I love purging our home of underused items; the feeling of control and the opportunity to organize are right up my alley.  Ryan, on the other hand, doesn’t share my enthusiasm.  We have Rubbermade containers in our garage full of old Boy Scout projects and Garfield comic books; if it were up to him, he would own 75 t-shirts.  A few months ago I did a major clean out of our kitchen; I donated two large boxes of things, and found a few items I deemed valuable enough to try to sell (I use a Beg/Barter/Buy page on Facebook, more about that another day).  Since then I had been itching for both of us to clean out our closets.

Before I describe the actual closet purge, let me back up a bit; Ryan had been encouraging me to read a chapter in his new favorite book The 4-Hour Workweek. The chapter was about taking a mini-retierment, but the author discusses cutting the clutter, saying “It’s time to get rid of clutter disguised as necessities” (265).  And how! This was my chance; how could he brush off the advice of his new favorite author, in his new favorite book?  I decided to go first, quickly filling three trash bags.  Had I worn it in the last year?  Did I absolutely love it? Goodbye!  Now, just to add a little fuel to the fire, a challenge (Ryan is ultra competitive).  At first he was resistant, but when I brought up the book he knew he couldn’t say no.  I think he beat me in quantity purged, but our closet was cut in half, so really I’m the winner.

My half of the closet; look at all those empty hangers.

Ryan’s half of the closet

I really hope I can keep this momentum going.  My motivation is two fold: I really do love the feeling of sending unused items out the door, but also, we are moving over the summer, almost certainly to a home that is significantly smaller than the one we currently live in.  Right now we have 3 bedrooms, and about 2600 square feet; the house we are most interested in is 4 bedrooms and about 1800 square feet.  The next challenge is toys;   I can’t wait to say goodbye to all the plastic, noise-making, light-flashing crap we have accumulated over the last five years.

One more picture before I go:

“Reverse the damage of years of consuming as much as you can afford.” Timothy Ferriss, The 4-Hour Workweek