Loft clearout

[MadamWow]

Although our loft space is tidy, it's mostly made up of 'sentimental' items. I say sentimental, but as I've got older, I seem to attach an emotion or memory to more and more objects.
How can I get over this?

Examples of things in my loft:
Old school books (mine and DDs)
Various medals and trophies (mine and DHs)
Photos - 1000s
Old memorabilia from Disney World
Greetings cards
Various Old toys from childhood
Stuff from our wedding day

Whilst I don't want to get rid of everything, I really would like to lighten the load a bit.
Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Thank you.

I hear you! I am trying to embrace the idea in theory of Swedish Death Cleaning because I know the rest of my family will just bin it all anyway when I am gone.

I want to enjoy it while I am still around so no point it being in a cupboard somewhere.

I started with photos. I have made a couple of collages focusing on different themes and am gathering the courage to shed all the others which I know will never be looked at.

About to move onto items I have gathered from family members and think I will try to same approach - making a shadow box to hang up for each of us rather than a memory box which will be hidden away. A few items on display might just be enough rather than the piles of boxes I have at the moment. I will report back if I am brave enough as just started!
Not ready to shed the hours of old video footage so that is what I am working up to. Thinking I would love to turn 100 hours into 1 hour to share!

Thank you for your reply. I'm going to look up Swedish Death cleaning, as I've never heard of it.
It's a valid point you make, what's the point of it being hidden away. In all honesty, if someone removed everything from my loft, apart from the Christmas decorations and a few other items, I wouldn't remember what was there anyway.
I'd like to hear about your progress and all the best with the clear out!

I’m going to empty mine when it’s warmer, as I don’t want the kids to have to do it when I’m dead. If I leave it much longer I physically won’t be able to get up there any more.
My DF is a hoarder, and I can already see what a job I’m going to have one day.

As above, I imagine my kids having to deal with all this crap when I'm dead, and very little of it will have any meaning to them.

This is true about leaving it for your kids to sort out one day. I don't see the point in it. I'm lucky in that my parents have already cleared lots out when they moved, and are still clearing things out now.

Take photographs of things then you still have the memories without the physical clutter.

I'm desperate to do this but have the added complication that I live with a terminal illness. So in a way, I also want to give my kids the opportunity to sift and decide what's interesting/sentimental to them and what's not. It's quite unlikely either of them will be past their teens when I die (I'm ridiculously hopeful, but that's based on the timescale I've been given & I'd be stupid to completely ignore it). So I need to wonder what future them might want to know. I have a box of tapes of me singing my own songs as a hopeful and deluded teenager so they'll be fun for the kids to find! Cringe. 😂

I'm thinking of whittling it to 3\4 boxes - child/teen, adult (pre kids) and then the family stuff.

Whats in the house itself will be up to them and their Dad but that's really just clothes, bedside table and my wonderful folders of medical letters (which I regularly sift anyway). Then it's their stuff - school things....I'll need to book a few days off work I think! ☺️

Nothing to add but a hug for @SnobblyBobbly

@SnobblyBobbly I'm sorry to hear this and wish you all the best.

After having several goes at the dozens of cartons I inherited from Mum, some of which she inherited from her father, uncle, and aunt, I came up with a system:
Prepare:
get a box for recycling
bin for rubbish
box for charity shop
container for precious things
Now start:
pull out one carton at a time
look at each item once
put precious things in precious box
bin things you're certain about
keep the "not sure" items in the carton

From having dozens of cartons I now only have a dozen, and I don't have many regrets. It's manageable if you only have slivers of time.

We've just done 'wedding'
got everything together
Went through it, got the recognition moment out the way, binned the obvious stuff.
Kept a spare invite - binned the dull acceptance cards, probably kept one
Went hard on the photos - found the stand out favourites, really enjoyed them, sifted back through the rest, binned the identical not quite as goods, binned some of the random groupings, binned anything I didn't look fabulous in.
Went to put them in an album, binned a few more.
Got rid of wedding favours from an Aunt - have her photo, dont need the thing and doesn't sum up the day for anyone else.
Binned a couple of poems people kindly wrote - I could be bothered to read them all the way through and again the photo was better.
Wedding dress was reused a long time ago.

Left with an album and a big envelope with bits in which really sum up the day.

Much better.

I’ve not touched the loft yet, but I did my wardrobe yesterday and sent 3 full bags to the charity shop.