There are three questions I ask myself whenever going through a bag or box of electronics crap:
- Does it have a purpose?
- Will I use this in the next 12 months?
- Is this unique, meaning I don’t have a duplicate?
If the answers to the above are NO, NO and NO, it gets thrown out.
Getting rid of your electronics junk is done by doing the following
1. Organize.
Until you organize you will not know what you actually have. When you completely the organization you’ll probably find many dupes that you simply don’t need.
If you have a semi-large or large collection of electronics stuff, I can guarantee you’ll encounter many instances where you’ll say, "Wow! I forgot I had this! Now I don’t need to buy it again!" Does this mean organizing can save you money? Yes.
2. Do not overdo it with dupes.
Sometimes dupes are necessary, such as for things like power cables since they can be connected to so many things. However if you find that you have many dupes for one particular thing (like a whole mess of USB cables) that you simply don’t have enough devices to satisfy, throw them out.
3. Question the usefulness of any given item, and if it’s not useful, get rid of it.
This question is best answered in time, such as what I said above, "Will I use this in the next 12 months?" If the answer is no, throw it away.
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Good tips, the problem is I have a huge garage to store it all.
It’s not a problem if it’s organized.
Here’s one: doesn’t everybody have a box (or more) of old disks? Like, you might want to install Office 95 again?
I finally through out the oldest box a while back. Still have one full, though.
Boxed software is something you didn’t choose but was rather forced upon you because you literally had no other choice at the time, so it’s not technically junk. As such it’s one of the few instances where I say yes, keep the boxes and original diskettes and CDs as long as they’re not dupes of something you already have – especially for games as they usually contain significant manuals and artwork back at a time when game makers actually cared about that stuff.
Most of the stuff I tossed wouldn’t even run on a PC anymore…at least not without a DOS emulator, or the like.
But you usually just have to sit on this stuff. The typical licensing doesn’t technically allow you to even give the stuff away.
I would like to add that if the item still works / is in good condition, you could consider donating it to your local schools or other non-profit businesses. We have a business in our area that specifically takes donations of working computer items and makes complete computer systems out of them for retirement homes and the like