I’ve always been really interested in all things natural, organic, raw and minimalistic, but my actions are far from reflecting that. I follow so many Instagram accounts of people who own little and value experiences over things, and I dream of living that life. It wasn’t until I read my fellow HCMN member Anna’s article, “My New Year’s Resolution Was to Try Minimalism: Here’s What I’m Learning” that I realized I can make changes to my life to become these people that I wish to become.
After feeling inspired by this, I wasn’t exactly sure where to start. I wasn’t ready to just jump right in and change my entire lifestyle in one day, but I did feel inspired enough to need to do something. I would come close to saying it must have been fate, but during one of my daily Pinterest searches, I stumbled upon a 30 Day Minimalist Challenge. Perfect! It’s a start and it’s easy enough for me to do while still pushing my boundaries just enough. So without further ado, here was my experience doing this 30 Day Minimalist Challenge:
Day 1: Purge your wardrobe: I have been meaning to clean out my closet anyway, so this was a nice little push to finally do it. Easy start to the challenge!
Day 2: Clean your handbag: Being a college student, I just live out of my backpack and I hardly ever use a purse. So, to make this a little more worth my while, I decided to clean out the 2 handbags I own along with my backpack. I am an extremely organized person to begin with, so I don’t think I cleaned out more than a gum wrapper and an old worksheet.
Day 3: Toss out old socks: Surprisingly, this was actually a pretty tough one for me. I hold on to every pair of socks I’ve ever owned because I always have that “What if I need it for Halloween next year? Or for a wacky dress up day?” in my head. I don’t think I actually got rid of that many socks…
Day 4: Get rid of digital devices: I was a little confused by this one… I don’t own a lot of random digital devices that I can just “get rid of”. I have my iPhone, my MacBook, and my GoPro, and I use these things almost daily. So instead of getting rid of any of these things, I just took some time to really appreciate how fortunate I am to be able to own all of these things.
Day 5: Empty your wallet: Again, being the extremely organized person that I am, I didn’t have much to clean out.
Day 6: Write your friends’ best qualities: As I said before, I feel like this challenge was almost fate. This happened to fall on the same day as me and my boyfriend’s 4 year anniversary, so I decided to use this to my advantage to shower him with more love!
Day 7: Write your best qualities: This was hard. Being the age that I am and always having to say my strengths for interviews and applications, I immediately started writing down these go-to strengths: organized, quick-learner, self-motivated. After a little bit I realized that I was sort-of selling myself short. Sure, all of these things are great, but I am more than just those things that are applicable when searching for a job. I am a good friend, a good listener, passionate, smiley and so much more. This was one of my favorite challenges because I was able to remember all the great things that I am that are sometimes easy to forget in the hecticness of life.
Day 8: Journal for 20 minutes: HARD. I’ve never really journaled before so I had no idea where to start. Maybe I should’ve done a little research beforehand on ‘good’ journaling, but I basically wrote about anything that popped into my head.
Day 9: Donate old books: At school, I only have textbooks, but I still donated a few old ones!
Day 10: Ditch the makeup for one day: I love makeup and I wish I was good at it, but sadly, I am far from it. So that, combined with being a busy student, I hardly ever wear makeup, so this one was not a challenge at all.
Day 11: Meditate on your day: This happened on a typical school-day, so there wasn’t anything that interested to meditate on.
Day 12: Spend time with loved ones: Not sure how many times I’ll say this, but I swear this was fate because this fell on the weekend where I was home for Easter! I got to spend some much needed time with my family.
Day 13: Make a gratitude log: Super easy – I try to always think of everything I am thankful for, so it was easy to put it down on paper.
Day 14: Evaluate your last 5 purchases: 1. Fitness challenge with friends – good! 2. Spotify bill – even though it’s only $5.27 every month, I really could live without it… 3. Food from the airport – definitely could’ve lived without. Oops. 4. Grocery shopping – v necessary. 5. A new shirt from the mall – definitely didn’t need.
Day 15: Stay offline for a day: V HARD. Especially since most of my schoolwork is done online. I had to plan to make sure all my homework was done before I did this one.
Day 16: Don’t spend money for 24 hours: Check! Not too hard.
Day 17: Don’t complain all day: I always thought I was a pretty positive person, but I never realized how much I actually complain…
Day 18: Go out without your phone: ALSO V HARD. I kept panicking because I thought I lost my phone.
Day 19: Venture outdoors: This was on one of the first really nice weekends of April, so my boyfriend and I took advantage of that and biked from Coffman to Loring Park to Lake Calhoun and back to Dinkytown! I think my butt is still sore from the bike seat… definitely still worth it though!
Day 20: Create a relaxing space: I am such a firm believer in “treat yo-self,” and I love how relaxing spaces look anyway, so my apartment is a relaxing space all the time!
Day 21: Re-evaluate your to-do list: Got everything checked off that was on there!
Day 22: Declutter your storage: Kinda fun!
Day 23: Empty your junk drawer: Surprisingly, I don’t really have one area where I keep all my random junk, so I just cleaned out every area that had random things in it.
Day 24: Turn off notifications: It was a weird feeling not getting ANY notifications, but also kinda relaxing.
Day 25: Batch cook your meals: Since I only cook for myself, this usually ends up happening no matter what I make.
Day 26: Get all of your errands done: Check!
Day 27: Eliminate a toxic relationship: It took me awhile to come up with what to do for this. I don’t have any toxic relationships that come to mind instantly, so I took a little bit of a different route. I deleted/unfollowed a few people on social media who I just didn’t really need on there anymore. We didn’t talk unless they needed something from me, so there wasn’t really a need for that social media connection.
Day 28: Clear out your makeup collection: Again, I’m bad at makeup, so I didn’t have much that I was too attached to. I tossed some old makeup that was gross and crumbly and under-utilized.
Day 29: Say no to something: Surprisingly hard. I felt really guilty and rude even though it was a small task that was NBD.
Day 30: Re-purge your wardrobe: Much harder than the first time around! Overall, this was kind of a fun challenge. I did a lot of things I normally wouldn’t have done, and I’m definitely feeling inspired to continue working towards a more minimal-lifestyle. I hope you’re inspired to try some of these things out, or at least get a little spring cleaning done!