Want Less Stuff in Your Life?
It’s simple: Keep only 100 things, not including anything in your shared household, anything you might want to use later, anything with personal history, or any books. Then get rid of crap you’re not using, like a yoga mat, and some extraneous clothes and the pewter LotR figurines. Voila!
Zabaduba describes in detail this guy’s self-parodying “purge.”
So, Dave was so disgusted by his cluttered lifestyle that he’s rebelling by living in a fully furnished house (with piano!), with a completely stocked kitchen and loaded bookshelves, while keeping all the personal items he doesn’t use everyday in a box for a year. Wow. Inspiring.
Judging by the comments, there are too many people who still think that good intentions and high-flown ideals are what count. Why do you have to bother to set up a Game with a Namegoal like 100 Thing Challenge … and then make a mockery of it right from the get-go by taking more than 100 things out of the running for elimination? Why can’t you just get rid of crap you’re not using, like the average rest of us?
Oh yeah … that wouldn’t gain you the admiration of a slice of the masses. But dude, as long as you’re sacrificing, I’ll be happy to take those LotR pewters off your hands.
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Sorry, they’re already gone :-)
Comment by Dave Bruno — August 5, 2008 @ 7:22 pm
Heh.
Comment by Anwyn — August 5, 2008 @ 7:40 pm
Hey! I haven’t been visiting in a while (or doing much else) and I see you’ve been very, very busy. I look forward to catching up (but I never should have visited Smitten Kitchen. Too much good-looking food and a big grill I don’t have room for either.)
I have a friend who prevents clutter by getting rid of one thing before she brings another thing into the house. I like that in theory but can’t seem to apply it.
One thing that makes it easier to declutter is being forced to empty a dead relative’s house (where they’ve lived for over 90 years — yes, she was born in that house) and to help my parents’ downsize. After a while all the stuff is just — stuff.
But if that’s the case, why is how much I have determined not by what I need, but by how much storage space I have?
The 100 things would be a real challenge if they included the stuff on the exclusions list.
I thought everybody lived on chicken. Put enough glop on it, and it tastes like… chicken.
Comment by lifepundit — August 11, 2008 @ 6:52 pm