I DID IT !!!!!
I don't know if anyone can even remember but almost a month ago I posted about a new purging challenge I decided to do.
(My post: A New Decluttering Challenge)
The challenge is called: http://www.theminimalists.com/game/
In that post I told about the first two weeks..... then I planned on posting the final results Friday, July 31st. Well, it's been lollygagging in my drafts bin since then. So I decided to finally crank it out today.
Week 3
Week 4
Week 5
I got rid of the challenged 496 things-
plus 7 extra items!!!!!
AND.... get this.
I actually finished in 3 weeks because we were leaving on vacation July 22nd. I was worried I would lose momentum if I waited to finish after. (And I guess I did!- speedy gonzalez on posting! :/ )
Since I knew exact future numbers, as I was going through stuff and I would find lots of one type of thing, I would count them up and save them for that date; like the cat toys. Ha! And no worries! My cats still have about a dozen toys to play with!
And early on I set aside 14 paper clips to use 'just in case'. Well, it was the night before vacation and I was finding things for the last date I needed (the 27th) and it was time to start supper so....paper clips to the rescue!!!!
One big thing I learned doing this is that I was overlooking some of my clutter because it easily fit in somewhere. It was really eye-opening to see how much clutter was lurking all over.
AND.
Believe me or believe me not.
It was easy!
It never took more than 10 minutes to find stuff for each day. Granted, I was always watching for stuff I could add to a future day so that helped a lot. Also, I would look at their instagram (link found on this page: http://www.theminimalists.com/minsgame/) for ideas. I do not feel bad about sometimes counting sets of things individually because other people were. In fact, some people count their garbage/recycling containers of used up items!
By the way, I didn't touch anything of my husband's or daughter's. FLY Lady says their stuff is none of my business- I can only take care of my own. I was also surprised how much of the stuff I found needed to go straight in the garbage. Way more than I had ever imagined. I also gave some stuff to my daughters and I'm donating the rest to the ReStore.
I was all gung-ho to start it again for August but I decided to wait until vacation season was over. But I will definitely be doing this again in the fall!
AND.... get this.
I actually finished in 3 weeks because we were leaving on vacation July 22nd. I was worried I would lose momentum if I waited to finish after. (And I guess I did!- speedy gonzalez on posting! :/ )
Since I knew exact future numbers, as I was going through stuff and I would find lots of one type of thing, I would count them up and save them for that date; like the cat toys. Ha! And no worries! My cats still have about a dozen toys to play with!
And early on I set aside 14 paper clips to use 'just in case'. Well, it was the night before vacation and I was finding things for the last date I needed (the 27th) and it was time to start supper so....paper clips to the rescue!!!!
One big thing I learned doing this is that I was overlooking some of my clutter because it easily fit in somewhere. It was really eye-opening to see how much clutter was lurking all over.
AND.
Believe me or believe me not.
It was easy!
It never took more than 10 minutes to find stuff for each day. Granted, I was always watching for stuff I could add to a future day so that helped a lot. Also, I would look at their instagram (link found on this page: http://www.theminimalists.com/minsgame/) for ideas. I do not feel bad about sometimes counting sets of things individually because other people were. In fact, some people count their garbage/recycling containers of used up items!
By the way, I didn't touch anything of my husband's or daughter's. FLY Lady says their stuff is none of my business- I can only take care of my own. I was also surprised how much of the stuff I found needed to go straight in the garbage. Way more than I had ever imagined. I also gave some stuff to my daughters and I'm donating the rest to the ReStore.
I was all gung-ho to start it again for August but I decided to wait until vacation season was over. But I will definitely be doing this again in the fall!