Could You Live With Just 100 Things?

I’ve been seeing a lot of posts recently about people trying to pare their “stuff” down to just 100 things. I first saw it over on Stuck in Stuff, and then again on Zen Habits (which also talked about The Rucksack Life, a blog I hadn’t yet heard of).

I’ve been considering paring down my “stuff” (I have way too much of it) to 100 things. My husband and I are on vacation for the next 11 days, and I’m considering getting a small dumpster to start getting rid of things. I have boxes in my attic that have moved with us twice now and never been unpacked (and we’ve lived in our current house for almost four years). I’m going to make three piles - dumpster, charity/friends, and storage for anything we’re not keeping in the house.

We’re planning on putting our house on the market sometime in the next 6-10 months (probably in the spring), and I know that I need to clean out all of our clutter to improve our chances of selling. I’m hoping that we’ll be able to get rid of 75% of our stuff, put another 15% in storage (mostly personal, sentimental things), and keep only about 10% of our stuff in the house while selling. A huge benefit to this will be that moving is going to be that much easier and that much less stressful if we only have to move 1/4 of what we currently have into a new place. FYI: I plan on using Martha Stewart’s technique for moving, which should also make moving much less stressful (I absolutely love Martha!).

One thing that might surprise a lot of you is that we’re not really planning on downsizing when we move, and in fact will probably (hopefully) be getting into a significantly larger place. I have my eye on a beautiful historic home about 20 minutes from where I currently live that’s probably around 4,000 square feet (just a guess, it could be bigger). I’m thinking that while all that space is going to be great for entertaining, if I don’t make my life a bit more minimalistic, it’s just going to end up incredibly cluttered and hard to keep clean!

So, back on topic, I’m thinking about trying to get down to only 100 things during this vacation. But, it’s a bit complicated. Do I count my Moleskines as one thing or a bunch of things (I currently carry four with me and have three more at home that I use)? What about the legal pads I use for my creative writing (I just started a novel earlier this week and have written 14 pages so far!)? And my pens (I carry 7 in my bag and have a bunch of others around the house)? I’m definitely thinking that my books should only count as one thing, otherwise I’d easily exceed my 100 things by 200 or more things! Should I count furniture? Bedding? Is a set of sheets one thing or four (flat sheet, fitted sheet and two pillow cases)? I use two pillows and so does my husband, is that four things, two things, or one thing? Do each of my dogs count (I have two) and my cat? Or are they considered family members? And if they’re family, do each of them get 100 things? If they do, can I use that to cheat and say that all of the furniture counts as their things instead of mine (after all, they’re on the furniture at least as much as I am)? Do vehicles count? Tools?

It’s a lot to think about. I guess before I actually start getting rid of stuff I have to decide what’s going to be included. I’ll keep this updated, and would appreciate anyone’s opinions about what should or shouldn’t be included.

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