Kondo-ing your hobby?

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**Easy E**

I have found being tight on the purchasing end has been a better strategy for me. I use tons of paper templates and proxies before I "buy-in" on some models. If I still like it after playing with my templates, then maybe I will get a real model for it. I manage to avoid the pile of shame by being very tight on my purchases.

Once bought, I can not use it until it is painted. This also helps focus my mind on what needs to be done and in what order.

That being said, I have uncovered some models from 2013 that I have been working on.... so maybe I should just shut my fat mouth about this topic.

**LunarSol**

Buying less is definitely a better strategy than throwing away more. A lot of us have just already failed at the former and need the latter to get back on track.

**AndrewGPaul**

I'd like to get into more games like 7TV, Tomorrow's War, etc that mean I can use whatever minis I like, but all my friends seem stuck to the "official rules, official models" games, so that's not a goer right now. :(

**Easy E**

AndrewGPaul wrote:
I'd like to get into more games like 7TV, Tomorrow's War, etc that mean I can use whatever minis I like, but all my friends seem stuck to the "official rules, official models" games, so that's not a goer right now. :(

I got out of that trap by rotating hobby nights that were "hosted" by the different people. The Host brought snacks and determined the nights game/scenario, in our group it also meant hosting the location (but it could work with picking the store/club to play at as well).

That allowed me to sneak in a few odd-balls that then grew so even more people wanted to play odd-balls as we went on.

**Stevefamine**

This is what I used to do to play non-40k games. Invite people over for homebrew games / RPGs / odd ball scenarios

**JohnHwangDD**

LunarSol wrote:
Buying less is definitely a better strategy than throwing away more. A lot of us have just already failed at the former and need the latter to get back on track.

eBay is your friend. You get beer money as you pare things down.

**DarkBlack**

FrozenDwarf wrote:
my unpainted heap of minis?
straight in to the trash bin!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That's awfully wasteful. No less fortunate and/or new players in your area that could use a boost? Friends who could use them?

Easy E wrote:I have found being tight on the purchasing end has been a better strategy for me. I use tons of paper templates and proxies before I "buy-in" on some models. If I still like it after playing with my templates, then maybe I will get a real model for it. I manage to avoid the pile of shame by being very tight on my purchases.

Definitely.

My system is that I have a box for miniatures for each army or system in the case of skirmish games. If the box is full then it's full (make sure a standard points army can fit).
If I want more then I need to let something else go to make space.

I also find that if I consider selling something I usually end up doing so, because the thought only crosses my mind if that army no longer "sparks joy".

I am also emigrating soon, so I need to trim (to put it lightly), some pressure brings what you actually need into perspective.

**Big Mac**

Already doing something similar before she came around; when I don’t have any attachment toward a certain unit/army, they go to eBay or sold locally by individual unit for maximum profit. Fire sale does reduce stress in buckets, but you end up losing what you put in, so I tend to be patient and sell it over the years.

**warboss**

I decluttered my collection a few years ago selling almost all of the sellable unpainted minis that I had (leaving me only with a few ziplock bags of random figs from lesser known companies). All my unfinished factions, armies, fleets, etc from failed globally games like Halo Fleet Battles and Robotech Tactics to niche titles like Heavy Gear to still popular games like 40k were decluttered except for a few key figs/sprues for each. I've since slightly worked my way back up but only by a few dozen figures (most bought very cheap and second hand like my HG Rafm pile and a few primaris). I can honestly say that I've been a very bad customer overall for the industry in the past few years.

**Tannhauser42**

I'm kind of doing this now. I'm finally turning my War Room into a real War Room, instead of just being a Room of Shame (you guys might have a Pile or even a Closet of Shame, I have a whole Room of Shame). In order to install my new Ikea shelves with glass doors to be display cabinets, I have to clear off all the cheap plastic shelving I've got in there. Throwing a bunch of crap away, going to give other stuff away, etc. Still keeping more than I really need, though, but I can't just let it all go.

**AndrewGPaul**

I made a little start this weekend.

When did I get all this crap?! Dark Age, Bushido, Eden - never played, never really liked any of those games. Hell Dorado, MERCS - fun games, not played in a decade, why do I have three factions for each?

**JohnHwangDD**

In light of Life Happening to various familiy relatives in the past few months, I find that it's a lot harder for me to enjoy the collecting of things just to have them.

I am now wondering to what extent I ought to slash and burn a major chunk of what I own, to reduce my total ownership closer to the minimum of what I might actually need to play at all, vs. some artificial construct that adds more stuff.

That is, my Joy meter has been radically recalibrated, and it's got me thinking of what I really ought to own.

**LunarSol**

So sorry to hear that. I've certainly stepped back and reassessed my commitment to blindly collecting and painting for similar reasons. I've got a tracker of days to fully painted based on 1 model a day and when I see that end date its a lot easier to think... you know.... some of this just has to go.

**JohnHwangDD**

It's not a bad thing - Life Happens.

It's just that I've been reassessing things and pondering "Why?"

**admironheart**

I have been trying to get my wife to do this with pets for years. We have way too many....its like living in Noah's Ark!!

**JohnHwangDD**

admironheart wrote:
I have been trying to get my wife to do this with pets for years. We have way too many....its like living in Noah's Ark!!

If you have chickens and rabbits, they're good eatin'!

**YeOldSaltPotato**

I've definitely straight up given kits I just wound up with to people a few times in the last couple months. If it came in a set I bought for something else and I can't sell it for like 50% off retail, I'll just toss it to the first person who asks.

Beyond that, I have a faction for 40k and a faction for AoS I'm actively collecting an army for, anything outside those factions I have to paint what I bought before I buy any more of them. If I wind up with some kit I don't have a use for it gets tossed in the sell/give/bits pile. Just don't look at those boxes of bones under neath the 40k table.

**highlord tamburlaine**

I've been doing really good pairing down all the excess minis. I got some money back, made others happy, and generally sheered things down to what currently interests me (and always has for the most part).

The biggest problem now is miniature heavy board games that take up tons of shelf space.

They don't get played anywhere as often as they should.

Some of them weren't cheap either, and it's a losing proposition to eBay them with the ridiculous shipping costs that they'd incur. Maybe I ought to try parting them out?

Stuff like Mythic Battles and a few different CMON games... at least my Kingdom Death and Shadows of Brimstone stuff aren't going anywhere!

**hotsauceman1**

I have too, I have been actively selling parts of .y old collection because I have not touched them forever

**Cruentus**

I've tried this off and on for years. Sometimes it works, but then the pile builds up again. I used to be just a 40k and Fantasy gamer, but then got into historicals (multiple periods), in multiple scales, naval, air, Heavy Gear, trek, Armada/XWing, etc. Once you start buying for this and that game or system, or era, it snowballs.

I've also been gaming for going on 30+ years, and I'm feeling way less inclined to paint what I have for games I'm never going to play. But I also know if I get rid of it, I'll reacquire it. LoL

What I have to figure out is which of the armies/eras do I really, really want to do, and pick one or two to work on. Like my original WHFB army: Brettonians. I have a literal pile of old 5th ed metal spear and halberds, grail reliquae, knights, etc., that I could really stand to finish. But with all the other, new stuff (SoIaF? Really, why did I buy that??) it just gets buried.

So I've been slowly ebaying stuff. I'm going to be putting up a lot of old Empire plastics that are still on sprue - an entire army's worth, and then some. Because while I like the models, am I ever actually ever going to get around to it. Nah, not likely.

**Easy E**

I just finished putting paint on every model in my collection..... that I am aware of.

If I die in the next day or two, you all know why.

**highlord tamburlaine**

You are quite the brave person.

I shall do my best to follow in your footsteps!

**Commodus Leitdorf**

I've had a few gaming buddies over the years who have had Army ADHD. They buy, paint play then sell off whole armies because they got bored and wanted something else. I've never really understood that mentality. For me at least if I put all that energy into building and painting an army I wouldn't want to get rid of it ever.

That being said I get if you have a project you bought stuff for and decided, "Nah I dont want to do this anymore" and sold them off, I get that.

**AndrewGPaul**

Some people enjoy the act of painting, so they're constantly painting models, selling them, painting new ones. Some people - like me - enjoy having painted models. I sometimes find painting a chore, but the experience of having a fully-painted tabletop force outweighs that.

**Bookwrack**

Warhammer feeds my need for loving to have _stuff_ because there's always new stuff to be had. I'd long ago realized that if I constantly exchange stuff I got and never used for new stuff that I want, and slowly add things to 'finished and complete' it keeps the general clutter under control.

**Grot 6**

Yodhrin wrote:
Ginjitzu wrote:
I don't think her philosophy suits me personally. There's a whole heap of stuff that I regret having gotten rid of so much that it almost hurts whenever I recall it. I'm not sure that my feelings towards my possessions can be resolved to some binary joy/no joy value. For me, stuff tends to exist somewhere on a joy scale.

This. The entire premise of her fad "philosophy" is a nonsense, and I'd say it's double-triple-extra nonsense when applied to a creative hobby where the "stuff" is literally the medium you work in.

In general terms, lets begin with the fact her ideas are grotesque in an age of such gratuitous waste - where do people think all those black bags of stuff they throw out go? Only a fraction of what you donate to a charity shop actually goes on sale, most gets dumped, and only a fraction of what you send to a recycling centre gets recycled, most gets dumped. So all that "decluttering" of "useless" stuff ends up in a landfil somewhere. Unless you're some kind of disturbed hoarder or clinical shopaholic - in which case you need psychological help, not a reality show "guru" - the vast majority of this stuff that's getting chucked could be put to other uses, uses that would mean you didn't have to buy some new object to be thrown away in future. Then there's the ludicrous idea that if an object doesn't "spark joy" once a week when you pick it up or whatever the daft standard she advocates is, it should be cast aside - whut? People's relationships with possessions are far more complex than that kind of simplistic, momentary binary. I own plenty of objects that bring me no "joy" at all, but they're tangible reminders of events I shared with people who're gone now; I own objects that I can look at one day and be annoyed by, or forget for weeks or months at a time, and then look at again and find all kinds of useful or pleasurable emotional experiences in it.

In hobby terms specifically, it's just plain dumb IMO. I still regret leaving my collection of 2nd Ed 40K books behind at home back when I first moved out for college that got "decluttered" by my mum. I hate that I don't have the first models I painted, or the first army I collected, just so I could take them out from time to time to remind myself how far I've progressed. You might have an army or a game system in storage for years without opportunity to play it, and what happens when that opportunity arises if you've sold off/thrown out all the relevant stuff? Not to mention bitz, christ how paltry my bitzbox would be if I got rid of everything that didn't present some immediate level of emotional attachment or usefulness at some arbitrary point in time, and how many cool models I wouldn't have been able to make.

TLDR - just because it's on Netflix with flashy production values doesn't mean it's anything other than a faddy daytime TV show, there is no inherent value in lacking "clutter".

BRAVO!!!!!

This is while I am eating a quarter pound steak and cheese and bacon fries, while downing single malt.

**Easy E**

I am still alive, probably because I found a MK IV tank from AQMF that was only undercoated and not painted.

**JohnHwangDD**

JohnHwangDD wrote:
I am now wondering to what extent I ought to slash and burn a major chunk of what I own, to reduce my total ownership closer to the minimum of what I might actually need to play at all, vs. some artificial construct that adds more stuff.

Welp, with another 20-odd Guardsmen pulled and in the stripper, I think I'm well and truly "done" shrinking the Imperial T3 pile down to the minimum for Imperial Guard, Sisters of Battle, Stormptroopers, and Inquisition. I also finished unloading the last of the Warmaster stuff that I was never going to get around to. And I unloaded the excess Ogre game sheets that I wasn't going to use. Feels good, actually.

That just leaves the Eldar pile that I've put off for ages, along with the smaller pile of Space Marines & Chaos Marines.