100 Things Challenge

A FB friend of mine is doing the 100 Things Challenge - as described on the Zen Habits website. In a nutshell, the challenge encourages you to reduce the clutter in your life down to just 100 things. (Excluding things shared with other family members, as well as books, tools, collections, and non-personal items like dishes, cleaning supplies etc.)

While I try to make a conscious effort to declutter my life a couple times a year, the concept of this challenge has really compelled me to try harder. Of course I can only speak for myself here, but if I'm honest about it, I have so much unnecessary crap in my life, it really couldn't hurt to make some hard cuts.

Now, I don't know if I could minimize myself down to just 100 things, but I definitely feel that I could rid myself of 100 items.  I have a ton of clothes n' shoes I never wear. My linen closet is exploding with waaaay too many towels.  I have a stack of board games that we never play. My library could probably use some purging (even though the challenge doesn't include books, I may rid myself of a few anyhow since my bookshelves overfloweth.) A couple years ago I inherited a huge box of beads and yet I never do any beading. I've got an insane amount of Christmas decorations, even though I've already gotten rid of a bunch this year.

Hmm... yeah... I think getting rid of 100 items or maybe even 150 or 200 is a very doable goal.

Actually, y'know what... I think my perspective might be skewed on just how much 100 items really is. It just occurred to me that when I moved out here, I only packed whatever I could fit in our lil' Topaz, and that was definitely less than 100 items combined! (CD collection excluded, naturally.) It was an incredibly liberating feeling to just leave all that other crap behind. Even my beloved Doc Martens, my super groovy lava lamp and my all-important spice rack... there just wasn't enough room.

Okay! That's it! If I could do it then, then I can do it now! Once this workload lightens up, I'm gonna try n' see how close I can get down to 100 personal items. I'll be sure to letcha know when the yard sale is. ;)

All right... break time is over... now back to work!