If you’ve been in-world for any length of time then chances are you have spares of something. Whether it’s gifts from groups that you received once, then picked up from group notices when you checked them again and didn’t realise you already had them, or whether you’re a fan of the ‘Fish for This’ game at Sn@tch or you play a lot of gatchas, or whether you just like to hang around lucky chairs and lucky boards a lot and get spares when you’re the only person there with the correct initial letter to ‘bump’ the chair or board (even though you already have that item).

It’s time to get rid of those spares. Today we have one simple thing to do, so there won’t be separate tasks according to how much time you have spare.

I want you to sort your inventory by name. Those of you using an old-style viewer will find it at the top of the inventory menu (Sort > By Name). Those of you using Viewer 2 and 3 viewers… I’m not so sure. (I wish Linden Lab would stop messing around and settle on one viewer!) I would imagine the ability to sort by name is somewhere inside the little cog that you see right at the bottom of your inventory window, so look in there for it.

Now head into your Objects folder (stop cringing over there; I know it’s humungous!) and start scrolling down slowly. At some point you’ll come across ‘doubles’, like Mar has here:

She actually has three of one item! So she’s going to keep just one of those marked doubles and throw the rest away. That’s five inventory items she’s managed to get rid of. Might not seem like much, but that’s just one screen of a huge Object folder scroll.

Note: If the item is transferrable, then pack it off to an alt, or create a new ! Give to newbies folder so you can hand things out to new residents.

One other thing you need to do (and this is something that those with a bit more time to spare can get around to) is search to see if you’ve already unpacked those items, but forgotten to delete the boxes from your inventory. This is a huge inventory clutterer, and we’ve all been guilty of it. The quick unpacking before we log off, and we leave the boxes (assuming they’re not No Copy) sitting in our objects folder, where they soon get lost in the general miasma of All That Stuff.

Take it slowly. Sort by name again and open two inventory windows (File > New Window), so you can search for the unpacked item in one and keep track of the Objects folder in the other. Make it easier by working store-by-store, and if you have stuff that you haven’t yet unpacked then unpack it now, check out the contents. Try it on. If you like it, file it in your second window where you would normally file it (or create a new folder in your growing inventory filing system to put it in). If you don’t like it, bin it! OR, if it’s something you don’t want to wear or use right now (maybe it’s season-specific, like a Christmas tree or a Valentine’s gown) then create a new folder called ! To Be Archived, and put it in there, so you know to box it up into the relevant archive when you have more time.

One more thing (I sound like Columbo here!) – when you’ve unpacked those boxes make sure you delete the original one from your Objects folder. Not doing that is what got you into this mess in the first place!