Minimalism Challenge

Last week I read that Ross from rcThink and Dave from The Minimalist Path, had thrown out the challenge to anyone who dared,  to rid yourselves of the unnecessary over the next 30 days

Ross writes,

“From January 15th to February 15th you’re going to be getting rid of one thing every day from your kitchen, closet, computer room, bedroom, car, work. Anywhere that is accumulating clutter and things you don’t need. The purpose here is not to become a minimalist Zen Monk, (if you want to though, give ‘er) but to remove things from our lives that don’t matter.”

The rules of this challenge were quite simple

1. You have to plan to get rid of something every day of the challenge. You can take the stuff to wherever it’s going to end up, dump/friends/recycling depot/ shelter, once a week if you like. I understand it’s hard to go every single day.
2. Update your blog/website/doc/wave with things that you’ve thrown away.
3. Things that can be recycled or donated, have to be. Don’t just throw them in the garbage. People can benefit from used stuff.

Now, as I am already decluttering each day as part of My Big 4,  I thought it would be only fair to add a 4th rule to apply to myself, and that is,

4. The item has to be separate from the room that I am currently in the process of decluttering.

Ross has requested that participants report back on their progress, which is what I will be doing here on this blog each week over the next month.

The following are my 7 things for the last week and a brief description about each item and why they don’t matter anymore,

• Day 1 – Set of old screwdrivers : I have accumulated  tools over the last few years and try to always make sure that I buy quality, however there have been a few times that have been sucked into the quantity over quality marketing strategies from these big hardware stores. This set was quickly lost their grip and wore. The set has now been replaced by a quality made set . I had failed to let go of this old cheap set, that is, until now.
• Day2 – Baseball caps: Hats have been a nasty habit of mine, and slowly I have weaned myself from this addiction. I can now say that my hat collection is now complete at 4 caps. One is for Golf, one is memorabilia, another is trendy ( well at least i think it is ) and the fourth is for working outdoors in the harsh Aussie sun. The rest of the collection are now outta here!
• Day 3 -Phone Directories: It occurred to me on this day, that I can not recall the last time I picked up a phone book and looked for a number? Does anyone still do this? So, both personal and business phone directories are now sitting in the recycling bin.
• Day 4 – Garden Hose Reel: My house has a garden hose reel attachment that is bolted on to the side of the house. I don’t need it so it’s gone now and it looks better.
• Day 5 – Blender: I like banana smoothies, especially the ones that you kid yourself that are healthy. You know the one’s I am talking about, extra banana, full milk, lashings of honey and yoghurt and maybe a scope of ice cream to chill it up. I might as well be blending a big mac with all those calories. I probably only create one of theses monsters about twice a year, the rest of the time it sits in the cupboard. It was a really old noisy blender, it had to be trashed.
• Day 6 – Window squeegee: I think I used this once? A good idea at the time, now its rusted up in the shed. Out she goes.
• Day 7 – Dining Table: Our second casual dining table was set up near the TV,  but the problem with that was the silence at dinner and all eyes focused on some brain numbing show. Not anymore, we will now only use our formal table to eat and talk. The other table is ready to be eBayed.

So there you have it, my 1st week of the challenge, quite an eclectic bunch of items, but all no longer necessary.

If you would like to join us, get onboard its never to late to challenge yourself, and I am sure Ross and Dave would like to hear from you.

Enjoy

Greg

Tagged as: minimalism