Thursday, February 28, 2019

The Minimalist Game Conquered

This year the KonMari buzz has overtaken the internet.  You cannot go onto any social media platform without a plethora of posts or videos showing people either joyfully or with much stress and moaning and groaning piling heaps upon heaps of stuff onto their beds.  While I knew I needed to do a good declutter, and why not in January when it was cold out and I was hibernating inside the house anyways, the thought of unloading whole closet and cupboard fulls at a time was just too much for me.  I work from home in child care and pretty much use most of the space in my house on a daily basis so that principle was just a no go for me.  And unless I take a vacation to declutter who on earth has hour upon hour all in a row to devote to such a thing?  So in pondering how I would like to approach the task of mindful and intentional decluttering, I came across a little thing called "The Minimalist Game".



The basic premise was to take 30 days to declutter a whack load of stuff.  On day 1 you get rid of one item.  On day 2:  two items, on day 3:  three items and so on and so forth until day 30 when you've worked yourself up to 30 items that day.  You get the picture.



Now this sounded a whole lot more doable.  It did not require me to unload whole rooms into a pile that would take hours upon hours to go through.  I could take a few moments here and there in the particular room I was in and remove items, still under the idea of "non-usefulness" and "no joy", and let me work at it until I had the required amount for that "day" slot.  If that particular number took me three days then so be it.


NO PRESSURE AND NO STRESS!  As soon as I had the required number a pic was taken and when I had a box or bag full off they went to either donate or trash or recycling.


Can we just pause a moment in this post and ask ourselves why on earth any individual needs to have 24 pairs of 3D glasses in their cupboard?  I have no answer.


I was amazed at how motivating this was.  I started to look forward to what else I could get rid of.  I would scan rooms and areas as I passed through them.  It was very liberating.


Now on that note may I say that I did not touch any of my husband's stuff.  This is important.  You cannot force another person into your decluttering head space.  In fact, in that pile of blu-rays and dvds any that were his I got his permission.  Andwhen I asked if he was sure a few days later, he took another look and took a couple of them back.  Which is totally ok.

And now aren't you amazed that as you scrolled through this post that in about the 6 weeks that it took me to do this I got 465+ items out of my home.  Let's just think about that.  Four Hundred and Sixty Five pieces of stuff that was sitting around my house.  Shocking, isn't it?  I know I was stunned.  I thought it would be hard.  Amazing how something as simple as this can have such a great effect.  Now I'm motivated to go beyond the surface stuff and go a little deeper into the backs of closets, cupboards, drawers and bins.  The things that might require a bit of a tougher decision.

Have you been KonMari-ing?   Or have you been KonMari-ed?



4 comments:

nikkipolani said...

WOW.
Just wow. I’m so impressed with what you’ve accomplished—and photographed too!!!
I did the konmari...was it last year? 2 years ago? I’ve lost track. And like you, the thought of trying to find blocks of time to do whole categories of things derailed me. I’m going with a tidying goal of one area per week, of any size. In the process, of course, many many things were given away or tossed. I haven’t kept count, but having the space back is enough to enjoy and keep me motivated for each week’s area. And I mentioned last week that I joined a Buy Nothing Group in my neighborhood. It means good stuff goes to people who want them and can come pick them off my porch!

Karen said...

I've never heard of this idea of the Minimalist Game, but I'd love to try it. I read a little bit of the KonMari book when it came out, but like you I couldn't imagine piling all that stuff in the middle of the room. I need to do something more manageable. I like that you took pictures. Great job!

Wendy said...

Ha love the video! I'm like you - can't imagine gathering all my books together in one place and sorting them but going through them as I go along - that's doable. It's a work in progress in my house too.

ellen b. said...

Wow! Well done Susanne! I might just have to put this game into practice soon. I think I have a head start with 20 pairs of old nylons LOL!