My Adventures in Extreme Spring Cleaning: The 100 Thing(s) Challenge

The other day I ran across a blog called The 100 Thing Challenge. Basically, this guy decided to limit his personal belongings to 100 things. The entire idea feels like a more analytical person’s version of minimalism.

I found this concept very appealing. Those of you who know me are probably laughing right now. I’m essentially the opposite of a minimalist. I’m an acquirer. I have a new hobby every day and the first thing I do for each is go buy all the stuff needed to learn the hobby. Then my urgency dies down and all the stuff goes into the pile of things I’ll use “someday” when I get around to learning that hobby.

Even the activities that I do regularly engage in – like writing – are practiced among a drastic disproportion between the tools possessed and the task at hand. I had boxes full of empty or partially filled notebooks, paper, and binders. I do like to write longhand and I’m a little obsessed with starting a fresh notebook for a new project, but boxes? Really? Surely any rational person would need no more than five notebooks.

I decided to try the challenge and started to make a list of the 100 things I would keep. MacBook, car, Bible, one notebook, my favorite pen, my phone, my iPod, espresso machine, toothbrush, etc. Then I realized that I should probably start by getting rid of everything that I knew wasn’t going to make the list. Hopefully I’d narrow down the options to a couple (or six) hundred. Then I’d make another cut and end up at my list naturally rather than writing it out ahead of time. So I walked into my bathroom and started cleaning out the cabinets. Moisturizer I bought in 2005 and never used? Trash. Really ugly blue eyeshadow that I wore once before realizing my mistake? Trash.

Every item was subject to three tests:

1. Have I used this in the last six months?
2. If this is one of many items, is this the one that I can’t live without?
3. Am I realistically going to use this product regularly over the next six months?

It only takes one no before something gets thrown out.

After the bathroom was finished, I moved on to the living room and storage areas. Up to this point, I’d been throwing things away but I was moving beyond half-used makeup and extra nail files now so I started “donate” and “lend” piles. IPod speakers that I never use? Donate. Beautiful guitar that I never learned to play? Lend. Boxes of half used notebooks? Trash (or recycle!). Three hours later I had 17 big black trash bags lined neatly against one wall, a large pile full of things to donate, and a couple of items to lend out to friends. Now came the heavy lifting. I took out the trash (ahem, possibly utilizing some extra space from some dumpsters behind apartments along my street…). I loaded up the car and made a run through the Goodwill drive thru donation center (possibly the most efficient method of donation ever invented – way to go Goodwill!). I’m still working on getting all the “lend” items delivered to the appropriate people who will make good use of them.

So far I’ve noticed four big changes in my life that directly relate back to reducing the number of things I own.

1. I have physical space again. I know where my things are and I can access them easily to use them. My books are not packed into the closet; they’re on my bookshelf. My bike isn’t sitting in the living room; it’s flipped on its back wheel and stored neatly in my front closet between rides. The percentage of my total space that is used for living versus storage of stuff has significantly increased.
2. I have more mental space. The most surprising result has been how much more mental space I have. By lending my guitar to a friend, I admitted to myself that I was never going to learn to play the guitar in the foreseeable future. I took it off my mental list of things I “should” be doing. With every physical object I disposed of, I also disposed of all of the unfulfilled tasks I should have done with that object, all the cleaning / moving / storage requirements associated with that object, etc. My mental list narrowed to the tasks associated with the things I kept – ride my bike, write, go for a run, read a book, take my dog for a walk, etc.
3. I spend less time deciding which activity to do or which tools to use, and more time doing the things I love the most. When I need a notebook, I pull out my one notebook. I don’t sit down and look through my options to decide which notebook will be perfect for this particular story or idea, I just put everything in the one. So I spend more time writing and less time deciding on what to write in. When I have an hour free, I don’t think through the twelve activities on my “to do someday” list and waste half my time deciding. Instead, I look from my computer to my books to my tennis shoes and pick one quickly and go with it. I’ve been much more productive when I have free time at home.
4. I buy fewer things and what I do buy is of higher quality. Before I buy something, I think of what else I’m going to throw out, donate, or lend in order to make room for it in my life. A shocking number of items I would have purchased before haven’t been making the cut. When I do buy new things, I tend to pick items that are more versatile and will last longer.

My bedroom is next on the list. I’m already psyching myself up to face the wardrobe reduction. That one might draw some blood.

Anyone had a similar experience when whittling down their belongings? Any words of wisdom on how to use a versatile object to replace several specific ones?

Advertisement

---