You may remember that I wrote a post last week about my “decluttering your home” mission. Specifically, we are going to get rid of 730 items in our home by the end of the year. Oh yes we are!

Would you believe me if I told you that we’ve already gotten rid of 100 things? It’s true!

Even if you aren’t interested in getting rid of this much stuff in your own home, I hope to be able to give you some very doable challenges over the coming months that can help you eliminate some junk without taking up too much of your time.

This week, I want to encourage you to take a good, hard look at your set of keys. You know, the super heavy thing that you carry around with you every single day! I bet for 90% of you, there is at least 1 key on your keyring that opens who knows what…you certainly don’t! When I looked at my keys, I found 4 keys with no purpose that I could recall. They are gone now, and that makes my keyring look less cluttered. And now I’m not carrying around that little bit of extra weight every day. Hooray! You may also have 3 or 4 key chains, and I’d encourage you to consider getting rid of all but 1 of them, just to simplify your life a little bit.

If you participate in this challenge, let me know how many keys or extra key chains you get rid of!

 

Did I get your attention? I’m joining in on a weight loss revolution. But it might not be the kind you are thinking about! I’m talking about getting rid of some serious STUFF! Amy at The Finer Things in Life recently announced that she planned to get rid of 730 items in her house over the next 365 days. That averages out to 2 items per day. Some days she may get rid of nothing, while other days she may get rid of 20+ items. But at the end of the year, the total will be at least 730 things that she will be donating, selling, passing along to a friend, or when necessary, throwing away.

I am SO joining her on this mission! We have so much more in our home than we reasonably need. And have you ever noticed that when it comes to stuff, you experience what economists call “diminishing marginal utility?” That basically means that the more you have, the less joy you get from each object (sorry if that is a rough explanation, I took econ 10 years ago). I frequently feel frustrated, zapped of energy and totally overwhelmed in my home because it gets so messy so quickly. This happens because we have so much stuff! So all of these great things that I have are more of a source of sadness than joy. That means that they need to go!

If you’d like to join in, let me know in the comments. I will try to update you a few times a month on our progress.