On Friday my husband announced we would be partaking in a new project – “Seven Things Sunday”* – where the objective is to throw out, donate or sell at least seven items each week. As someone with mild hoarding tendencies, my immediate response (after feeling my entire body tense) was to ask if he could be one of the seven items? (Cue mildly frustrated look from my dearest other half).
However, as the day went on, I ‘noodled’ what this could mean if I were to take it seriously. Surprisingly, I found myself warming to the idea for several reasons:
- I have spent a lot of money in the last 15+ years – on both crap and designer stuff. Most of this I never needed and, never will need.
- I have put too much value on ‘things’. In trying to change this tendency I think it’s important to dissect the psychology behind my former spending habits to prevent me ever going down the same lines.
- Since giving up a well-paid Wall St. job to work with tech startups, I don’t have the same spending power as I did – there’s potential cash hiding around the apartment in the form of unneeded stuff.
- I get a lot of pleasure from giving stuff away – both to charity as well as to friends and family.
By blogging, instagramming and tweeting about this, I hope to make new habits become permanent habits and also have some fun with something that I normally avoid!
PLEASE JOIN ME - use the hashtag #SevenThingsSunday to tweet about what you throw out and share any stories about the items or personal epiphanies?
Acknowledgements:
*Inspiration for this project came from my husband reading “The Minimalists” blog. Lots of tips for anyone trying to de-clutter and simplify.
Cover Photo: Courtesy of Flickr, Embedded Photo: Courtesy of Wikipedia
