On my September Facebook Live, I teased about doing a new minimalism challenge for the month of November. (Also, the photo for this month’s blog is stock but it seems very minimalism-eque.) The idea of living with less is so attractive to me. I feel the most at ease when things are neat, tidy, and in order but there’s only so much of that in my life with two kids under 5 and being deep in a home remodel. If you were reading my blog last fall, you know that I did a challenge called Project 333. It’s where you choose only 33 items of clothing to wear (outside of undergarments and workout clothes) for the duration of 3 months. Read more about that here, here and here. It was a true success in that it changed how I relate to clothing. I’m a bit more thoughtful in purchasing clothes these days compared to my previous shopping habits. Is this a versatile piece of clothing? Does it go with other things that I already own? Is it made with quality or will I need to replace it again in a few months? Etc.
Although I have reigned in my shopping habits, I still have a lot of extra stuff in my house overall. This is a theme in American culture with storage units being a big booming business in the country. Since my family moved into our home last year, we have been busy remodeling and updating it. My husband and I are going at it with “a floor at a time” mentality and are completely renovating the upstairs of our home as we reside in the walkout basement. As of right now we are only 40% unpacked and have a lot of our belongings in various boxes stored in our garage and unused closets. There are some things that I would love to have unpacked but other things that I’ve completely forgotten about.
My friend Melannie, that did the Project 333 challenge with me, presented the following game for us to do in the month of November. Since we shared our experience on the blog last time, we thought it’d be fun to do it this year as well. It’s called The Minimalism Game but I’m open to a clever new title. 😜 To play, you get rid of the number of items according to what day of the month it is. On the first day, you must get one item out of your home that you are no longer using, on the second day two items, on the third day three items and so forth. It can be anything: clothing, toys, electronics, furniture, tools etc. You can donate, sell or trash them items but whatever you are getting rid of it must be out of your house by midnight that evening. 😂
This may sound easy at first but by November 17th, I’m sure I’ll be scratching my head trying to get rid of 17 things. Whoever keeps it going the longest wins. I’d love for you guys to play along with us. We’ll be posting updates and photos of the items that we are planning to get rid of each week. The following week, we will post a brief update of how the last week went and items that we are planning to get rid of for the coming week. I think this will be fun, challenging and a great way to rid my house of stuff that I’m not using.
I want to hear from you. Do any of you guys have extra stuff in your house? I’d love for you to play along with us. Even if you only last a week and “lose” you’re a winner because there’ll be less junk in your house! Comment below and let us know if you’ll be joining the game.