A few weeks ago, I spoke about Marci Shimoff and her amazing Feng Shui Challenge. Of course, I can't hear the word "challenge" without jumping aboard, so I enthusiastically joined in. The rules are simple:
Get rid of 27 things a day for 9 days. Get rid of can mean give away, donate, recycle, throw away... it doesn't really matter, as long as the object leaves your environment permanently. Here is what I found.
- You can't decide what to get rid of without putting the rest of it away. True story. Piles disappeared, and sometimes nothing in that pile was part of the 27 items for the day. We're talking piles that had been there for a year.
- I had SO MUCH STUFF I never use and don't need. If I hadn't touched it for a year and didn't anticipate touching it in the next month, it was gone.
- I had DUPLICATES of so many things! How many sets of cute appetizer forks does one girl really need? I kept a few of my favorite sets and gifted the rest to friends.
- I had absolutely NO PROBLEM finding enough things to get rid of, and I haven't regretted a single thing I purged. In fact, I'm thinking of doing a three day addendum, because I still see some junk lying around, and now I can't just ignore it like before!
Here's the summation, folks: My art studio is clean, and I can find all of my supplies. My kitchen counters are clean and I can cook with ease. My closet is clean, and there are no shoes in there that I haven't worn in the last year. I even got rid of some old handbags. I can find what I want. I can see what I have. It's a good thing.Labels: challenge, clean, feng shui, Lezli Goodwin, Marci Shimoff, organize