Take photos of it, you can never look at those and it will be much smaller.

I would donate the yearbooks. People love to buy old yearbooks for some reason. That always shocked me when I volunteered at a sorting facility.

I donated mine. I was tired of lugging them around and honestly, in this digital age, I have connected with everyone I want to.

I have a tiny box of some cards from relatives who have passed - like the lovely card my grandma wrote to me when I graduated high school. I did not keep every birthday card she'd sent me that just said Love, Grandma. The box also contains a few sentimental letters from friends during our college years and the birth announcement from my BFF's first child. I keep my favorite letters/notes/cards my spouse and kids give me. When I run out of room in the box, I'll sort and pare down again. That's how you find out what is really important to you, IMO.

Think about the stuff your kids would be interested in. My kids only want my cookbooks, old teddy bears and vintage couture. Everything else goes. My plan is to have such an interesting present that I'm not interested in the past.

If you are no longer interested in it now...you probably will not miss it later. Only keep what is still special to you now.

When you get old and senile you won’t remember who you are without it.

Take photos of everything. Then you can look at the photos if you want.

I’d get rid of it. Focus on today.

Are these your items? Or your kid's items?

I try to be mindful of what I am saving and why. They why might change as time passes, so it's to re-evaluate here and there. I had a box of notes my friends and I passed in high school. I am sure I saved them to remember all the funny stories. But reading them 15 years later they read like gibberish. I had no idea what we were talking about. The notes were written to be hard to read to an outsider in case a teacher got them, which meant they made NO SENSE to me anymore. Maybe if I had re-read them yearly, but I did not. So, I tossed them all after sending some pictures to the friends involved (who I still count as my best friends).

So it's time to comb through the boxes. You don't need to get rid of 100%, but aim to get rid of at least half of it. There's very little stuff that the next generation wants. They might your favorite platter, or your favorite piece of art, but beyond that they don't want boxes of memorabilia that they didn't amass.

Keep one box.

Throw out items once a week until you get to one box. Trying to decide all at once is too hard. If you get stuck, take picture of whatever it is and then toss it.

NO

I keep some things. Yearbooks, letters. Other things like riding ribbons, soccer trophies, I tossed. Basically I parsed it down to one box.

I realize I kept stuff to remind me of certain times in my life. My work around was to take a pic of it with my phone. Then I got rid of the actual item. I did keep some yearbooks for my kids to laugh over.

Throw it out camp. Don’t look back.

Instead of throwing it all away, scale it back to one box. Keep the most significant stuff.

I have boxes of stuff that I’ve been moving around for decades - yearbooks, Girl Scout badges, stuff animals, old letters, etc. I’m in my 50s now, have no desire to look at any of it, and am contemplating throwing it all out. Any btdt experiences - will I wake up in 10 years and suddenly wish I had kept it all?