That’s a wrap on the #minsgame – lessons from 18 months of decluttering

I’m all #minsgame-d out – for now!

The challenge

My husband and I ended up completing two rounds of the #minsgame at our place between August and October.  We breezed through the August round and went, gung-ho, straight into another round. However, by mid-September, we gave other things priority and couldn’t keep up the pace. Plus, documenting all the decluttering was becoming a drag.

The garage, bookshelves in the office, wardrobe and misc. craft stuff were the main targets.

I hate leaving a challenge unfinished; it was playing on my mind, plus I had a few problem areas I still wanted to attack when I saw Brooke McAlary was doing the #minsgame in October. That settled it – I decided to pick up from where we’d left off. (If you haven’t heard of Brooke, you really must check out her blog and podcast).

The office, kitchen and garage feature again. A whole bag of receipts!

Mission accomplished – mostly

Early on, I set myself some goals for the #minsgame. I wanted to make the following activities around my home a non-event:

• finding baking ingredients in my pantry (accomplished)
• having someone to stay in the spare bedroom (accomplished)
• finding something to wear (getting there, although there’s still room for improvement)
• using my desk (repeatedly accomplished, but only fleetingly!).

The great thing is that, besides my desk, re-cluttering hasn’t been an issue. The space I created hasn’t been re-colonised with new clutter. This is my biggest success of all. I’m determined not to let sneaky Christmas clutter ruin my progress.

I am much more aware of clutter now, and much more inclined to simply deal with it. And, I haven’t missed a thing! I can’t think of a single thing I decluttered in the last 18 months that I regret parting ways with.

All my previous posts on the #minsgsame are archived under the tag #minsgame.

Have you played the #minsgame or attempted a big decluttering exercise? What did you learn? What lasting changes (if any) did you make?