Playing the Minimalism Game (Part 2) #Minsgame
This month (February, 2017) I decided to start the Minimalism Game. It’s an idea by The Minimalists (awesome blog!), you can read more about it here. This is the second post about it, from Day 10 to Day 18. You can read the first part here.
The “Gamification” Effect
This is when the game starts to become challenging. After day 10 the selection of items is not so fast anymore. You see, I didn’t have a box already full of stuff previously collected to donate/trash/sell. Each day I go through my stuff and select which items will go away that day.
And since I didn’t have previously collected items, I started to plan ahead my game every week. I know which areas I can go through the next day and I even separate the next number of stuff so that I can deal with it the next morning. And this “gamification” keeps me working! It’s less likely I will find an excuse and let the decluttering for an undetermined day in the future.
When I reached Day 18, I started to think that I wouldn’t get to the end. But there is always one more pile of paper, some books here and there and CD’s. I discovered a drawer full of CD’s. I knew I had them, but I didn’t remember how many. I used to back up my data on CD’s before having external hard drives. I had old PC games I no longer play. I had CD’s with MP3’s before there were streaming services. I had old electronics! I had installation CD’s and manuals of a computer I no longer own! So many obsolete things!!
So far, I got rid of 176 items :)
Here’s the daily log of Days 10 to 18:
– Day 10: Office supplies and my Kindle manual that was still lost and forgotten inside a folder.
– Day 11: I’m still going my office stuff.
– Day 12: Old tech documentation day: I still had manuals and installation CD’s of an old computer of mine (AMD Athlon 6000, 2Gb Ram, Nvidia GT 8800GT). It was a powerful machine for the time… I really can’t believe I still had all this stuff…
– Day 13: Empty CD cases, paper, envelopes, a notepad…more office stuff.
– Day 14: Today I gathered books! Some literature, a brand new Chronicles of Narnia (I plan on reading the e-book version), a used travel guide to Portugal, dictionaries and educational ones. I have not opened a physical dictionary in years!
– Day 15: Electronics day! Old gadgets, a broken digital camera (I think I kept it because it was my first semi-professional camera and I used it a lot!), cables, an old mouse, empty boxes.
– Day 16: Random — 6 appliance’s manuals, 4 hair acessories, 2 participation medals (10K runs), another old swimming google, broken sunglasses, old make-up and a bag.
– Day 17: 3 old forgotten card decks, souvenirs from the year I graduated from university (unused pens and keyholders), CD’s and other miscellania.
– Day 18: 10 CD’s, a pile of old paperwork, 1 envelope, 6 technical books.
Now the real challenge will begins!
From now on, I will have to get rid of 20+ items a day! Well, I have a plan: I still have CD’s and old photos. The difficult part is that I want to go through the data CD’s to see if I want to keep something. Just to be sure, because in reality, I haven’t looked at those CD’s in maybe 10 years! And the photos, I will digitize them before recycling.
So, plenty of work ahead!
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By Noisy Deadlines Minimalist in progress, nerdy, introvert, skeptic. I don't leave without my e-reader.