Recently I have shared several decluttering related posts (you can read about 6 easy places to start decluttering and about not taking home what you don't need, in order to cut back on clutter). This is because I have been on a serious mission to reduce clutter at our home. Our apartment isn't exactly small (by apartment standards) but we do need to learn to live with only what we absolutely need.
So I have created my own 30-days declutter challenge - an easy challenge that takes where you want to go in small steps, but that at the same time encourages you to be consistent.
I have followed this challenge during the month of June and I'm already seeing improvements - one of them being the fact that after almost a month it has become much easier to get rid of stuff than it was when I started.
Scroll down for details.
In this challenge you will not be tackling whole rooms or tearing down your closet in one day. I don't have enough free time to dedicate to decluttering that way, so that type of overhauls don't really work for me.
So what you need to do is to commit to get rid of at least one item a day, for 30 days (and, of course, avoid replacing said item with one or more items). It can be something as small as a pen that no longer works and somehow still lives in your desk drawer or as large as that pile of clothes you no longer fit in but decided to keep just in case.
Each morning (or any other time of the day, really), you need to look around and search for something that has to go, and you need to follow through, to complete the challenge - this meaning that those items you pick to get rid of need to go to the trash can or be donated.
Selecting things and then letting them pile up in a corner thinking you'll toss them the following week basically amounts to just changing clutter from one place to another, and that's not the goal here.
I have created a chart for this challenge, with one square for each of the 30 days, that you can cross as you go (or even add notes here and there), to keep track of your progress.
You don't even need to do the challenge for 30 days in a row, although I have found it easier to commit to the schedule and avoid slacking off. Actually, my initial 30 days are coming to an end this week and I have already printed a new challenge chart to continue the challenge in July...
And I'm sharing this precisely at the end of June so that if you want, you can start the challenge on July 1st (although you don't really need to do that either, since you can choose to start your 30-days challenge whenever you want).
You can download the pdf version of the 30-days challenge chart here.
The first few days taking this challenge were a bit odd for me but lately it has become much easier - and I'm even getting rid of things I had been through before and had initially decided to keep. And I have certainly been tossing more than one item a day too.
If you do decide to take the challenge, let me know how it goes!
Happy Tuesday!
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