Minimalism game: Days 5, 6, and 7

The first 10 items have now been jettisoned out of the home, on a roll now! Today it’s completing days 5, 6, and 7 of the minimalism game/challenge, that means I am to throw out, donate or sell 18 items. That seems like a lot, I don’t want to dig into the storage shed until the weekend, so I have to look closer at items I have around the place that I don’t use frequently enough to warrant taking up space in my living quarters.

Before I go through the items ear marked for relocation, I thought it would be useful to talk about minimalism the way I have come to understand it, and hopefully to inspire others to also look into the minimalism life style.

I have been listing to the pod cast “The Minimalists” hosted by Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus, the same guys that introduced me to minimalism through their TEDx Talk. On their pod cast, they have dispelled many erroneous assumptions around minimalism.

Here is what I understand about minimalism in my very limited time looking into the lifestyle.

What is a minimalism lifestyle?

If you bring me 10 people who say they live a minimalism lifestyle, in front of me would be 10 people who all live very differently from each other. Some will be single, others with family, others with pets, others even with what could be perceived as a lot of “stuff”. There are no hard and fast rules with minimalism, and I think that’s what I like most about it, there is no “right” or “wrong” way to be a minimalist.

Minimalism, the way that I have come to appreciate it, is more of a mind set than a lifestyle. Minimalists live deliberately. The items they own are there deliberately, the people around them are around them deliberately, even the apps on their phone, are there deliberately.

What underpins whether to keep something, or discard it is simply asking yourself “do I love this ? ”, “does this add value to my life? ”, “do I use this regularly?” If the answer is yes to even one of these questions, then keep it, it’s worthy of being around you. If the answer is no to all of the questions, why hang on to it?

In following blogs, I will go into the minimalism paradigm the way it is useful to me. Please do check out the minimalists pod cast, they cover in greater detail a lot of questions, the ethos behind minimalism, how they incorporate minimalism in their lives, and how it has impacted them.

So, here are the 18 items I no longer love, that add value or use. The silver change is going to be donated to charity, as too the hats. The cables I no longer have use for I am donating to my local music store (just so happens I also work there) The deodorant cans are a hard one. Not to let go of, (I have had these for over 2 years, the deodorant was a limited edition and I liked the fragrance so I stocked up on it, but now I don’t like the smell, and don’t use them), but in therms of what to actually do with them.

I can’t give them away. Imagine you are going about your business and this person comes up to you and says “here is a can of deodorant! Keep it! It’s yours!” To say you would likely have mixed feelings about this is an understatement!

So then, do I put them in the bin? I am far from joining Greenpeace any time soon, but I am aware of my carbon foot print.

And here in lies another way minimalism has impacted my life. Where was this concern for my carbon foot print when I purchased such an abundance of deodorant? I reality I was more concerned with missing out on the “limited run” that it over showed my thoughts on the environment.

Now, before purchasing an item I ask myself “what is really important to me?” “Is it this item, or is it actually something else?”, more often than not, the more I ask myself this question, it is likely to be something else.

So, with days 5, 6, and 7 checked off, its on to tackling the storage unit! Sounds like a Sunday job to me!