Time Management Tuesday: A Brief History Of Possession Purges

I have a couple of younger family members who have recently been purging their homes of unnecessary material items. Yes, indeed, it seems the acorn doesn't fall far from the tree, since I did something similar for an entire month. Three times.

I am a big, big believer in less being more and that living with mass quantities of things around us has a very big impact on how we're able to use our time. It's especially true for those of us who work at home. And there are more of us these days. 

So what's been going on with my family inspired me to round up some OC posts on the purging we did here over the years, including the research that supports backing a truck up to your house and filling it up.

 The October Purge Results 2014

"...during the month of October I divested my home of one item a day because

• The Environmental Disorder study found that a disorganized environment can undermine impulse control. You need a little impulse control in my line of work.
• Owning a lot of stuff is time consuming because you have to take care of it. 
• According to the author of  Overwhelmed, the Danes don't buy and save a lot of stuff. It's good to be a Dane." 

The October Purge Results 2015

"We did, indeed, each find an item a day in October to get out of this house. That's sixty material possessions we don't need to spend time dealing with. That's more than 22 cubic feet of belongings that won't cause disorder in our lives, leading to self-regulatory failure. Seriously, someone (not mentioning any names, Civil Guy) measured the heap, did some calculations, and came up with 22+ cubic feet. Evidently that's not much when you're talking loads of gravel or concrete. But we're talking stuff."

 A Merciless Purge 2017 

"The big difference between this year's purge and other years' is that our month of purging ended, but we didn't stop. We're still working on the shelving in the living room. Wish I'd thought to take a before picture of that. We got rid of some items from the kitchen just this past week, and I have my eye on something in my office. In fact, some serious shuffling of office material could be in my future."

We're Minimalists Now

 

We haven't had an annual purge here at Chez Gauthier in three years. We haven't eliminated all unnecessary material items from our lives, by any means. But we consider ourselves minimalists and trying to live a minimalist lifestyle is a daily effort now, not an annual one. We're always getting rid of things. We're always thinking about what we want to purchase, bring into our home, and live with. This philosophy even impacts our gift giving. I, in particular, am very mindful about how much I saddle others with in the form of gifts.

I do think possession purges have had a positive impact on my work output. But I'm always looking to get rid of more, so I can do more.