When we lived in Seattle in the early 90′s, I became a big fan of the simplicity movement. I went to some simplicity circles and read a slew of books on the topic, and though I didn’t fully understand my motivation then, I do now. I ache to feel less overwhelmed.
This is what our garage looked like in our old, much larger house.
A couple of years ago I started to notice a trend among “lifehackers” – those people writing productivity websites – with getting down to 100, or sometimes 500 things (the latter folks were often counting individual forks and spoons). Last week I started a list of my own. I was mostly curious just to see what I’d put on it, having spent hours as a teenager writing lists like, “The Ten Best Tapes To Be Stranded With On A Desert Island”. Yes, I said tapes. You kids will just have to look that up.
The exercise is proving to be fun, as well as helpful to de-cluttering. I realized things I hadn’t before, like that I have 22 pairs of shoes. TWENTY TWO. How is that possible? I’m not a girly-girl, I don’t spend hours in Nordstrom squeeing over, you know, those girly-girl shoes. Lesson #1 of The List: squeeing over hiking boots and sandals in REI (a.k.a The Mothership) leads to much the same thing. Birkenstocks can beckon to a woman, too. I have three pairs of those, in case you’re wondering.
What I found really surprising was how much making the list helped me de-clutter my books. I only put books on the list that I’d be willing to box up and move with me to the next house, something I’ll inevitably have to do when we buy our own house again. The next house might even be smaller than this one, which means less space, fewer shelves, and fewer things; so what books would I really be willing to haul with me and give up valuable space for? It turns out not nearly as many as I thought. I’ve got 34 listed so far, which is maybe 1/6th (or less?) of my library. Thank goodness for my Kindle
I’ll post updates as I go along. I’m only up to 59 things so far, but when you break down the categories (Books, Clothes, Shoes, Plants, etc.) it ends up being closer to 200 things. I don’t know if I’ll keep things in categories or if I’ll whittle it down to a true one-to-one type of list. Everyone seems to be doing it their own way:
- How to Live With Just 100 Things (TIME magazine)
- 100 Thing Challenge (guynameddave.com)
- Minimalist Fun: The 100 Thing Challenge (zenhabits)
- mnmlist: 50 Thing Challenge (mnmlist.com)
In the same vein, somewhere online there was a movement to get rid of (throw away, recycle, donate) X number of things per day for a year, as well as getting rid of one thing for every new thing you brought into the house.
Counting pack of dried-out markers as “eight” things didn’t count, etc.
I’m not sure how it would work in a household where everyone wasn’t on board, but it’s something I keep tossing (hah!) around the idea of doing.
(So if you dropped off 20 books at the library, that’d be 4 days of your “five things a day” or whatever – people were keeping spreadsheets because obviously on any given day you won’t just do five things – you might clean out a box from the basement and get rid of 25 things at once, but then do nothing the next day.)
I was pathologically unable to get rid of books – so we’re consolidating them into one “library” room where they’ll be organized and neater, instead of having bookshelves in every room of the house. But there’s a LOT more stuff that needs to get OUT of my house.
I’m not sure I could do the 100 or 500 things, but I do think I can make a concentrated effort to have FEWER things.
That’s a good idea, too!
We have tons (yes, I’m sure of it: tons) of books. For many of the rooms of our (large) house, the wall ‘o’ books *is* the wall decor. Large cracks have developed in the plaster on a wall, directly below a particularly dense wall of books. While these books give Mike a lot of comfort, I think I’m just getting tired of them all. I recently culled 40% of our cookbooks, and it was nice to see the average cookbook quality go up dramatically. I want to do the same with our general books.
Rod’s books are out of control, too. They are two levels deep. He is a voracious reader, and *never* uses the library. At least he culls his every couple years or so.
Oh Ivana, I need to cull my cookbook collection BADLY. Want to come over?
Our wall decor for years has been the bookshelves, so I completely relate. It’s great when they’re tidy, but in my house I do find it overwhelming when they get cluttered, which I struggle not to let happen (okay, I think about struggling, but, meh).
Ever since I read your post I’ve been wondering if I could get down to a 100 items. Or even 250.
I’ve started making a list of things I want to own and things I need to own, so that when I start going through my storage pods I can easily get rid of the things not on either list.
Sonja – Yeah, it’s really useful for just seeing a lot of things without having to go look at them. It’s easier for me to notice that I’m not using a certain outfit, for example, when I see it on the list and realize that it’s not in the “wear often” category. It’s down in the “can’t remember the last time I put it on” category. I find I can go pick that outfit up and move it to a box with a lot less emotion than I do when I’m standing there holding it in my hand thinking about all the times I COULD wear it.
I’m just trying to get less stuff right now.
I don’t think I’ll be to a counting point for a long time.
Clothes? Piles of them, with nothing to wear in the morning.
Books? We cull, but we always get more. At least going through Master Gardener training again, I’m getting my books more organized…
Kitchen stuff? Oh way too much. How many mugs do two people need, after all? But gadgets! Shiny!
Oh well, it’s a process. And ongoing, never ending process.
Well even in the process of de-cluttering, I’m finding that the listmaking helps me sort things out better than when I try to, say, pull everything out of the closet and look at it. You might try making a list if you feel like you have a particular pile of stuff, or category of things, that you want to declutter but aren’t sure how to get started.