Last October I had this idea. Things were starting to come in for the holidays, I knew we were going to be adding presents (3 birthdays and Christmas were coming up), my dad was bringing me stuff of my mom's every time he came to visit, etc... Thing were piling up and I found myself thinking, I just need to get rid of stuff! I knew I didn't have much time to devote to cleaning out rooms since the holidays were approaching. So I thought, "What if I just tried to get rid of any 100 items before the end of the year?".
And the goal was set. I didn't worry about cleaning out a particular space, or particular items, etc... just tried to get rid of 100 things. Any 100 things. I didn't set aside 1 time to do it all, I just got rid of stuff as I saw it, or had 2 minutes to look around, and so on.
I thought it would be hard. It wasn't. I kept a list on my phone because I knew I wouldn't be able to keep track of the current number in my head. I had 100 things out the door well before December 31. I allowed myself the freedom to count stuff I threw away (other than regular trash), gave away, or sold. I listed stamp sets on Etsy, but only counted what actually sold and left the house before the date.
So here's what I got rid of:
9 catalogs I decided I wasn't going to order from after all
4 towel sets (8 towels)
3 partial sheet sets (15 pieces)
6 jars of condiments from the fridge - stuff I bought for 1 new recipe but never used again
1 container of creamer I had been hanging onto but knew I didn't want to use
1 bag of ink cartridges (returned to Staples for store credit- I forgot to count how many were in there but it was a quart sized zipper bag)
6 stamp sets
2 bags of girls clothes (consignment sale)
random bits from a hall closet (21 booklets, office supplies, notes I decided I didn't need to keep anymore, etc...)
3 decorative pumpkins
2 decorative hay bales (put into garden for mulch)
and 5 toys I found on the floor after kids 'cleaned up' before bed time
That was 103+ items that were easier to get rid of than I thought.
So when January rolled around, I still had plenty to get rid of and was still in the habit of looking for things here and here to purge. I found myself wondering if I could do it again. I thought I'd likely be able to, even though the time frame was shorter. I really do feel like it's blessing my house to streamline things and purge the excess that gets in the way, creates clutter (visual or mental), etc... and it felt like streamlining that way would really fit into my word this year, thrive. So I decided to try.
I'm over half way there for January but I only have a couple of days. Here's what I've gotten rid of so far:
1 stamp set sold on Etsy
15 articles of kids clothing given to a friend
2 empty bubble containers taking up room in the kids closet (why do they do that?!)
2 paper tubes I was keeping for whatever fun kid thing - I decided they were easy to replace for free if I needed them down the road
2 number puzzles my kids grew out of (sold consignment sale)
5 pantry items I bought for recipes and never used up
8 spice bottles (combine duplicates, threw away, etc..)
10 pieces of fabric from my craft room (more on that in a different post)
4 pairs of slipper socks
1 scarf
In the midst of this month, I realized that when I get rid of 100 items in January, I could easily do it again. 100 items made an impact, but not as big as I thought it would. So again, my mind got working and I wondered if I could get rid of 100 things every month for the whole year. That would be 1,20o items in 2015!
And that's where I stand right now. I'm going to go for it. I can thrive by getting rid of stuff, but I will also thrive by not obsessing, or beating myself up if I don't make it, or feeling guilty if I just don't get to it. Anything I get rid of helps me thrive, even if it's not 1,200 items.
The thought has also occurred to me that I might not have that many things to get rid of. Guess what? Then I'll stop! And be extremely happy that I got rid of all the physical things that are debris in my life!
So I'll be back with a complete 100 items in January list soon, and hopefully each month with 100 more items.
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