Reflections on Getting Rid of 2013 Things in 2013

I'm done! Hit my goal of 2013 things out of my house for 2013. I wouldn’t say my progress has been steady in the sense of daily decluttering, but it has been fairly consistent.

I was able to gleefully get rid of several items: an unused snowblower, TWO baby swings, a bouncy chair, my maternity clothes, our oldest stroller, what felt like millions of gift bags (at least 50!). Other things weren’t necessarily gleefully removed from the house, but were not a struggle to part with - things like old clothes, crappy toys, boring/stupid books, candles, vases, planters…

Here’s the thing: 2013 things sounds like a LOT. But it isn’t. Perhaps if I lived alone or at least without kids this might be a difficult goal to achieve. Maybe if I tried to get rid of 2013 things in one weekend, that might be a bit tough.

However, in my life I have oodles - and I mean oodles - of stuff. One of my children can make eight artistic creations in five minutes. That leaves a huge pile of artwork to sort out!  And now that we are moving out of the baby stage, I’m finding it easy to get rid of the gear and most clothes - just don’t ask me to part with the itty bitty newborn stuff and certain outfits and we can get along.

My point? Getting rid of 2013 things in a year hasn’t been much of a challenge for me. I got rid of almost 900 my first year (that was a failure in my decluttering challenge but my thesis got done, what can I say?) and 2012 things last year. Hitting 2013 this year gives me almost 5000 things gone from my house. And guess what?

YOU CAN’T. EVEN. TELL.

I am not kidding.

My house is still a disaster. There are toys all over the place. The basement is full of stuff. I have storage container after storage container full of clothes for kids to grow into. Things still here from the previous owners. A dead lawnmower.

Sigh.

While getting rid of 2000+ things in a year is better than nothing, I’m just not sure it’s enough. I’m doing it without even trying. Which is fine, decluttering is a good habit. There is something to be said for having attainable, sustainable habits.

However, I’m not getting all that far ahead. I feel like the amount of stuff in this house is at a steady state. In reality, there is more going out than in but it’s more of a trickle. I’d like to see quicker progress.

Soooooo… I’m wondering if I should shake it up a bit next year. Set a one year challenge that forces me to deal with parts of my house that I have been able to ignore so far. Maybe… double my goal.

That’s right, I’m thinking of setting a goal to get rid of 4028 things for 2014.

That’s an average of about 11 things per day.

Is that crazy?

It might be (The Husband thinks I'm insane), but I think it could be an excellent exercise. I wouldn’t be able to coast on giving away baby stuff and sorting through art projects. A bigger challenge would force me to dig deeper.

That would be a very good thing.