Yesterday we set aside today for cleaning up our house. That would not be so bad if by “cleaning up” we merely meant dusting and vacuuming and putting a few things away. But we had bigger aspirations. All in all, it went pretty well. I got our porch cleaned and new porch lights installed. I got the new dresser set up that my in-laws graciously bought for our older daughters. I got the cardboard that the dresser came in chopped up and put in the garage with the other piles of cardboard. And my wife and children did a lot of cleaning up, too.
It’s just that, in grand scheme of things, it does not seem like enough. We have a lot of stuff. And honestly, it is difficult to purge. What goes? That is a hard decision. But I have an idea. A spontaneous idea that might change my life forever. I’m calling it the 100 Thing Challenge. And I’m taking it. Here is how it goes.
I’m going to only keep 100 things. All the rest gets purged. Sold. Given away. Traded ;-) Some how, all the other things will no longer remain in my possession.
This seems like a good idea to me, but I want to be realistic and proceed with caution. So I’m taking it slow. First, I’m only going to take the 100 Thing Challenge for my own personal things. Stuff like my car, which is mostly mine but which my wife uses sometimes, does not count. And I’m not going to include clothes at this point, though I am considering that next. And anything that involves physical exercise gets a pass for now. A few things might count as one thing. For example I have a collection of Marklin toy trains. I’ll need time to consider if the collection counts as one or each item counts as one. For now, the whole collection is one thing. But that’s about it. Guitars, iPods, camera equipment, watches, trinkets of all kinds, and more. All those things count as personal possessions. And I’m going to finish my 100 Thing Challenge with only 100 of them. I’m giving myself till the end of August to have my 100 things and to have gotten rid of everything else.
We think this is a great idea but people need to go even further! Wonderful start though. We both do not drive a car or own one, no cell phones, no ipods. We've recently left our 1 bedroom apartment that was too much space for us and now live out of a suitcase with about 100 items for two of us to live on. Material possessions are a temporary fix to fill a void we are all missing in our lives. We do not need possessions to tell us who we are. Think for yourself. We've both found this cleansing process very liberating and we're not looking back.
Posted by: Rob + Annie | June 07, 2008 at 03:24 PM
If you have ever had the responsibility of cleaning out a parents home after death you will throw everything away and not put another loved one through that kind of torture. We are all pack rats to some extent. I actually have a junk drawer in my kitchen, one in my office and several in every bedroom. So this is going to be a humongous effort on my part to purge my home. But I'm going to do it. I need my load lightened.
Posted by: Uptomyneckinit | June 08, 2008 at 08:07 PM
I personally love this idea. I am constantly de-cluttering. But as an American family household, the influx exceeds the outgo - UNFORTUNATELY! I try to make myself feel better about all the stuff I have by saying I'm blessed.This is because I can't keep up. It is oppressive! And I am always donating things. But never seem to see the difference. I think I am too emotionally attached to some stuff. Like things my kids created. Then there are my books, my other weakness. Oh well,that's enough mea culpa from me. Good luck! I'll be checking in periodically. By the way, I read about you in Time Mag.
Posted by: maureenf | June 12, 2008 at 06:00 PM
I personally love this idea. I am constantly de-cluttering. But as an American family household, the influx exceeds the outgo - UNFORTUNATELY! I try to make myself feel better about all the stuff I have by saying I'm blessed.This is because I can't keep up. It is oppressive! And I am always donating things. But never seem to see the difference. I think I am too emotionally attached to some stuff. Like things my kids created. Then there are my books, my other weakness. Oh well,that's enough mea culpa from me. Good luck! I'll be checking in periodically. By the way, I read about you in Time Mag.
Posted by: maureenf | June 12, 2008 at 06:07 PM
Oh.My.Word.I just read about this I think in Newsweek or Time - or maybe a Chicago newspaper. Anyway ... I'm thinking about getting down to 100 things, and I realize that I have probably 80 pieces of jewelry, and I don't even wear jewelry. And 20 pairs of shoes. What about books??? At least 500. 8 pairs of jeans. 45 different gardening tools/pieces of equipment. What about the toolbox? At least 25 things there. And I'm really pretty middle class. Has anyone really, actually done this???
Posted by: granna | June 13, 2008 at 02:45 PM
BTW: Love your quotes. I've gotta start reading Wendell Berry. I really want to simplify, pare down, etc. I like the idea mentioned here earlier, if I buy something, I have to get rid of something - except, I probably should make it 2 for 1, that would help me to de-clutter. For me, for now, a good assignment for the week-end is to make a list of what I actually have, room-by-room. It's probably pretty sickening. I'll have to get down off of my high horse about people living in McMansions. It's all relative, eh?
Posted by: granna | June 13, 2008 at 02:57 PM
I love that idea! I did something similar last year with my book collection. I culled down to 15 ft of bookshelf space. I gave myself that goal planning to keep only those books that were super, super special or were really important, hard to find, hard to duplicate and hard to replace reference books. Easy, I thought. But it was brutal! I've still got the scars to prove it! And 12 mos later I'm back up to about 40 ft of shelf space used by "really important" books. It's an ongoing battle...
Posted by: CKO | July 07, 2008 at 07:50 PM
I've done something like this before. Here's how: Get away from your house with a pen and paper. Go somewhere peaceful and serene like a nice park. Think of each room in your house (one at a time) and imagine that it's completely empty.
Next, think of what you want to put in each room. Start with furniture, then useful things, then a couple of decorative things, and end with storage things. Write it all down.
When you get back home, you'll notice a lot of stuff that you completely forgot about. This is the stuff that you need to think twice about keeping!
Posted by: mmmda | July 23, 2008 at 06:33 PM