Another week, another set of minimalism challenges.  Here’s the set for this week:

• Sleep on it (rather than immediately buying an item you want, sleep on it and consider the pros and cons of owning it)
• Tackling sentimental items
• Declutter your shoe collection
• Virtual disconnect (a 3-day challenge)
• Keep only the necessities in the kitchen
• Place one item a day into a donate box for the next 30 days (recurring)

It’s been another challenging week in the world of minimalism.  Similar to last week where my big challenge was turning my bedroom into a “place of relaxation”, this week my big challenge revolved around dealing with my kitchen.  In fact, the challenge was so big that I decided to put most of it on my baking blog, n00bcakes.  Go there to read a longer-form version of my kitchen-minimalism if it’s something that interests you!

Otherwise, here’s the low-down on the rest of what went on this week.  It turned out to be a lot of learning new habits and breaking old ones.

Sleep on it

This is a challenge I’m already pretty good at.  More than once I’ve picked up something at the beginning of my trip into the store, and by the end of it have returned it to the shelf.  I’m fairly good at being reasonable about what I really do or don’t need.  Most recently I spotted a set of lantern lights 30% off at Target, but shortly after I put them into my cart, I turned around and put them back.  Were they cute?  Sure!  Did I really need them?  Well…no, not at all.  Sleeping on it is, I think, a good rule of thumb when making many purchases.

Tackling sentimental items

As a kid I had a tendency to anthropomorphise everything from my stuffed animals to my favorite shirts.  I’m not saying I talked to my t-shirts and told them stories, but my belongings felt very personal to me, and I was always loaded with guilt when getting rid of them, like I was ditching an old friend.  These 3 weeks of minimalism have helped me be honest about the things I own, and realize that getting rid of them is the healthy thing to do.  Instead of feeling guilty or sad about getting rid of a shirt that holds good memories or a book that spoke to me, what’s important are the memories attached to those items, which don’t rely on physically having them.

My favorite example of this is from a blog post  I read (I’ll post a link once I can find the original URL) about a woman who was struggling with what to do with a piano her mother left her after her death.  She didn’t have room with it, but was wracked with guild whenever she considered selling it.  With help she determined that it wasn’t the piano itself that held the good memories of her mother (she didn’t play piano herself, and in fact the piano was actually a point of contention between her and her mother), but rather the memory of her mother playing the piano for and laughing with the family.  That helped assuage the initial guilt she felt in getting rid of the piano, since the physical instrument wasn’t really what held the best memories for her.

3-day virtual disconnect

Emily and I both agreed that this challenge was basically impossible for us both.  We both work full time in computer-related jobs, and we’ve both been working on serious computer-related projects and jobs in our off-hours that made disconnecting for 3 straight days impossible.

Instead I decided to to make some small changes related to technology, namely that being completely shutting myself down at night.  I’ve had a bad habit of tinkering on my computer in bed, eventually leaving Netflix or something on until I fell asleep.  For awhile it was a comfort to have sound on in the background, but more recently the light and constant noise started waking me backup after I fell asleep, and often times proved to be more of a distraction keeping me awake instead of soothing me to sleep.

It proved to be a tougher habit to break than I thought; sometimes I even felt anxious leaving my technology behind when I got into bed.  Quickly, though, 30 minutes to an hour of reading proved to be the perfect way to relax before bed, and ended up far better at preparing me for sleep than the distraction of movies or TV.  My bedroom’s darker and I’m far sleepier than I used to be.  Now my laptop stays on the coffee table where it belongs.  TAKE THAT, BAD SLEEP!

Declutter your shoe collection

I don’t have a closet full of fancy shoes, but I do have a habit of keeping old ones around.  A quick walk through my apartment yielded a pair of “work” tennis shoes full of cobwebs, a pair of hiking boots I literally walked the soles off of, and a pair of brown flats I bought specifically for a wedding and never wore again.  Not many habits built or broken here, I suppose, except for the usual of keeping track of what things I actually own and what I actually use.

And so…

The last week or so of minimalism challenges are coming, with hopefully a nice summary of our findings if Emily and I can find time to sit down with a glass of wine and discuss.  Don’t forget to keep up with our Pinterest board, my post on Minimalism in the Kitchen at n00bcakes, and to check out Emily’s Week 3 post!

Top image from iconoclassst on Tumblr