Simplify Your Space to Simplify Your Life
The simplification of life is one of the steps to inner peace. This quote makes me think of the beauty behind a minimalist design. The zen feeling of a streamlined living space. I'm not a big fan of clutter and I bet most of you feel the same way. A place for everything and everything in its place is a nice theory but if you share your living quarters with a roommate, a partner, family or the like, it may be easier said then done. And no doubt, you've accumulated things along the way. The hula dancing bobble head collection from Aunt Maggie's trip to Hawaii. Tubes of acrylic paint from last year's attempt at finding a hobby. Boxes of clothes that you once wore that you may wear again but don't quite fit in the meantime. In other words, stuff. .
Well, we decided to try a challenge inspired by one we found while surfing Pinterest for bookcase inspiration. The Pinterest challenge went like this: Each day for 30 days you get rid of items from your home and either sell/donate/discard them. One the first day, two things the second day, etc. At the end of 30 days, you're magically 465 'things' lighter. Well we don't have nearly that many things to downsize (I don't think?), but I liked the idea behind it of taking a conscious look at what objects surround us everyday. Oh and because one of us misread Trisha's blog post at 1 o'clock in the morning, {ahem, me} we were removing up to 30 things each day.
It became a game between my husband and I. And it gave us a good nudge to go through the things we didn't usually go through. Like sorting our closets and pulling out 'retired' but not yet 'donated' clothes. Or weeding through our stashes of paperwork and mementos that we no longer wanted or needed. And of course, raiding the medicine cabinet and food pantry for expired items- because a point is a point. .
We've been at this for a little over a week with good results. Though we are coming to the point were we're starting to scratch our heads looking for unwanted excess. Which is a good sign I suppose. The best part about this challenge was that it only took 20 minutes a day. We didn't have to sacrifice a whole weekend to decluttering a walk-in closet or the garden shed. That and the friendly competition of the point system made it kind of, well, fun.
How do you declutter your space? Will you try this downsizing challenge? If you put your own twist on it, I'd love to hear about it! Share your thoughts in the comments below.