Tod & I both played through the Minimalism Game this month with great success. 1576 items left our apartment in 31 days. What?!
I started the game thinking I didn’t really have that much clutter and that reaching the goal – 496 items – was going to clear out my spaces very well. As it turns out, I lapped the game with 1080 items of my own removed. Tod did 496 on the dot. I have a lot more clutter in my life than I thought.
Learnings:
- Gathering together a group of people (the Minimalism & Decluttering Games group I started on Facebook) has made the process a delight. Everyone shared their daily decluttering stories and there was accountability to not skip days. I am pretty sure it would have been a drudge and I would have quit otherwise.
- I can’t remember 99% of the things I decluttered. Things that come to mind: the orange phone & a stack of party plates…and that is all I recall without looking at the photos I took.
- The more clutter I removed, the more I realised there was to still get rid of. Even now, I could easily play the game again and will in March.
- We’ve accumulated and saved things from a lifestyle that has changed quite a bit over the 13 years we’ve lived in this apartment.
- Guilt plays a big role in hanging on to things too long – it was hard to dispose of gifts or things we “paid good money for” but rarely use.
- Having fewer things around gives me more energy and motivation for maintaining what’s here
- Minimalism doesn’t mean austerity; it means not having excess.
- There are lots of people who are happy to have the strangest things you might want to give away.
- Donating items in Japan isn’t easy, but the we gave clothing to a Syrian refuge charity drive, and the Salvation Army has a donations center that was happy to take my random assortment of stuff at the end of the game.
- I think moving things out of my life has given me mental room to invite friends and ideas back in.
