a month later

Thirty-one days ago I began a journey of removing what I referred to as distractions from my life. In the beginning I had a very clear picture in my head of what was ahead of me and I was relatively confident that it would be easy. After all, getting rid of unused stuff is easy, right? 

Everyday we fill up garbage cans all around us with our unused stuff, stuff that we often refer to as trash. But what about those things that have a use or a purpose, maybe not at the moment and maybe not even to ourselves. Do we consider that trash as well, I didn't and I believe most people don't. That's when our lives start becoming cramped with things all around us. Our closets, drawers, garages, attics and even storage units swell with things that you might wear or could use someday and we justify holding onto it with these rationales.

Despite what the initial goal might have been, this past month wasn't just about decluttering, it was about understanding why we bring items into our life and keep them there. It's about impulse consumerism and the act of saying "no".

Many decluttering experts suggest a method of decluttering with the 'keep, store, trash' method. Where you keep the items you know you want, store the items that are a maybe for a couple months to see if you ever need them, and trash what you know you don't want. As I went through the month I realized that I was in a sense doing this same thing except I referred to it as the revisit or second pass method.

Every new area in my house that I visited this past month I seemed to make a quick pass through and could easily remove a good amount of items. I then moved onto a new area continuing the same process, but as the month wore on, I was running out of items. I started revisiting previous areas and making a second pass through. I was astonished at how much I was able to remove a second time through. Some of the items I actually held in my hands and I reflected on it, asking myself questions like: 

    Why did I buy this?
    When was the last time I used it?
    What has prevented me from getting rid of it previously?

With that last question typically the linchpin that determines the items destination. On the first pass, answers like 'it was a gift from someone', or 'it was really expensive' would automatically make me put it back. However, on the second pass you tend delve into whether those answers are really significant in any way.

I realized that some of these gifts or expensive items that have been sitting around for years, untouched, had created a sort of guilt. A guilt then cements itself around the item, making it even more difficult to let go of it, ultimately creating a vicious cycle that feeds into itself. I had many things fall into that cycle and on the second pass I was able to break it, allowing a sense of relief as I knew I could let it go.

Just like anything, the more you practice or work at it the easier it gets. In dealing with minimalism, it holds true just as well. I started getting better at making decluttering decisions throughout the month. As a result, I'm starting to look at purchases with a more critical mind. 

I'm not sure if I will do a full month of the minimalism game again. Rather I will treat it like schooling in which I learned a lot and I can now apply these lessons to my daily life. In fact, my wife and I sat down on day one of this month and sorted through a whole bunch more stuff, stuff that actually made it through my second pass.

There were a lot of tough decisions that I faced throughout the month and I feel like I overcame them with a positive outcome. I'm proud of myself for what I was able to accomplish, this was a rather big undertaking to get everything together, photograph it, post to Instagram, and blog about it daily for thirty-one days. 

Would I call myself a minimalist? I'm not sure, I know that I am starting to think minimalist, but I still have stuff spread across flat surfaces in my house, things on my walls and children's toys to step over. However, I know I am 498 items closer.

august 31

Day thirty-one, I made it. A total of 498 items I have posted over the course of the month, and I didn't think that I would get anywhere close to it by mid month. I have to admit that a bulk of today's items are actually my wife's stuff. I will take partial credit for it since we sat down the other weekend and together we went through a bunch of boxes of stuff to get rid of. I probably could have gathered some more items of my own and as I sit here now typing this, I'm thinking of another five things I could have added. 

But for now, it is the end of the month and I have achieved my goal. I have decluttered an unimaginable amount of things and learned a lot along the way. I will be putting together a final thoughts post in the next day or two, but in the meantime I think I will enjoy the new space that I have created.

august 30

A quick trip back into my garage and getting thirty items together was easy. I'm not sure how I missed all this the first time around, but it was a combination of, I probably think I'll need this and stuff hiding in boxes. The wall plates made up the latter, and they made up for a good portion of the items today. These are all wall plates that have been replaced and serve no purpose in my home anymore, but for what ever reason I placed them in a box on my work bench. 

The vacuum is an old back up and the radio we have replaced with a Bluetooth speaker. The other items were laying around my work bench area and I see no use for any of them.

bonus items

I didn't want to use these items as part of my daily decluttering so I figured I would add them in as a bonus item post. It's not that they shouldn't count (I am adding them into my counter at the top) rather it was a spontaneous decision to sell them and it resulted in only two items not being replaced.

After a rather quick conversation my wife and I decided that our dining room set was much to nice to allow our children to destroy so we decided to sell it while it still had value and buy something used that we won't worry too much about. Essentially we did declutter in a sense since the new dining set did not come with a buffet table, and the dining room, which felt too cramped before, feels a lot more open now without it.

I also parted ways with my first flat panel television that I've had for nearly ten years. Barely used over the past year, it sat in the downstairs living room relatively untouched. Currently, we are cleaning up that room to make space for a guest that will be staying with us for a while, so it was as good a time as any to let it go.

august 29

This is about as random as it gets, I was really searching to get my number today. The biggest item today is my snowboard and boots. I've had this board since I first started and it is too small for me now. I haven't really gone snowboarding all that much in recent years and it seems worth the price to rent newer and safer equipment anyway. 

I've also thrown in some old curtain rods, TV wall mounts, a tree stand and some Eagles game day towels. The rest is just some random items I set aside daily as I look for things. There is still two more days left and I really don't know if I can come up with another sixty-one items now that my backlog is completely used up.

august 28

We're getting into the random odds and ends now. I basically walk around my house looking at areas that I might have overlooked. There's nothing really special here just some household decorations, a random cassette tape that has who know what on it and of course some more string bags.

august 27

The second run through my closet and drawers came up with a lot more than I thought it would. It actually yielded more items than the first time through. There's also a few coats as well as some items from the hats and gloves drawer in the main closet.

august 26

Apparently my closet is very comparable to a junk drawer; there is just about anything you can think of in there. There are old football jerseys, hats, bags and towels. What surprised me the most were the snowboard equipment stashed away in there. Two pairs of goggles that don't fit, a multi tool and a wax stick all for something that I have done once in the last five years. I also found a twenty year old electric razor, a couple bags, some miscellaneous audio converter cables and two little drum statues. All of this stuff is pretty much just junk taking up space in an already small closet. 

august 25

Many years ago I worked in clothing retail, and as anyone that has ever worked in clothing retail could tell you, your personal wardrobe grows exponentially as a result. There was once a time when I could go an entire month without having to do laundry and still wear clean clothes every day. That was a short lived period as I found out that the UFO pants, Kikwear jeans as well as the other brightly colored, reflective strip edged shirts and pants really didn't have much staying power in the world of fashion. 

Since those days of my unfashionable foolish youth, I have been relatively modest with the number and types of clothes I buy, primarily because it made selecting what to wear a lot easier. Also, a few years ago I stumbled upon a website called Project 333, which gave me even more inspiration to pare down what I had. On her site, Courtney Carver, goes through all the benefits of only using thirty-three items of clothing per a three month period. While I didn't completely reduce my drawers to thirty-three items I did however keep the rotation of what I wore to a minimal level. In fact over the last year or so, it is often a point of hilarity that I am always wearing a plaid button down for just about any occasion. So often that, other people will purposely not wear similar items so as to not match. 

Despite the repetitiveness of my wardrobe I still seemed to have an abundance of unworn items. T-shirts and race shirts are the biggest culprit of mass accumulation. Much like the string bags I discussed the other day, every race gives you another shirt to take home. Some of them are nice and I use them for workout clothes but every swag bag shirt seems to fit just a little bit differently and the awkward fitting ones tend to get pushed to the back of the drawer never to be worn.

I was hoping the clothes would get me through a few days but this is the bulk of it here. I'll make another pass through the closet and drawers and I might come up with a few more things but it's hard to whittle down when there is very little to start with. I will take this as a good thing though, for I won't have to face the embarrassment of pulling a pair of jeans with forty-two inch wide bottoms out of my drawer to post a picture on here for everyone.

august 24

I will admit that some days it is harder to gather stuff together than others. There are the obvious ones here today, like the remaining dish towels I forewarned you about, the rest of the DVDs that were for my son and a few books. The rest, however, I had to revisit previous decluttering sites and take a second look at what was really there. 

It would seem initially that I am doing nothing more than simply grabbing things in an effort to attain my item count for the day. However, I think it is more about understanding ones relationship with their things. At a brief glance you make snap judgments of what is valuable to you but when you actually reflect on the item you often can come to a different understanding of it. I really thought that I wanted to hold on to the Trivial Pursuit game when I first came across it a week ago. But as I held it in my hand I realized that I've owned this game for over a decade yet I could only recall a handful of times I've ever played it. 

The card game and the puzzle I simply overlooked the first go around, not sure why since I actually had two of each of them. The Blu-ray movies are movies that I watched once and have no interested in ever watching again so they were relatively easy to part with. As a result of the movies that are now gone, the white media box that was holding them can go as well.

august 23

Over the weekend my wife got the decluttering bug along with me and we went crazy. This selection is mostly a hodgepodge of some of what we went through. I'm trying not to cheat and stick to mostly my own stuff that I'm getting rid of for this journey, and a lot of the things we went through were mostly hers. However, some of this stuff fell in a grey area and I figured I would take advantage of it. 

The bulk of today is made up of string bags. Every 5k, triathlon, marathon, or charity walk seems to give you a string bag nowadays. I seriously had no idea of what our intentions were in keeping this many when the only time I use them is typically at another race event where I get a new one anyway.

The rest of the stuff is just unused items. The tables were up in the attic, the suitcases are way too big to be used on any airline and the wheels are breaking anyway. The remainder are candles, books, and a basket that were stashed away unused. 

august 22

A few various types of media here. First we have the last of my CDs that were stashed away. I really don't think that I have anymore laying around but I haven't even started in my bedroom yet so I wouldn't rule that out quite yet. Next, are some DVDs that I found in a box that I held onto for my son. I showed him the box to see if there were any that he still wanted and after a brief glance he gave me a quick "nah". Finally, I have a two VHS tapes, and I have to add, yes, I do still own a VHS player. However, I'm holding onto the player because I have a handful of home recordings that I want to convert to digital format, not for actually watching movies. These two tapes are old and I haven't watched them in probably close to fifteen years.

august 21

I finally uncovered the box of CDs that I really wanted to hold on to. I have digital versions of all of these so there is really no need to hold on to the physical copy, aside from my car and PC I do not think that I even own a CD player that works properly.

august 20

I believe this is just about the last of the kitchen items. Again, most of these are duplicates, extras and a bunch of stuff that I have no need for. When adding the last few items to this, I realized that I do not get rid of dish towels. I must have nearly twenty dish towels underneath my sink, yet I only ever use the same rotation of five. So there is a good chance that some more towels might make an appearance before the month is out.

Also, I have quickly eclipsed the two hundred item mark. If you had asked me in the beginning if I had over two hundred items to get rid of, I would never have thought of getting close to that. Yet, I'm not even half way to the end of this.

august 19

I'm still working in the box of kitchen stuff and it's astounding as to how much was actually in there. This is all mostly extras, duplicates and unused unitaskers. My favorite part of this lot are the two plastic lids in the upper right, they are for refrigerating and storing canned cat food. The funny part about it is that I haven't had a cat in about four or five years, furthermore, when I did have a cat, I never fed it canned food. I have no idea why I purchased these or why I've held onto them for so long. Yes, they could be used for cans other than cat food, however that is what my bottomless drawer of plastic storage containers are for.

august 18

The kitchen, the place of endless gadgets and utensils. It was easy to gather up eighteen items from the kitchen today, although I must confess that I did cheat a bit. You see, it's been a year since we moved and a majority of this stuff was still in a box. It has sat untouched for over a year, and we have cooked many meals without any of it. My previous kitchen had an abundance of space and it was easy to continually stash stuff out of sight as it came into our house. Now we have about half of the space so we only really have room for what we actively use. At least half of these are extras or duplicates of actively used items and the others are just things that we never use.

august 17

As I've been doing this day to day I have been attempting to keep somewhat of a consistent theme for each day. This allows me to focus on the reasons behind removing these items from my life and why they were there in the first place. Today, however, is not one of those days. Today is just a bunch of leftovers from previous days. All that is here is the last remaining bit of my comic book collection, some miscellaneous CDs that were in the included CD case and a handful of random cables. 

august 16

More comics today. I think that when I started buying these, there was an intention that they would be worth money someday, perhaps that is why I held onto them (as well as the trading cards) for so long. After a quick couple searches on eBay, it turns out that they really didn't hold much value at all.

august 15

Another one of my failed startup hobbies; comic books. I really only got into Superman because that was what was popular at the time. The whole hobby lasted for about a year or two before just fading away, yet I've kept them in mint condition in a shoe box for all these years.

august 14

More of the same. Some old PC video games and a few random CDs that I found mixed in with them.

On a side note, I've finally got to the over 100 items removed point. I have a feeling things are about to get really tough.

august 13

Video games are much like books for me, I have the intention of revisiting them again but I never do. Instead, I just hold onto them, and if anyone reading this knows anything about classic PC games, you know I've held onto these for an unnecessary long time. Most of these are from the 90's and I've been the sole owner of almost all of them since that time. 

I'm willing to let these go, but I just can't bring myself to trash them for whatever reason, that's probably the reason I've held onto them for this long. However, I'm sure there is someone in the eBay world that would be interested in these.

august 12

Many years ago (like twenty-five years roughly) I tried my hand at collecting sports and other trading cards. Between card shops, flea markets, and garage sales this is my entire collection that I amassed; nothing more than three small boxes, a binder and a shoe box half filled. I've never really done anything with them over the years other than flip through them a few times, and that last time was quite a while ago.

There's also a few cook books here which I've glanced at several times and a couple DVDs that were a some of the ones that I really wanted.

august 11

Just some random books and drum exercise guides.

august 10

Does the average person really re-read books? I can only think of two books that I have ever re-read in my entire life. So what reason do we stockpile books like we are a start up library. Surprisingly (mostly to myself), I've actually read a majority of these, seven to be exact, but I really can't see myself ever picking any of these up again and the remaining I probably will never open

I've had many collections of things in my life, from CDs to DVDs to books and comics. I sold most of my music and movies years ago when there was still value in them, albeit very little. It was around that time that I started to detach myself from these collections. I told myself that I would just hold on to the ones that I really wanted to keep; so I kept some books, a few movies and a few CDs. A year has past since I moved into my new home and most of those items that I really wanted are still in sealed boxes. I guess there's no purpose in really wanting something if all it's going to do is take up space in a box on the floor of a closet.

august 9

I'm starting to venture into the random item phase. All of this stuff comes from the garage, much like the music equipment, which seems to be a never ending source of items to get rid of. The flex duct, torque screwdriver, and electrical cabs are all from my old house and I have no use for them in my new one. The tape measure and pocket knife were extras that were in my tool box. I actually had a lot more duplicate tools, but I recently trashed most of them before I even thought of doing this minimalism clean out. I'm sure I'll be wishing they were around still in a week or two. The spring things and the railing support were items left behind from the previous owner. 
Finally, we have the black ladder looking thing, which is actually a CD rack. I sold most of my CDs four years ago and I have been trying to sell this thing since then. That's way too long to be selling something that is only really worth five to ten dollars, I guess there's no market for quirky CD racks anymore.

august 8

Eight days in and we are finally nearing the end of my musical items, and I know this because the black drum case that I've posted today was holding most of it. I believe that bins, cases and totes are a major supporting issue with the collection of things and unnecessary stuff. It's so easy to dump everything inside a container that is easy to pick up and move around, but If I had to move every item individually that was inside this case for every time that I've actually moved the case itself, I most likely would have tossed this stuff years ago. 

Other items today are old stage light gels that I haven't touched since I bought the lights. Four microphone clips that are either too small or too big for any microphone that I own. A wooden drum that I received as a gift around fifteen years ago, that more or less sat on a shelf as decoration as its primary purpose. Finally, I have another microphone that was broken but I actually paid to have it repaired with the intention of selling it. Not too surprisingly, once the now working item was returned to me it then sat in a box, in a box in the garage.

august 7

Packaging materials, nothing but empty boxes stacked to the ceiling in my closet. Yes, this is for the most part trash, and that it could be considered a cheat for day seven. However, for whatever reason I hold on to this stuff, and therefore I deem it as clutter and a distraction. I've gotten better over the years with only holding onto packaging for at least the product return and/or warranty window, but sometimes I forget about it and it starts to pile up. Not much else to talk about since they are no more than just empty boxes. Also, I really like Nest.

august 6

Cables, and chargers and adapters galore. In a single drawer I found three old phone chargers. There was once a day when holding onto one was worthwhile but it seems like every gadget comes with the same cable and they just start piling up after time. Most newer devices actually don't even work all that well on these old chargers so it seems pointless to keep them around. I'm sure I'll come across some more as the month progresses. Other than that, I threw in an old (and cheap) microphone cable that I found along with the Radio Shack microphone from the other day, a wall mount power strip that was in the house when I bought it and a heart rate monitor that has been replaced.

august 5

If you haven't figured it out by now, musicians tend to hold onto a lot of stuff. Today we have primarily an older bass drum pedal that I no longer use. I already have an emergency back up that is good enough to get the job done, but not really worth all that much whereas this one still has some value if I were to sell it. Aside from that we have some type of guitar switch pedal that somehow made its way into my possession and a few cables that I have no use for. The cables will get donated to my band's stash of cables, as there might be a use for them there.

There is really not all that much to say about today's items except that I originally thought I was done with the music items. However, as I looked again I found more things that I don't need, which surprises me to think of how much other stuff around my house is there that I just don't know about. I guess I'll soon find out as the days numbers get higher.

august 4

Here come all the old miscellaneous things that I once used often but has since been replaced. The CD Sleeves were a no-brainer, I haven't burned a disc in about 3 years, there is no need for these to continue to sit around, so I'll just take them into work, where we actually could use them. The headphones were actually part of my electronic drum kit, you know, the electronic drum kit that I decided to get rid of on day one. If there's no drum kit then there's no need for headphones. My old antenna and my old wireless router have been replaced and I held onto them just in case. Which really doesn't make sense to me since the antenna is too under powered for where I now live and if my current router were to break, I would buy an new one since this old one was replaced because it couldn't handle the traffic load in the house. Completionist side note, notice the white box next to the antenna, inside is a set of U bolts to mount the antenna to a pole that have never been used or even taken out of the box, but I held onto them anyway. 

 Also, as an update, I actually sold the drum kit yesterday. I thought I would be more heart broken but the buyer was a very nice lady buying it for her son. They seemed so happy to be getting it, and it was nice to be able to sell it to someone who genuinely was happy about it. I also gave them the headphones to go with it since I had no use for them anymore.

august 3

Still with the music equipment theme, I've got a few items that haven't seen much use, if any at all, in a very long time. First up, the guitar stand that has been folded up and stashed in a corner because, well, my guitar is in it's case. I don't play it enough nor do I have the space to warrant having it readily accessible. 

Next is the microphone, which is one of three that I own. One backup microphone is reasonable, but two is unnecessary. Not to mention, that it is a cheap Radio shack brand that I have not once ever used, or even know if it even works.

Finally, a drum mount that I had purchased and used for a few gigs about five years ago. It has since sat in a box with other music equipment just in case. I feel that the "just in case" mentality is complementary with the completionist trait that I brought up in the last post. I have a lot of "just in case" items that I'm probably only holding onto because it was part of or came with something. Then there are the stand alone "just in case" items that I will really have to look at and decide where and if it fits into my life going forward.

august 2

Continuing with more of my musical equipment, today I'm saying goodbye to these two light controller pedals. These came with a stage lights setup that my band uses, however in the past eight years that I have been using the lights, I have never used these pedals. To add to it, these pedals do not even work properly. For eight years, I have been shuffling these things around my house, holding onto them with the thought that if I were to ever sell the stage lights, I could sell these along with it. But that doesn't change the fact that they are broken, and even if I did sell them why would a buyer want broken pedals, doesn't seem like a make or break selling point.

Throwing out a couple broken pedals might seem like an easy and obvious choice for anyone to get rid of. However, there's one thing that you have to understand about me. I'm a completionist. For as long as I can remember I have attempted to keep everything from every thing. Spoiler alert: I have boxes of cables, chargers and adapters, I even have boxes of boxes and packaging that things came in. Now, I have sold a lot of stuff on craigslist, eBay, amazon and other outlets yet the monetary difference between a complete vs incomplete item is minuscule. Obviously, I know that there are certain collectible items that will generate a higher resale value as a whole, but generally, a missing cable, screw, adapter or even a broken pedal is not going to impede ones ability to sell something. 

So, here I am, breaking the cycle. Goodbye pedals, I've moved you for the last time.

august 1

I'm going big for day 1, my Yamaha electronic drum kit. I purchased this about 3 years ago, because it was something that I've always wanted. I played it constantly for the first couple months then the neglect slowly crept in. About a year later, a baby entered my life and what was once my playroom for my things had become a nursery. My beloved drum kit turned carpet anchor was packed away in the attic due to lack of space. For nearly a year it sat collecting dust and cobwebs until it finally saw daylight again when I moved into my new house. I eagerly cleared a space and set it up with all the intentions of playing it, but again, neglect set in. 

It was a hard decision to let this go, after all, this was the "it"; the thing I had always wanted. I guess that further enforces the reason behind this little minimalism adventure; things are just things and there will always be an "it" to want, I just have to make that "it" something meaningful and not just another thing.

I do have to add one side note on this item. Unlike most items that I will be removing instantly (ie. trash or donate), this one I will have to sell due to the monetary value of the item. So, I will disassemble it and pack it in a box and actively try to sell it as quick as I can, hopefully by the end of the month.