Have you ever heard of the 100 Things Challenge? It started quite a few years ago, but a man named Dave Bruno decided to challenge himself to cut down his personal belonging to only 100 things in an effort to fight consumerism. It's since sparked a movement among many people to reduce their own belonging for a variety of reasons.
The idea of the challenge is to Reduce (get rid of some of your stuff), Refuse (to get more new stuff), and Rejigger (your priorities), as Dave puts it. Whether you are fighting the American style consumerism (like Dave), wanting to clean your life and live simpler (like me), or maybe even just want to get rid of useless clutter, the challenge can be a great thing.
It isn't something that is set in stone with rigid rules to follow, it can be whatever fits your life. Perhaps you don't want to do 100 things, maybe something more or something less works better for you! Either way, here are some SIMPLE guidelines that the challenge is based from.
- You can only get rid of PERSONAL BELONGINGS. This doesn't include things that are shared within the family like dishes, furniture, or the television. Maybe if you're single and you want to count those things then that is up to you.
- Things that are a PAIR OR GROUP count as one item. A pair of shoes, a set of wrenches, a pack of pins each count as one item.
- You can purchase new things in the future, but then you should get rid of something to STAY WITHIN YOUR 100 THINGS.
Now, like I said before, these are guidelines to get you to understand the principle of the
100 Things Challenge. You can modify it to fit your needs based on what works best for you. For example, many people think that their book collection counts only as one item since it's a collection of items. I've also heard of someone counting their entire shoe collection as one item even though they did pare down on the number of pairs they owned.
This is all up to you, just as the number of items you want to reduce to! I found an awesome list by
mnmlist of the 50 things they've reduced to. If 100 things isn't enough of a challenge then a smaller number like 50 could do. If 100 seems like too few then perhaps a larger number like 150 or 200 is a good place to start. Either way it's what works for you.
Minimizing My Things
I heard people talking about the 100 Things Challenge a couple of years ago and was always intrigued. It wasn't until recently moving back and forth that I quickly realized there was a lot in my life that I really could live without. I will admit that I've always struggled with getting rid of useful things, though I'm not a hoarder by any means (
my husband will jokingly beg to differ).
After letting go of quite a few clothes, I'm now seeing that there are certainly other areas of my home that need to desperately be decluttered and organized. Now while I'm going to try to reduce my personal possessions down to around 100 items (as yet to be determined as I take stock in what I actually own), I do plan to declutter other areas of my home as well and get rid of things that I know my family doesn't need.
My daughter has a sippy cup collection that is beginning to spill out of the cupboards and an entire bin of toys that she doesn't even touch. Though I won't be counting these things in my personal challenge or created a numbered list for them, I do plan to tackle them head on none-the-less. My goal is to completely declutter my home and clear my family's life of unnecessary stress. My husband is in the Army and deploying soon and I would like for him to return to an organized home.
So the 100 Things Challenge is not something that happens overnight, it's more of a process. I plan on taking steps to get to my goal and blogging along the way. Take a look at some of these awesome posts I've found about how others have taken on the challenge for themselves.
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zenhabits- Minimalist Fun: The 100 Things Challenge
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Simpler Living- Taking The 100 Things Challenge
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Rowdy Kitten- Living with 72 Things
