Outbox: First 100 things.
As I’ve mentioned previously, there’s a trend going around at the moment under the name of ‘minimalism’. The basic idea is that all the clutter that we accumulate just isn’t helping us, for one reason or another.
A bunch of people do their best to count the number of things that they own, for example – some use 100 personal items, others, such as Everett Bogue, have it down to a fine art with 57.
57 things? That’s sounds impressive.
Apparently, he started off at 100, got to 75, then down to 50, but realised that an extra 7 things would make his life so much better without causing hassles, so he got them.
Over the past week, I’ve learnt how many items 100 is because I’ve been going through my own belongings and figuring out what I do and don’t need.
I’ve been able to consign 111 things to the ‘get rid of’ pile.
There’s four categories of things here: books (the majority) on 74; t-shirts, which are at 12; DVDs, 15; and coffee mugs, at around 10.
I’ve been challenged on this project, asking if I’d really ‘never read those books again’ and the like. The reality, though, is that I just don’t need those 100 things. I don’t want to read those books again, wear those t-shirts again (they’re nice, they’re just superfluous and I have far too many), watch those DVDs…and I’ve never used most of those coffee mugs. Most of those things I had packed away for over 3 years, so I certainly had plenty of evidence for putting these in the ‘never going to use again’ pile
My plan is to get rid of these things – hopefully by selling them on eBay, Amazon and the like. Particularly with the books, though, I’ve had a lot of people express interest. I’m considering offering them for a heavy (70-80% discount) if the buyer is willing to give a review or summary of the book…I’d love to hear some comments (for or against) about that!
In short – getting rid of my things is keeping me busy. The worst part of it is knowing that this is probably the easiest 100 things to get rid of – the next ~900 will prove to be very challenging, indeed!
Love this post? Hate it? Think I’ve missed something? Let me know in the comments!
Comments are closed.
Andrew Smith 
It’s a tough thing to do, but somewhat necessary when moving. I’ve got a lot of stuff I could get rid of, but can’t really be bothered to tbh.
I’ve only ever moved once, and that was five years ago now.
(although in the next 6 months i’ll most likely be moving twice, so I expect to be getting rid of a lot of stuff…)
I think that coffee mugs breed furiously in the darkness of the cabinetry. They *must*. It would explain so much!
Lucas: I can definitely understand that – the fact that I’ve moved definitely allows me to see what I do and don’t need very easily – the stuff that I decide to move first is on a different level from the stuff that I move in the next load, for example.
It helps that I’m moving from a house to an apartment, of course – all of a sudden, things that seemed like they worked well are now just so much clutter in a smaller place.
MagnificentMinimalist – Welcome to the blog!
I can definitely understand that sentiment! In my case, it’s because I needed things to drink out of a few years ago and got the donations of many people who were clearing out their own breeding mugs :)