This year I’ve really been on a decluttering journey. I’ve gotten into taking a more minimalist approach to my personal space, and throwing away lots of stuff I didn’t need. I think I’ve written about it this year already, but I can’t be bothered to search for the previous posts and link them. Sorry.
I’m writing this at the end of a pretty good, purposeful week. One might think, then, that this post will be full of profound reflection and insight. Actually, I’m knackered and I can’t think of what I want to write. So I’m just doing an update on my decluttering goals at the moment :-P
These efforts are, for the most part, concentrated within my bedroom. It’s not bad at the moment, tbh. My partner says that “[I] have no stuff!” and that “[I] had hardly anything to begin with!”. Take her words with a pinch of salt, though, as she is a clutter-bug. She loves clart. Anyway, I’ve completed a whole bunch of decluttering in the bedroom context:
- Replaced a few of my low quality tees with ones of higher quality, and removed duplicate colours. (Basically halving my tees)
- Got rid of a whole bunch of clothes I don’t use
- Learned the ranger roll and folding techniques so that all my upper body clothes fit into one half of a long drawer, and my underwear fits in the other half
- Condensed my lower body clothes to a single set of work trousers, a single set of cargo trousers (for the weekend), and two pairs of bedtime / lounging shorts for around the house
- Removed my branded and too-small hoodies, replacing them with an unmarked black one for simplicity.
- Removed specialist shoes and taken to wearing a single set of medium quality hiking shoes for all occasions, as I’m lucky enough so that I don’t need formal shoes.
- Reduced the redundancy of my training gear so that it’s only one set, which gets integrated into a weekend wash. It also occupies only one half of a long drawer inc. training shoes.
- Removed or drastically reduced items in the dried food store in my cupboard, moving them to the kitchen context.
- Moved all my craft gear into the cupboard
- Removed my desk, and desk chair, replacing it with a small end table which holds everything and I can sit on the floor.
- Moved my portable storage drawers to inside the cupboard and reduced items in them so that two drawers are unoccupied.
- Removed all items from under the bed, either placing them in appropriate slots or discarding them. Bed now acts as the holding pen for my bags, which are in constant rotation so do not accumulate dust.
- Removed posters that weren’t bringing me joy.
I’ve also made similar efforts in the main room. Although this by its nature is limited to the presence of my bookcase. I’ve been removing all of the physical books for which I have a Kindle-readable copy of, providing it’s of a decent formatting. I donated the books to charity. The effect was significant, and there are only two shelves occupied on my bookshelf now. To compensate for the removal of these redundant copies, I bought a USB memory stick to store regular back-ups of my digital library.
I don’t know whether there should be any closing remarks, now. I guess that the only thing to say is that this is only half the battle, and that maintenance is key. Already during my decluttering phase I’ve bought new items – a few books here and there, and a Hangiri. The difference is, that all these things are serving an explicit role and purpose for me (at least at the moment). I’m enjoying removing all the stuff I don’t like, keeping the stuff that has purpose to me or brings me joy, and filling the place with plants.
If I do anything interesting soon I’ll write about it. I don’t think my landlord will help me store the bed so I can replace it with a folding futon, but we’ll see.