Inventory Challenge Week 4: Keep, Toss, or Store?

CCC- Ani Outfit

It's finally here! The last week of the inventory challenge! Do your inventories look cleaner?

Mine's still not where I want it to be, but it's sure shaping up! I went through this past week and re-did the previous challenges. This week I'm tackling my hair/clothes and then I'm going to overcome that out of control gesture folder!

My tip for our final week is based on organization principles for RL as well. We only have so much room in our physical closets, and while our virtual closet may seem infinite, at some point, you do accumulate clutter which makes it harder to find what you really want to find.

As much as we take pride in keeping every outfit we ever bought (because, surely, someday, we'll need it again)- we really don't need every one! *gasp*  The same goes for textures, gestures, furniture, etc. Some things we buy will be timeless and we'll want to keep forever. Others we need to cut the cord and trash!

Then there's some things that we really do need, but we don't need all the time... like holiday decorations, or those special avatars (mermaids, tinies, etc). These things can be boxed up to take up less space in our inventories.

To box items, rez a box (woo!), and move the inventory items to the box. Name it (give it a good name!) and then I recommend dropping in a handy hovertext script that displays the name of the box. (This script is available for free at my shop, Whimzie, if you want to come pick it up.) Take the item back to inventory. Now instead of having 15-20 pieces of something in inventory, you have it in the box.

This method is wonderful for textures, photos, notecards and other items that can often take up lots of room, but aren't always used.  Texture organizers use this same concept of storing your textures in a box, but just give you some fancy options!

Caution: I highly recommend only boxing items with like permissions together. So only put no copy items in one box, and only put no transfer items in another box. There is a danger of boxing no copy items... if you lose the box, you lose your stuff! Don't rez the no copy box on a day that SL is eating things.

This week's challenge is to box up some things you don't use on a regular basis... *cough* Christmas Decorations*cough* You'll have those items ready for next winter, but they won't take up tons of space in your inventory!

Also, it's time to purge. Go through your clothes, or gestures, or *insert folder of choice* and ask yourself if you're really going to use/wear those items. Just because you got something for free doesn't mean you have to keep it.... and just because you paid for something doesn't mean you have to keep it!

Well, that's all I have for inventory tips! I hope they have helped!

Love,
Lishi

PS: For those of you who have hung in there with me, and have commented on the challenge posts (including this one) you'll be getting a special "I survived the great inventory cleanout of 2010" prize. I'll be passing them out next weekend, to give some of you a chance to finish up!
My starting number with the clean-up: 38,444
My ending number: 23,086 (and I can find things again!!)