Your House Is On Fire!

I’ve been making some progress with decluttering my house. Yesterday I watched a video on YouTube about a topic that had been swirling around in my brain. The video posed a question. If your house was on fire, what would you take with you?

The purpose of the video was to think about what is important enough to save? Some people have a container of their important papers and family photo albums. Some people, like myself, have a general idea, me, my dog, photos, my computer, and other electronics. I have a fireproof case that isn’t large enough but has some of my important papers in it. I really should have a box I can throw in the car. I live in the forest amidst the trees and there are fires in my area every year.

The big question is how do you know what to put in the box? Well, since we are dealing with a possible fire, if you don’t want it to be destroyed it goes in the box. If there is no way to replace it and it is important in that it’s a legal document you may need, you can’t live without it, it’s an heirloom, or expensive you put it in the box.

Here’s my problem, everything is important to me on some level. That makes my entire house important. That’s not practical. When everything is important, nothing is important. Everything is lying around on the same level of importance.

I don’t know how you want to determine the things to go in your fire escape or emergency box, but here is how I will do it.

Now that I’ve gone through this exercise, I have an idea of what I would need and what is really important to keep, even if it is a little simplistic. No one would really feel okay if everything not on the list was burned along with their home. But as I continue to declutter my home, I think this exercise will help me see what I really need to keep and what I can let go of right now. I imagine there are many things I don’t know I have and would never miss. And I certainly wouldn’t put them in my box.

Thanks for reading!