My January Minimalism Challenge Part II

I recently wrote about my decision to embark on a minimalism challenge during January.  At that point, I had reached Day 9, having identified 45 items to pass on in some way.

Today is Day 15.  I should by now have identified a further 75 items to go (ie 10 items for Day 10, 11 for Day 11 etc).

So here is my latest collection of stuff to be moved on:

In this picture it does not look like much, but I am working on the basis that every little counts.  For the record, you can see:

• 10 spare hangers, liberated after sorting out my wardrobe before Christmas;
• 15 pairs of tights:  nobody needs this much hosiery;
• 25 CDs that I no longer listen to;
• 24 pencils with animal erasers:  these used to live in a vase on the windowsill of my creativity room (aka The Buttery).  Over time, the erasers have become faded and brittle from being in the sun, so I have decided that the pencils themselves are perfectly useable and can go to some young person who will enjoy using them;
• one pile of papers I no longer need:  I decided that it would be churlish to count each page towards my overall total, so I am counting this bundle as one item.

I am finding this process absolutely fascinating.

It has always been liberating to find things to get rid of.  But this has previously been on the basis of having a sort-out from necessity – for example because I needed to rationalise the amount of space being taken up by clothes; or because I had decided that I could not see the wood for the trees with some items, such as my yarn stash (see my previous post about donating yarn before Christmas).

Undertaking this challenge turns all of this on its head.  I am actively looking for things to get rid of, with a view to identifying which of my possessions no longer adds value to my life.  As I sweep around the apartment like the Eye of Sauron, I take in the view from a new perspective:  which of my belongings are useful and/or, yes, spark joy.  With a nod to Marie Kondo, I allow myself to keep things I really need or want.  Those things that I merely like, or which have past their time as useful objects (if there ever was such a time) go on the hit list.

By the time of my next update, planned for 22 January, I will ideally have identified a further 133 items to go.  My main focus will be on my jewellery box (plenty of costume jewellery there that I no longer wear); and two storage boxes of craft materials and related ephemera.  How many embroidery kits bought over 20 years ago do I really need to keep…..? 🙂