The battle against the accrued clutter scattered throughout my apartment. It can be hard to notice how much we really have when boxes are filled and hidden under the bed or in the closet. Sentimental items hide there until we open them. In our modern lives, we often hide most of our clutter online or on hard drives. 

Digging Deeper

In the process of gathering items for the Minimalists’ Challenge, I moved on to sorting through the boxes under my bed. Good advice would tell me not to open the box, as once I have the items in hand letting go becomes much more difficult. The accountability group I meet with were actually just talking about this a few days before I started the challenge.

Going through what I’ve been lugging around from place to place amazed me. I have a stack of DVDs I don’t know if I would ever watch again. Dozens of loose CDs, and even the ones in cases are from a time long past.

Sentimental Sticks Around

Even knowing how nonessential many of these items are I find letting go of some things so damn difficult. I didn’t feel any hesitation when I added my old Xbox 360 to the pile, but I’ll be damned to give away this DVD of Dude Where’s My Car?

Sentimentalism can be applied to things we don’t actually care about. We apply value to the things we own because we get caught up in ownership. An exercise I like to practice when facing this is to ask, “what would I go through or pay to own this again?” This forces me to remove current ownership from the equation. More often than not, the answer boils down to “nothing, because this doesn’t matter.”

Sentimental value can be a difficult thing to work through, especially when it’s not a monetary factor that’s keeping an item around. Another practice that I think helps me is to think of what feeling or memory does the item invoke. I may seem to come off as the type who is saying to get rid of anything and everything. However, I understand the impact some items can have. There are a few things I keep because nothing else can give me the feeling provided.

No one else can tell you what does or doesn’t have sentimental value. It’s up to you to consider the costs of keeping those things around.

Let’s Get Digital

I’m not sure what is all on my old hard drives and flash drives. Like with the boxes under the bed, opening what’s on them is probably a bad idea. Before finding them, I didn’t even have to think what is on there. I’m sure I’ll come across old photos and school projects that might bring back good memories.

Addressing digital clutter can be tough because it’s not physically piling up where you can see it. Because of this, taking on the task of cleaning out old files just hasn’t been enough of a pain point yet. Email, on the other hand, is something I need to clean out several times a week.

Ads, newsletters, and more ads are sent daily. Hitting the unsubscribe button has been satisfying. At first, I found it a bummer to unsubscribe as I send out a weekly newsletter myself. When I thought about it though, I realized how much better it is to think of my email to be sent to only those who want to see it. Those who are excited to see what’s in store for that week.

Another simple digital detox I’ve started is to turn off as many push notifications as possible from smartphone apps. An even better practice is to completely remove unneeded apps. When you aren’t getting a dozen spam notifications an hour, you’d be surprised how much less you will check your phone.

Does this mean I’m telling you to purge everything you have online? Of course not. I mean you probably couldn’t even if you tried. Like with all other elements of this trial, the approach I am taking may not work for you. The key is to reflect on what really matters and remove the things that get in the way.

In the modern age, we are gathering more and more. Some of it we bury in boxes and some of it is coded in ones and zeros. Either way, in order to clear way for the essential, we need to address the clutter.

When you hear the term minimalism, you may have the vision of someone living in a cabin along with one set of clothes who sleeps on the floor cooking the same meal out of a garden every day. Someone doing the absolute minimum to survive, but that’s not really what it is about. Minimalism is about living with the least amount of clutter in your life as possible.

Don’t Worry About Semantics

I wrote a lot on Essentialism a few months back when I was struggling with a lot of projects at once. I’m sure someone will get into the semantics, but I do believe the two are close, if not the same idea. The goal is to live with less, mostly in the form of negative aspects of life. Cut out the clutter, and only the essential things, those that align with your values, will remain.

When it comes to these philosophies the key for me is finding out what is right for you. I don’t think there is a template or checkbox that decides whether you are a minimalist or not. It’s not about titles or status. The important part is to find out what’s important and what’s not. That’s it.

What is Clutter?

Clutter is the stuff that’s not important. Over the past few years, I’ve accumulated a number of random items that I don’t know how or when I came across them. Many of them are things I would never choose to bring home, but once they are there, they are so hard to get rid of.

The biggest contributor to the excess junk I have is from subscription box services. While I do not think these services are seeking to cause harm, sticking with one a little too long can start to build up.

Beyond the items out of these boxes, I have a lot of “future project” type items that have accrued over time. An old keyboard, old books, and an unused toolbox are a few examples from the first room alone.

The small pile has started but will grow exponentially over the next few weeks. As more and more items will be needed each day, I’m never sure if I can keep up or not.

Not Just Physical Space

One of the worst aspects of the clutter we let stick around is the mental capacity we spend on them. Whether we want them to or not, the objects we own take up space in our minds.

We give value to the things we own because we want to justify why we chose ownership in the first place. “Of course this ugly tie has value,” we say, “I like to wear it ironically. Once a year…alone at home.”

Getting rid of the things that don’t matter give us the room both physically and mentally for the things that are truly important. Hell, maybe you really do love that ugly tie. I can’t take that away from you.

A Family Effort

Having my brother and mom going along with the challenge has made things rather interesting. We can talk about the things we’re getting rid of and motivate each other to move past the sentimentality of certain items.

Hearing about the progress made has been great. My brother has found things he didn’t even know how they got to where they were. Ice cube trays in a closet? Sure why not?

I’ll have much more updates as the trial continues, and will be sharing more on the progress of my family as well. What’s one piece of clutter you can remove from your life today?

When you hear the term minimalism, you may have the vision of someone living in a cabin along with one set of clothes who sleeps on the floor cooking the same meal out of a garden every day. Someone doing the absolute minimum to survive, but that’s not really what it is about. Minimalism is about living with the least amount of clutter in your life as possible.

After four weeks of meeting with friends, I learned that I am highly motivated by social factors. Some might say it’s bad to cave into peer pressure, but what about when the results are positive?

Lifelong Impact

With this framework in mind, I understand a majority of the choices and decisions I’ve made throughout my life. For better or worse, a lot of decisions I made were heavily influenced by the people around me.

Throughout my younger years, I followed a lot of my brothers’ footsteps. Their opinion was important to me, because they had insight into what was coming next for me. Most of my socializing was done through the two of them until may later teen years, which influenced my decisions even more.

Peer pressure is often framed as a bad thing. Drugs, alcohol, and the whole nine yards. I’ve had my fair share of these not so good decisions, but plenty of good did result from this influence. Back to my brothers, Brandon joined Boy Scouts and Cross Country, which led me to do so, and Frank played football, which led to me making my own friends when I joined in grade school. There are probably countless good decisions in my life that I’ve made without realizing it based on the influence of others.

A lack of peer pressure is why I put on 30+ pounds after graduating college. There wasn’t a reason beyond my own desire to exercise to get me out. No team goals, no championships, no races, nothing. I consistently made the excuse that I was just taking a much-needed break, but the reality was I just couldn’t find a reason to motivate me. Luckily, my first trial of biking to work has given me a reason to exercise daily.

Stakes Make Progress

It can be easy to put things off until there are consequences for doing so. In my case, those consequences don’t even need to be dire. Simply having to foot the bill for a couple other people has led all of our group to make progress more often than not – we did have one occurrence being treated to breakfast.

This approach may not work for everyone. Some will think this is a waste of time and effort. Some people really can be purely motivated by their own desires. My hat goes off to them, but I’m going to focus on what works for me.

If you’ve ever heard someone say or felt something along the lines of, “You don’t want something if you need incentives to do so,” I implore you to snuff that thinking out. Sometimes when you want something to happen, incentives are exactly what you need.

Progress Makes Perfect

I’ve made more progress in my writing than I have in several months. More importantly, I’ve made consistent progress.

With that progress made, I wanted to experiment with something else. I specifically avoided making writing my goal the past couple of weeks. I worked on the project as a whole. The work was high-level planning and thinking, but I didn’t actually write. Not having a specific writing goal caused me to not write. Even still, I still found excuses and reasons to “put it off until tomorrow.”

Forget what you know about peer pressure. This is a trial that I believe everyone should go thru at some point. You may find that it’s not for you, but I guarantee at least one person from your group will benefit greatly. Don’t wait for someone to invite you. Call up a few friends and organize a meal, coffee, or just even a gathering at your place to talk about goals.

For next time I’ll be scratching an itch that has my attention as of late. Minimalism has been on my mind a lot after I re-watched the Minimalists’ documentary, and my brother got me hooked on the director’s YouTube channel. I am going to be trying their challenge game joined this time by my brother. Tune in next time to see how the first week goes!

One of the key benefits I’ve seen of meeting with an accountability group is treating should do tasks into need to do. I used the group to help me launch progress on a writing project, but it has really forced me to take an inventory on the to-do list I’ve been putting off.

Trim Your To-Do List

When we first met, all of us had wildly different goals. Some professional, some personal, and others a combination of the two. This past week something very different happened. Most of the goals were centered around smaller maintenance tasks. Each of us gained momentum on the goals we had. I was writing and felt I had gotten over the toughest part which was finding the motivation to start. I took a look at what I was putting off.

My goal this week was to finish a book, ironically titled “Finish,” and another book my brother had gifted me this past weekend. I was nearly complete with Finish, but one distraction turned into an excuse turned into several days of not reading straight. Simply adding stakes to finishing the book led to me sitting down and reading the last few chapters in one night. I didn’t plan on the marathon to the end, but I just enjoyed it so much that I wanted to keep reading.

The benefit hasn’t only been to the goals I’ve declared for the week, but also the little things I’ve put off recently. For example, I paid some vehicle registration fees that have been sitting under the books I’ve been stacking up recognizing it as an important item on the to-do list. Trying to come up with a goal for the week has forced me to take inventory of my outstanding tasks, those I both do and don’t want to do.

Want-To-Do Lists

I joked with my friend Dan that “watching six hours of Twin Peaks” counts as progress towards a goal if that’s what your goal is. I said this because the very day before we met, I watched hours of Twin Peaks without moving from the couch. Watching the show has been on my watch list for a couple years now. I have a similar approach with movies and books. Some may consider reading books a chore, others a privilege, while I find myself somewhere in the middle.

Often, I find I need to create tasks for the things I want to do. I need to feel like I am accomplishing something in order to give myself permission to do so. There is no right or wrong answer to tasking out things we want to do. Some may feel it takes away the enjoyment, while I find myself in the opinion that tasks force me to actually do things I enjoy. Drop a comment below and let me know where you stand on this!

Next week will wrap up the “trial” of this group, but I do hope we will keep meeting. If so, they will likely have frequent mentions here keeping me accountable for whatever it is I may be doing. Remember to stop by next week to find out what I’ll be trying out next!

Meeting with the group has helped not only me, but all of the others have expressed how it has positively helped them work on their goals. That part has made it even better than the progress it’s helped me make. I’ve also found myself more willing to seek out social functions and more easily avoiding distractions

A Social Spark

For what’s felt like at least a few weeks, I’ve struggled to find any appeal in social activities. It would be a waste of time and/or money, I would often think. Now that I’m actually going out and spending time with people I enjoy, I see the appeal of doing other things.

A small group of us went for a run earlier this week which was really nice. While I use biking to work as my exercise excuse, there’s something different about a group run. The time just feels better spent. During the run, a few other social events were mentioned, and I found merit in doing any of them. Just getting myself out the door once a week, raised the chance of doing so throughout it.

Putting the Shiny New Idea Aside

A very bad habit of mine for a long time has been to constantly switch projects. I do this not only in my personal life but at work as well. While it may have it’s occasional benefit, more often then not, I find myself churning through projects without putting quality effort into them.

Meeting with this group every week has helped me to put some of these distractions on hold for now. This isn’t to say these ideas don’t have merit, but completing my current goals come first.

These are just a few of the benefits I’m seeing off the bat meeting regularly. If you find yourself with similar problems I’ve had recently, feeling anti-social, unfocused, and unable to finish commitments, seriously give this a try! It has become what I look forward to most each week.