This month I am doing it – I am playing The Minimalist Game.
The Minimalist Game
If you’re not familiar with The Minimalist Game, it’s a month-long challenge to get rid of your excess stuff. On Day 1, out goes one thing; on Day 2, out goes two things and on and on until Day 30, when out goes 30 things. That’s 564 things in total if you keep going for the whole month. You can find out more about the game on The Minimalists website.
But why?
Why am I doing this? Hmmmm, I suspect from around Day 15 that’s a question I will be asking myself quite a bit! In a nutshell, I’m messy, my husband’s tidy and we live in a small house – it works better with less stuff.
We’ve been living in our current home for three years this month and lately I’ve noticed that I spend quite a bit of time rummaging through stuff to find other stuff. I know we have stuff that we haven’t touched in the last three years. Our spare room has become a dumping ground and recently was so packed that at one point I could only stand in the doorway. I have made some great progress in there but I’ve only done the easy stuff. I need to do the hard stuff and so I am playing The Minimalist Game for motivation.
What I want to achieve
For me, it’s not really about the numbers, but at the same time it’s all about the numbers.
I want to attack some clutter hot spots: the spare room, my desk, the pantry and what my husband calls “The Pile” next to my bedside table. Whether I need to get rid of 200 or 500 or 1000 things to achieve that is beside the point.
But at the same time, getting rid of 564 things in a month is really going to test my relationship with stuff. There is definitely a bit of hoarder in me. I find it hard to throw stuff away and I want to understand a bit more about why. It will be this understanding, rather than the total of the number of things I have managed to get rid of that will be the real success for me.
I’ll post weekly updates throughout the month, so if you want to join in, just keep a tally of how you are doing and post your progress below.
Updates
The week of the Wii – The Minimalist Game Days 1 to 7
Help I’m hoarding for the environment – The Minimalist Game Days 8 to 14
The cost of free stuff – The Minimalist Game Days 15 to 21
Be the change – The Minimalist Game Days 22 to 30
Do you have an inner hoarder or are you more of a minimalist? What are your clutter hot spots?
