Fun & Easy 30-day Minimalism Decluttering Challenge & Game
Whether you are a minimalist, a devotee of Marie Kondo or just someone who would like their home to be a little more manageable 30 days from now, there is a great way to get you from here to the end of that month. You don’t have to adopt a minimalist lifestyle to play. You just have to want less stuff in your life to play the awesome 30-day minimalism game challenge!.
The 30-Day Minimalism Game
The original 30-Day Minimalism Game is the brainchild of Ryan Nicodemus and Joshua Fields Millburn, the two men known as The Minimalists. (They have a website, a podcast, a blog, and books. If you have thought about minimalism at all, a quick Google search brings their names up right away. T.K. Coleman has since joined them.) It’s become a social media challenge, embraced on Facebook, Reddit, and Twitter. It even has its own hashtag, #MinsGame.
The idea behind this game is to engage a friend or family member, or better yet, multiple people, to play the game with you. You start with small steps. On the first day, you get rid of one single thing. On the second day, two things must go. The third day, it’s three things. If you start at the beginning of a new month, then the date will match how many things need to go. On day 30, it’s 30 things.
The catch here is that whether you donate or sell the items in good condition or you trash worn out things, these items need to be out of your house by midnight the same day. This clutter does not get to linger in your home. Get rid of it now!
It’s an easy decluttering challenge that first week. Maybe you get rid of the low-hanging fruit, the easy stuff. Maybe you have old magazines you won’t re-read, extra water bottles, or an empty bottle of stain-remover in your basement laundry room you just haven’t thrown out yet. Old receipts, expired food, tools, duplicates, collectibles, and furniture are all fair game.
But as the days get into double digits, it will get harder, although your decluttering muscles will be stronger as you get into the habit of making decisions about your home every single day.
On day 22, you need to get rid of 22 things, so maybe you are looking through your books to find the ones you won’t read again or digging through your junk drawer for the inevitable rubber bands, paperclips, and safety pins you don’t need. Look at your flat surfaces, like your coffee table or your kitchen counters; we tend to drop things there that don’t belong, and the piles eventually become invisible to our eyes.
Under their game rules, whoever keeps decluttering the longest wins. If you and your friend both make it to 30 days, you both win. (I’d argue that you win any day that you get rid of unwanted or unneeded possessions.)
If you do keep up for the full 30 days, following the numbers, you will have decluttered 465 items. Wow! Those little things add up, and I bet a month from now, you won’t even remember what you got rid of. (The LA Times ran an article in 2014 stating that the average American home had 300,000 items. Consumerism hasn’t stopped, and storage unit facilities are popping up everywhere, so I doubt the number of items is much different today.)
If you need help with the basics of decluttering your home, check this out: https://minimalisthome.ca/a-to-z-minimalist-home-decluttering-strategies/
Alternative Versions of the 30-day Minimalism Game
Like with everything else on the internet, as the word spread about the game, other variations turned up. You can still follow the rules to get rid of a set number of things every day, but there’s a bit more choice and adaptability in these variations. It does not necessarily have to be your entire home if that’s too overwhelming. Or maybe your whole home doesn’t need decluttered because you’ve already done some of the work.
Here are some other options.
1. Reverse: Start with Big Numbers.
This is my FAVOURITE way to play the 30-day minimalism game! Instead of starting with one thing on the first day, some people have found it a less daunting task to flip the order and do the biggest days first. On the first day of the month, when you are still feeling excited and optimistic, declutter 30 things. The next day, 29 things need to leave your space. By late in the month, you will be down to smaller numbers. Maybe that big storage unit will be empty and deemed redundant by the end of the month. Wouldn’t that be a big removal for the last day?
This approach may work better for someone who knows they have too much stuff and is comfortable letting go of things.
2. Randomize Your Numbers.
To take this approach, you will need a tracker sheet (I made this one for you!). This allows you more flexibility to choose which day you want to tackle. This is helpful if you really don’t know what your time is going to look like for the month or if you know you’ll have less time during specific parts of the month. One day, you get three things decluttered, and you can cross off day three. If you have extra time the next day, go for a higher number.
However, like full Bingo sheets, you still need a blackout. You need to declutter every number from 1 to 30.
This could be a tougher approach if you don’t manage it well and let yourself have too many easy days at the beginning and end up with a string of 20+ days which is probably what you were trying to avoid by not doing the challenge the traditional way.
3. Declutter One Specific Area.
Maybe it is more practical to start with one specific area, like the basement or even the off-site storage locker, where you want to stop paying that monthly fee to keep it.
This is a good idea if you have some areas that are less accessible at certain times of the year. For some people, the garage might be a space best decluttered in the spring or fall when it’s not too cold or hot. It’s also a time when you are more likely to be using the power tools, gardening supplies and other things you store in your garage. If you didn’t use the kids’ soccer net this spring or the camping gear waiting in the corner of the garage, let it go.
You may also find that the change of seasons guides your decluttering. Leading into cooler weather, you may feel it’s a great time to declutter the kitchen and dining room in anticipation of the holidays and the guests you may be hosting for large meals and visits. If you are blessed with a large kitchen and pantry, you might want an entire month to focus on it.
4. Declutter by Category.
This was one of Marie Kondo’s key tenets in her KonMari Method, made popular in her book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up and her Netflix program. While Kondo is not primarily focused on the decluttering process, she believes that tidying one space at a time dooms us to clutter because we tend to store similar products in multiple locations. We don’t get the scope of how many we have because we keep cleaning up the blankets in the living room without considering all the blankets in the attic, the bedrooms and the hall closet.
This approach provides a focus for a simple 30-day minimalism challenge. Maybe the focus needs to be on laundry: week one in the laundry room, weeks two and three in the bedrooms and linen closet, and the fourth week sorting what you have tucked away in the storage bins of old clothes. Many of us have storage bins of clothing kids have outgrown or bins with our own concert shirts and university sweatshirts. They aren’t all keepers!
Craft supplies and books are another couple of categories that could take 30 days, depending on how much you have. Minimalism doesn’t mean not having hobbies; it’s about having what you will use, what you will enjoy and knowing what you actually have in that inventory.
Next month, you can focus on something else. Might I suggest tackling paper clutter? You already know what important documents you need to keep hard copies of.
5. Digital.
While The Minimalists were focused on physical things and getting those material possessions out of the house, many people have borrowed the 30-day minimalism game to tackle their digital files and electronic clutter.
Emails, text messages, apps, photos, files, contacts, bookmarks, PDFs (especially for those restaurant menus), temporary internet files and history. It all adds up to a ton of electronic clutter. (No, you don’t need multiple copies of the same document.) That can impact your mental health just as easily as the physical clutter does. It causes stress because it all demands your attention, and you can’t focus on one thing.
You can declutter your phone, social media accounts, computer/laptop/tablet, or all of the above. It’s so easy to accumulate extra files we don’t need. This can slow down your machine’s performance and make it harder for you to find what you are looking for. It is also a good time to review the content in your cloud storage or other digital storage since so much gets backed up automatically, whether we need it or not.
Some people have even gone further. After cleaning up their digital footprint, they’ve taken a 30-day digital break or detox to break the scrolling habit and become more intentional about their use of it. Your digital world should not be a source of stress in your life.
Social Media and Support.
The Minimalists were right about having someone else doing this challenge alongside you. It keeps you accountable to someone else and gives you someone to talk to about the struggles, the questions and the wins along the way. If you don’t have someone to join up with, come to our Minimalist Home Facebook page. We’d love to support you.
You don’t have to share photos online or tell us exactly what went out the door today, but it’s a fun way to show that you aren’t alone and a great place to ask questions. And you have the answers that someone else is looking for, even if you don’t feel like it.
Important Things To Remember with All Decluttering.
Of course, all decluttering comes with a few recommendations and conditions.
At the start, decide how much time per day you will devote to this project.
It doesn’t have to be a long time. Some days will be quicker than others, but even 15 minutes per day is 105 minutes in a week or 7.5 hours over 30 days. Be realistic about the time you have in this season of your life. If it’s 5 minutes a day, then go with it and that’s still 2.5 hours of dedicated time for your 30-day minimalist challenge! Don’t just leave it open to whatever free time you have; commit to it.
Before starting, make sure you understand what your motivation is for decluttering.
Why do you want to have less stuff? This is key to keeping you motivated on the days when you don’t feel like doing it. You need that end goal!
You should not declutter other people’s things.
You can only set an example for them. Some of your decluttering will be household items that no one but you cares about; this is more directed at your ten-year-old’s comic books you haven’t seen him read in a year, your teen’s old makeup and skincare products that didn’t work for them, or your husband’s just-in-case pile.
You can’t organize clutter.
It’s helpful to begin with garbage bags for trash, a donation bag (or cardboard box you don’t mind leaving with the donated goods), and a container of some kind to hold the stuff you need to relocate if you are not going to take it there now. No matter how you tackle this to-do list, you will undoubtedly find something in the wrong place.
Never start with sentimental items.
Leave those favourites for last when you have become a strong decision-maker.
Stem the tide of new things coming in.
This will likely happen naturally as your mindset shifts toward having fewer things to take care of and your cleaning routine starts to take less time because you have a designated place to put everything away. Even better, your family will start to know where to put things away!
Ultimately, no one is policing your decluttering journey, and it is up to you if you count those six replacement shirt buttons on a piece of cardboard as six items or one. The important thing is to get out of your comfort zone, see the clutter and get started on giving yourself the living space you deserve. Maybe one of these versions of the 30-day minimalism game or challenges is a good fit to get you started! Good luck!