As I've mentioned in my recap blog for July, I've been listening to a podcast about minimalism. At some point, the podcasters mentioned a month-long minimalism game. When I listened to the details of the game, I thought, 'Hmmmm -- why not?' So during the month of August, I tried it out.
There is a site that detailed this minimalism game, but I didn't check it out. I took what I learned about the game from the podcast and filled in the rest of the rules. Here is my version of the 30-Day Minimalism Game (I'll note if it's different from how it's mentioned on the site):
Game Details
-On the first day, you choose one physical thing to mark for throwing, donating, whatever. It just has to leave your collection / ownership. Then on the next day, you do the same thing, but this time for two physical things. For the third day, you find three things. And it keeps going like that through the whole month. The site says to do this for 30 days, but I did it for the month. Since I did it in August, I tried for 31 days.-I'm giving myself until the end of the year to get rid of most or all of these things. I may have a few exceptions depending on if I'm going to give some of these to friends / family and it takes until next year to actually see them or if I want to try selling it. The site says to get rid of the things each day by midnight (just not do-able for me).
-I did this game by myself. The site says to do it with somebody else, almost like a competition (which is a very good idea!).
Me and Minimalism
I think I started embracing the idea of minimalism after I re-arranged my shelves some months ago. Weeks later, I'd buy a new video game, book, or movie and then I'd spend about 10-30 minutes each time trying to figure out where to put it in my room. My re-arranged shelves didn't have space for new items... and the stacked boxes already had enough things on top of them (yes, I have boxes of things stacked up in my room -- and things on top of those stacked boxes).It got to a point where I felt overwhelmed and stressed to be owning so many things. It's not always apparent, but there is some responsibility when it comes to owning a physical item -- the decision of what to do with it; where it goes in your room; what you may not get because that item is already taking up space on your shelf (or wherever). I don't really want to keep living in a room where half of my things are displayed and the other half are in boxes... and moving to a larger space isn't really the answer, at least not to me.
That's when I started looking into minimalism. To me, the idea of minimalism is to "reduce the clutter", so there'd be less things to think / stress about, freeing up more time to focus on the things I want to focus on.
This doesn't mean to give up the things I love... but maybe the things I could live without. I've been guilty of holding several video games or movies because I thought, 'it would be great to show somebody'. It sounds easy enough to make happen, but not for me... so I could end up holding some things for many, many years.
I've also been guilty of getting things for the sake that they could be fairly hard-to-get. I can be a big sucker for collector's editions, limited editions, that kind of stuff... and then because they are rare, it could be hard for me to give up, even if I don't particularly care about them...
Now, I'll never be a "true" minimalist. Minimalism tends to encourage having a digital collection (scanning photos, owning media digitally, for example). There are some physical collections I will never, ever give up. Plus, I prefer physical books over e-books.
Since I am trying to get closer to a minimalist lifestyle, I'll probably have to update my gift list blog in the future. I'd rather not receive any physical gifts unless they are maybe food gifts (nothing spicy, though!!).
If you read this part of the blog, thank you! You are awesome :)
Without further ado, here are the things I marked for the first 10 days of this minimalism game, with whatever commentary I may have. A full list will be at the end of the blog.
DAY 1
I don't remember how I got this. I kept it for all this time because I thought it was cute.
DAY 2
I don't remember anything that's written in either of these books (my apologies to the books).
DAY 3
I do love that avocado plushie... but I think I should express my love for it by eating more avocados in the future :) <3
DAY 4
Those Cardcaptor Sakura manga volumes cover the last half of the original series (volumes 7-12). I do have the first 6 volumes, but they are in a different format and I was gifted volume 1, so... it'll be stuck with me.
DAY 5
Those Pokemon felt things are magnets. They're meant to be stuck on fabric, so you could stick them on your clothes and show off your Pokemon fandom. I thought the idea was really neat, but -- I don't have that many friends to show that off to! Also, magnets could be dangerous if I'm not careful.
I just watched She and Her Cat (it was a DVD extra for Voices of a Distant Star and I didn't realize it for all these years). The manga adaptation's not so bad.
DAY 6
I don't have much to say here. I never did anything with that Legend Cocktails book. I only had the creepy-ish pink figure because I'm a Junko Mizuno fan.
DAY 7
The series is decent, but I don't really need it in my collection.. The 7th item is the empty mint container at the top.
DAY 8
I've never worn that headband after buying it. I would have kept the Miso T-shirt if it was in a different colour. White is such a see-through colour...
DAY 9
I took these from my sister's hubby who started reading One Piece a few years ago and he didn't want them. Even though I love One Piece very much, I never intended to own the entire series physically -- there's too many volumes! Instead, I opted to buy specific volumes for the stories that really hit my gut.
For anybody who's curious, the specific volumes I bought were: 16 (Chopper's story), 58, and 59 (Ace's story *hug*).
DAY 10
All the manga and DVDs here are good. I just... don't need them in my collection anymore. I wish the rest of YaWaRa! was licensed so I could watch the rest of that series. There was one story I really loved in Parasyte M. Maybe I'll re-read it before getting rid of it.
As for the paper fans, I just think I have too many paper fans. Even after throwing these out, I have three other paper fans I could use.
Item list (as best I can list it) -- split by each day
1. Small plushie
2. 7 Habits of Highly Effective People mini-book
3. The Worst-Case Scenario mini-book
4. Ditto mini-figure
5. Avocado plushie
6. Cheep-Cheeps plushie (Fish from Mario)
7. I was Here journal book
8. Acute manga
9. Cardcaptor Sakura: Volume 1 manga
10. Cardcaptor Sakura: Volume 2 manga
11. She and Her Cat manga
12. The Garden of Words manga
13. Pikachu felt magnet
14. Pokeball felt magnet
15. Pokeball felt magnet
16. Hatsune Miku figure
17. Meat bun mini-plushie
18. Meat bun mini-plushie
19. Water bottle
20. Legend Cocktails book
21. Junko Mizuno-styled figure
22. Streetfighter: Volume 1 graphic novel
23. Streetfighter: Volume 2 graphic novel
24. Streetfighter: Volume 3 graphic novel
25. Streetfighter: Volume 4 graphic novel
26. Streetfighter: Volume 5 graphic novel
27. Streetfighter: Volume 6 graphic novel
28. Happy Tree Friends empty mint container
29. Some arm scarf thing (I forget the actual name for it)
30. Headband
31. Miso T-shirt
32. PSP cartridge container
33. PSP cartridge container
34. Cat T-shirt
35. Striped tank top
36. Green tank top
37. One Piece: Volume 1-3 manga
38. One Piece: Volume 4-6 manga
39. One Piece: Volume 7-9 manga
40. One Piece: Volume 10-12 manga
41. One Piece: Volume 13-15 manga
42. One Piece: Volume 16-18 manga
43. One Piece: Volume 19-21 manga
44. One Piece: Volume 22-24 manga
45. One Piece: Volume 25-27 manga
46. Solanin manga
47. No Longer Human manga
48. Parasyte M manga
49. Parasyte F manga
50. Peach Girl DVD collection
51. YaWaRa! DVD collection
52. Boo mini-plushie
53. Plastic fan
54. Plastic fan
55. Smaller plastic fan
Thanks for reading! If you have any questions or comments, feel free.
Next blog will be Part 2.
For those in Canada, Happy early Labour Day!
Take care, stay safe, and until next time! :)
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