What should you do with old photos, school books, DVDs, and VHS tapes?

Some of my old videos I taped off analog TV are painful to watch on flat screen digital. Best to just toss the lot. Your next of kin does not want all your crap

I notice that the library in the small town where I went to high school…has all their high school yearbooks online…going all the way back to the 1940's….I haven't looked at my high school yearbooks for years…and there really isn't a reason to hang on to these anymore!

I gave up most of my DVD a while back. Just got rid of the rest this week

What a great condo! Love your style.

First word that comes to his mouth when talking about this topic is "I buy a scanner". This is so against the consumerism downsizing and the well-being that we're striving for. The first thing to do is certainly NOT to buy a new tech product but first take a laaaarge amount of time pondering WHAT those photos mean to us, why we still have them, what they inspire us now, what their value are in our minds, and then one by one, choosing which ones we want to keep. This process may take 90% of the whole process. The remaining 10% is for scanning or storing the loved photos we don't want to discard.

Last year my husband and I moved AGAIN! I decided that I could no longer haul around the 25 photo albums and scrapbooks that I’d lovingly accumulated and created in the first 40 years of my life. In a week’s time, I spent my evenings photographing (scanning, essentially) and tossing all of it. Surprisingly, more people see my albums now that they are digitized than they ever did when they were stored in my guest bedroom closet.

If your area gets evacuated, what is your evacuation plan? Lots of fires happening around America this month.

Thanks dude! I’m a filmmaker and I’m struggling with a digital minimalism template of clearing everything on my MacBook Pro as I make films?! Help?! Also sorry I’m writing on my asmr channel, I explore sounds too haah. Love your podcasts! Hope you answer my question and please come over to the uk I wanna give you guys a hug 🤗
Can you also show us your digital space such as on a MacBook and your best tips to minimalise digital space ?

Why else would you keep a photo of your foot 😉

How do you approach minimalism if your parents don’t find the same value you do in it? For example, you explain that you don’t want any more material items but they continue to buy you gifts because they’re trying to be kind. How do you then dispose of those gifts or give them to someone else without seeming ungrateful?

I sent some VHS off to a company and unfortunately the company went bust just after my order and despite 3 years of trying my VHS have been lost/destroyed. So be careful, in hindsight would have gone to a local walk in company. But it was a good exercise in letting go. Next stage for me in digitising all my photos after a few years ago going through and only keeping those that sparked joy (got rid of at least 50%).

Ive taken my old gig tickets, cinema tickets memories…and i choses the ones that “sparked” a memory (as if i had a child on my knee telling them stories) put them on as a collage and then my plan is to scan them in…boom decluttered!

I have watched your podcast that you post on YouTube but they are too long . I love these short videos. Please don’t stop. I have learned sooo much

But Josh, you never answered the parts about books and DVDs and VHSs!!

I deleted most of my photos and such. I only keep like 70 photos and 2 videos at most

Does anybody reading this know of any place that will professionally transfer cassette music onto a disc or computer memory? Cant figure out how to do it. Bought a cassette player with usb cord but instructions are way too complicated and seems like its for a computer geek.

Do you guys plan on coming to San Antonio Tx anytime soon? We are a big city, I think you guys could fill an arena quickly.

This is the exact process I've been going through for the last few weeks!

I wanted to personally show you my collection of reciepts, and other tapeable media inside my notebooks. Journals covered with scrapbooked memories. This couldnt have been published at a better time

I just got rid of my one journal. I'm not going to read it and I'd rather no one else read it. Plus I was tired of storing it.
But I do have a question on what to do when you are getting your kids into decluttering but a mother or mother in law is 100% against it and just replaces toys you get rid of. My kid fills a trash bag per month of toys she doesn't want or play with. I don't try to force it on her but I can tell her room stresses her out. She is always so happy after getting rid of stuff.

This is very useful Joshua, thank you. As a photographer who only shoots black and white film, I rarely print my photos. I have the lab scan my negatives. I only create a print for a photograph that I really love – usually one or two per year. It's a helpful way to curate!

Hi! What kind of book shelf do you have? It looks like it could work for me too 🙂