the same boat. I am shooting for no longer owning or displaying any computer books in my home office. If I really needed to know something from a 1999 javascript book, I'm sure Google has a better answer than the dead trees crowding my shelf.

[Edward Vielmetti]

I have a couple of boxes of books tucked away in a storage cubby. (The 1999 computer books are almost all gone, but I think there is at least one 1993-era book still in a box.)

I count on - absolutely count on - being able to get any book that I remember via the library either to borrow or inter-library loan. The hard part is remembering what I've read so that I can go borrow it.

If I do get rid of books by the boxful, I'll be sure to do some photography first so that I can at least do a retrieval that way.