We are 8 days into our 30 day minimialism challenge. We’ve lost Blake along the way but Jaida and I are still going strong. Here is what happened.
Blake has never been a collector of things. His room is usually under control, he easily parts with items he doesn’t use any more. Last year we removed everything from his room for a month, when it was time to bring stuff back into the house he only selected the very important things that he uses often and donated the rest. He kept about 30% of his stuff. His room is not very cluttered to start with so this challenge was very difficult for him.
He was very keen when we started and ran and pulled out the some items that he immediately knew he didn’t care to keep. Over the next few days we went through all of his clothes, sports equipment, toys and books. He found almost 100 items that didn’t fit him or he no longer used and stopped the challenge. And that was perfect! We both feel good about this because we know now that all of the things he has, bring value into his life. So even though he didn’t complete the 30 days, this experiment was a success bringing renewed love for the things he has.
How do you feel about what you’ve removed from your room?
Blake: I don’t feel anything different.
Are you upset that you did not complete the challenge?
Blake: Not really.
Jaida has been a cleaning machine! She has worked very hard this past week picking a section of her room and carefully going through each item to consider if that item brings value into her life. She is not willing to part with any of her 100+ stuffies, that is a firm rule she has made because she is sentimentally attached to each one. (maybe next time…)
BUT, she can now easily pick through the papers and art that she has collected without needing to keep them for the memory. She struggled a bit with some of the craft kits that she started but didn’t finish. She had this amazing loom kit with a half started scarf. This is a scarf she started more than a year ago and she hasn’t made any progress since the first time she sat down with it. Each time she goes into her closet, she sees it and has the thought that she should finish it. I am very happy to say that she has packaged the kit up (with all the original pieces) and will donate it. She felt a relief knowing that she doesn’t have to finish this scarf and maybe someone else will. It cleared up space in her closet and in her mind.
There are a few other craft kits that she loved but did not finish. One of them she decided to do right away, so she sat down and did it. Now she has several very cool string art pieces do display on her wall.
We adjusted our challenge to count the completion of a project as a purge because we are removing the mental clutter of the guilt of an unfinished project. Jaida had lots of fun finishing up little projects without worrying about saving bits of the materials to squeeze in another creation.
I checked in with Jaida after our first week.
How do you feel about what you’ve removed from your room?
Jaida: Good. I don’t think it has made much of a difference even though I already gave away 201 items. It is fun to clear out stuff I don’t use.
Do you think you can complete this challenge?
Jaida: Yes.
As for me, things are going surprisingly well. I am shocked that I am still doing the challenge because I just gave away a ton of stuff the day before we started this. I am known among my friends to have very little clutter and yet I have already found almost 100 items to give away.
I believe that the best way to teach our kids about a willingness to let go is to model it ourselves. It is so tempting to hold onto things that remind us of good times in the past or to feel we should hold onto things because other people would expect us to. I have learned to ignore these urges and just let the stuff go.
Because of my recent big donation of clothes, I had to get creative with this challenge but all of the work I have done this week has given me deep satisfaction.
Filing Cabinet
In our home, we have a small filing cabinet (well, it is 1 filing drawer actually) that collects “important” documents. Every couple of years we go through the stuff to pare it down. It often turns into a fun activity and I often laugh at myself for saving such things. Christian and I made a huge dent in our filing drawer getting rid of old receipts and manuals for things we no longer own (like our old cars). We had so many documents from jobs of the past or insurance policies that have changed. All normal maintenance type stuff. But this time, as we sifted through our documents we eliminated more than ever with old sentimental letters or report cards. Yes, I still had every single report card from high school, and 3 full degrees after high school. I am at the point in my life where I will NEVER need to show a transcript. This was very liberating.
Random Printed Photos
I had this fancy wooden box that held printed photographs and it was full. For years, I moved around carrying this special box from home to home. Over the years, the photos that were too large to fit inside the sections within the box, were slid under the lid of the box causing the lid to not close properly. For the past 10 years, I was annoyed each time I looked at this box because of the photos spilling out. Not once did I open this box to recreationally browse through the photos, they were jumbled out of order. Finally, after all these years, I looked through all of the pictures in this box. I realized that we have a copy of most of these pictures already on my computer. There were about 50 photos (out of hundreds) that I moved out of the box and put into one of our old photo albums. I chucked the rest of the photos and will donate the box. Ahhhh!
CD’s and DVD’s
I had a CD wallet case that held about 50 data CD’s. These CD’s held backups of old computer data, old photos and downloaded movies. I haven’t even had a computer with a CD / DVD drive in it for years. All of the photos on these CD’s were already in my archive except for one. I happened to have a temporary computer in my house right now that has a drive so I was able to transfer the missing photos into my photo archive and all the CD’s are in a pile to be recycled.
Garden Tools
Behind our shed I have collected plant containers that come with plants and I kept just incase I needed to … well I’m not even sure what I would ever need them for but I had a huge pile of them. Not any more! I am also clearing out my collection of broken terracotta pots, scraps of wood that might be useful one day etc. It feels so good to have that area clutter free.
Toiletries
Here is an area that is easy to forget about clearing out. I am not the type of person that has many products but I did have a few containers that are almost finished but not quite. I decided we needed to use up these almost empty containers so I temporarily moved the newer products away so that the old ones can be finished first. Also, I found some expired medicines and creams that I got rid of.
This all feels really good, I am so happy the kids are participating in this challenge with me.