Path to Craftsmanship: The Art of Throwing It Away

I get the premise but sometimes you need to keep stuff you won't touch for years.

For example, I restore pinball machines and I have stacks of salvaged and spare parts from various games in my workspace. Since there's so many manufacturers, and I restore what happens to come my way via Craigslist, I might not touch a part for years, then suddenly have use of it for my next project.

Since most of the parts are manufacturer or machine specific, and most are decades old and not being produced anymore, the only source of parts is the pile. Also, shipping from the US (I'm in Canada) is prohibitively expensive, so just buying the parts I need for that one project doesn't always work.

If you're just dicking around, I suppose, it's good to de-clutter regularly. I do like to keep my workbenches clear by always cleaning up at the end of a session.

I had to read parts of this out loud to my wife and visiting inlaws. You've described my workshop hording practices to a T.