Minimalist, I Am Not

Today, June 30, was the final day of my participation in the Minimalism Game with a group of friends. I have posted some of my daily decluttering tallies in this blog: here, here, here...and here. I have pondered whether decluttering would help my un-diagnosed ADD and whether the accountability in the game would help me maintain focus. The answer to both of those questions is "sort of." 

Pride is a useful tool. When other members of the group would send the group emails with their daily tallies, I couldn't let them beat me. I'm not always a "winner," but I am fairly competitive. My pride motivated me to keep purging junk, even though I wasn't highly motivated personally to get rid of things on certain days. I knew that the other members of the group would notice if I didn't send a message with my purge list, so the accountability kept me going to the end of the game.

Has the decluttering helped my focus? I would say, not yet. We have purged a lot, but several areas need more concentrated purging, then organizing before I can be in the spaces without being regularly distracted. Most importantly, the office needs an overhaul. However, some of the spaces that were particularly distracting to me are much better today than they were May 31.

Several members of my household have contributed to the item count. My daughter cleaned out the clothes that she doesn't wear and the socks with holes for a 20-something count. Because she cleaned out her dresser, I was able to repair a broken drawer, and her "clothes pile" is no longer on top of the dresser. The clothes are mostly put away, and I can now stand in her doorway and talk to her without feeling anxious at the sight of the clutter.

The boys helped my husband with a garage clean-up that tallied to the full count for days 28 and 29. When I drove the van into the garage today, I noticed that it felt much roomier. Organizing and painting the garage is the family project for the rest of this summer, so the Minimalism Game was a great first step to getting that project underway.

I was struggling today to finish the game. I had a bit of a headache and thought about not bothering with the final day. The pride thing started gnawing at me around 9 p.m.  I was sitting here wondering what I would do for the final 27 since I had the first 3 accounted for.  I kept looking at the shelves in the office closet, knowing that I probably could have gotten quite a few days’ worth out of there, but I hesitated to tackle the space for some reason. A few moments ago, my gaze fell upon a green basket. I remembered that I used to store cassette tapes in that basket. On top of the cassettes were some small photo albums. My daughter and I looked at baby pictures of her and the two older boys for a few minutes, then I dug in to find the cassettes!

Day 30

1.  Pair of my husband's old running shoes

2. A pair of holey, not holy, underwear.

3. Dried out glue stick

4-30! Mix tapes and other 1980s cassettes.

Done!!

For July, I will be working on the garage project and my Camp NaNoWriMo novel, but I may try a 31-day Minimalism Challenge for August with a special focus on the office and kitchen. Then, I'll let you know if my focus improves.

I have learned from this game that I am not a minimalist, and I probably never will be. However, we have recognized as a family that we have held on to a lot of junk that we really do not need. Clearing out the junk makes it easier to find what we do need and to use the useful things we'd forgotten because they were hidden in the clutter.