In my slow but relatively steady move towards a version of minimalism that fits my life, I have decided to remove at least one thing every day this month. Continuing to ‘clean things out’. It may be a small goal, but it is reachable. It may be a short amount of time, but it is a commitment that will (hopefully) be easily accomplished.
It can be done.
To assist myself with this task I have set up a couple automated reminders.
A 7:00 AM reminder in my Google Calendar:
This starts my day with a reminder of the goal. It also put another thing in my inbox, forcing me to think about it, also forcing me to take action to I can delete that email.
A 8:30 PM reminder in my Google Calendar:
Accountability — it asks the question assuming the task is done, and has a link to where I have decided to log everything this month.
My Fargo.io ‘Getting Rid of Things’ log:
“Fargo is a simple idea outliner, notepad, todo list, project organizer.” Fargo is an interesting, fairly new site built by Dave Winer. (Yes, that Dave Winer, the same guy that wrote the 1st blogging software, and RSS, among others.) I find it perfect for this; web-based, uses Dropbox to store the file, simple.
In people’s own journeys to de-clutter and de-stress their lives, I’ve read a lot of different approaches; from having a packing party, to the approach I am working on this month. There was a great post on Becoming Minimalist today: 10 Decluttering Principles.
We will see where this road goes.