Put it in the recycle bin

I have an irrational attachment to inanimate objects. I am a pack-rat. I have the most useless projects from junior high still sitting in a bin somewhere in my bedroom. As I approach the end of my time at this job, I realized I had a filing cabinet full of papers -- mostly old drafts of projects that have long since gone to press. No one is ever going to come back and need to see my notes on the 2nd of five rounds of copy. So I made myself throw 75% of it away. I did keep a few things, mostly research based or that seemed interesting. And as I get farther away from this moment I'm sure that it will get easier and easier to toss things in the garbage.

But really, why do I bother keeping it in the first place? Sometimes I just feel some overwhelmed by the amount of STUFF that I own. How much of it do I actually use? Maybe I should set a goal this year to par it down a bit? I don't know. It's hard. I attach memories to random objects - birthday cards, notes passed in the halls of highschool, trinkets from holidays past.

I'm working on at least prioritizing this kind of stuff -- keeping only something that REALLY has value or will actually be useful in the future. Any suggestions?