Last week Mr Deplume shared a blog post he had found about a guy who had vowed to live with only 100 personal possessions for one year. It surprised me because that I had no idea Mr Deplume had ever really entertained the idea of living with dramatically fewer belongings. I thought that only people who live with too much crap day in and day out daydreamed about living a minimalistic life. Of course, even though he's not a packrat, he lives with three of us who are, so maybe that's where these dreams came from. Who knows. Maybe he'll offer some explanation of his motivations in the comments section when he reads this. (hint, hint)
Anyway, this Guy Named Dave decided in 2008 that to help break himself from the nasty habit of consumerism, he would spend some time figuring out which 100 personal things he needs, then spend a year living with only those things. He completed that project, and has revised it for 2010, and I'm hopping on board. His idea is to allow us the readers to come up with our own challenges, to help decrease our Consumerist tendencies. As much as his plan speaks to me, there's just no way I can do it at the moment, even though I buy relatively little anymore. There's just too much stuff in the way at Château Deplume. So I've concocted my own 100-ish Thing Challenge, after which I hope to have made enough headway to try out Dave's. His goal was not to declutter, but mine is.
So for the next 100 days (give or take-- 14 weeks is actually 98 days), I will get rid of 100 things per week.
If I buy anything non-consumable, I will get rid of extra items to make a net reduction of 100 things.
Throwing away trash doesn't count-- that's just regular housecleaning.
Since generosity is a virtue I'm short on and my goal here is to declutter, I would like to help myself and others who have less all at once. Selling off items will not count in the weekly 100s. I will focus my energy on donations and gifts.
I started on Sunday the 21st, and so far have only 19 items in this week's donation box. But I have a basement, a partial attic, and three closets full of stuff I don't really need, so I really doubt that there will be much of a problem coming up with 1400 things I've committed to unload.
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That's awesome. I'm pondering joining you.
ReplyDeleteIt interests me because it is important to you. You talk about topics such as this on a fairly regular basis so I am on the look out for articles that may interest you. Trying to de-clutter would be a big help to our home, so I am a fan of that idea. Also, I am not a fan of stuff for the sake of stuff...used to be, but not anymore. Who cares what the Joneses have, let 'em have the mess and the debt.
ReplyDeleteWhen I saw this particular topic I liked the flexibility of the plan to create your own 100 things and I thought you would like it and run with it.
That's thought-provoking. I think about this a lot myself: look at all the ways we are taught to be consumers instead of citizens. Santa's naughty-or-nice list. Buy X to reward yourself. It's like having a crush on each new thing that fades as soon as you have it in hand.
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