If you want to start slowly on your minimalism journey but make steady progress decluttering, the minimalism game might be for you.
What is the Minimalism Game?
Popularized by The Minimalists (learn more about them here), the minimalism game is a way to consciously and steadily declutter a space — whether a room or your whole house — over the course of a month (or however long you want to play it, but a month is standard).
It’s very simple.
On day one, choose one thing to get rid of.
On day two, it’s two things.
Get rid of three things on the third day.
And so on until the end of the month, when you’re decluttering 30 or 31 things in a day.
To quote them on the process:
Anything goes!
Collectables.
Decorations.
Kitchenware.
Electronics.
Furniture.
Bedding.
Clothes.
Towels.
Tools.Whether you donate, sell, or trash your excess, every material possession must be out of your house—and out of your life—by midnight each day.
How Does it Work?
The idea behind the minimalism game is two-fold.
First, you start really small to help build momentum. It’s easy to toss one, four, or six things in a day, much harder when it’s 26.
But once you get to those days when you need to get rid of more, you’ll have built some understanding that you don’t need as much as you have, so it shouldn’t be as hard as it feels when you start.
The second key is that it is a game, and it’s meant to be at least a two-player game.
So it works best if you have someone to be accountable to, someone you can report in to every day to say you did the challenge for that day.
Someone you want to beat can also be motivating, if you decide on a “prize” for the “winner,” which is whoever keeps going the longest.
If you both make it for a month, you both win. And really any effort toward decluttering at all is a win.
Can Crafters Do the Minimalism Game?
I think the minimalism game can work for decluttering craft supplies, though it’s a much slower process that I would typically recommend.
I like digging in to different parts of my stash and trying to go through it all at once (that’s the approach I use in my book) rather than counting however many things you’re supposed to be getting rid of on a particular day and stopping there.
I’ve never played the minimalism game but I almost feel like if I did it I’d want to play it backwards.
Day one would be 30 items.
Then 29. 28 and so on.
I have much more enthusiasm for a project when I’m starting it than when I’ve been doing it for weeks.
Plus it’s easier to see a large number of things to get rid of when you’re starting out then after weeks of removing the easiest things little by little.
And getting rid of 30 things on day one feels like you’ve accomplished something, much more so than even the 28 things you’d get rid of in the first week by the minimalism game’s rules.
But if those big numbers feel intimidating, feel free to do a warmup round of one item per day for a month, then do a regular circuit where you do one additional thing each day. It will help you build the muscle of decluttering and you’ll still feel a difference even with only 30 items gone. (Or do 5 a day for a month or whatever feels comfortable for you. See also: five things.)
Have you ever played the minimalism game? I’d love to hear about it!
