I Kept Track of Every Single Item That Entered Our Home Over a Month -

As I continue on in my journey towards minimalism, I am officially somewhere in the “messy middle” — that transitory state between The Constant Chaos That Once Reigned and Ultra-Streamlined Minimalist Zen. (And, depending on the day, I can’t even decide which extreme I’m actually closer to at the moment.)

The thing about this messy middle stage is that I’ve now (mostly) reached the point of resistance — I know I still have way too much stuff for me to manage effectively, but my mind is definitely putting up more fights now with some of the stuff I have left that really probably should go, but which I apparently am not quite ready to let go of for one reason or another.

In order to keep myself motivated to keep going (because I really need to keep going — my house is still too chaotic for me to manage, especially while running a more-than-full-time business), I’ve been trying to look at our stuff and our clutter in fresh ways so that I can remind myself of my “why” and give myself motivation to keep pushing through the hard.

My latest idea?

Keep track of every single item that comes into our home (other than food, which just seemed too complicated to count, even though it’s still technically stuff I have to manage), and count it up at the end of the month. Realize that unless I want to be buried alive by stuff, I need to not only get rid of equal to that total number every month, but I also need to be getting rid of even more than that in order to keep simplifying.

Curious as to what I recorded?

Let’s get to the data!

(Note: This was a month without birthdays, Christmas, or any other holiday that we typically purchase gifts for. This was also a month in the summer, so my kids weren’t bringing home masses of schoolwork like they would be the rest of the time. I think we could safely assume that in other months, the monthly total would easily be double or triple this amount. So just keep that in mind.)

(Second Note: This was only stuff that actually ENTERED our house/yard/garage. In other words, this didn’t count anything that I threw away immediately, like junk mail.)

Monday, July 1 – two free books in the mail from the kids’ school’s summer reading program, a pair of new work boots for Matt (so, two shoes), the boxes that the diapers and baby food and shoes came in (yep, gotta count boxes since my kids often claim them as toys for a good long while), the diapers themselves, of which there are 100 (which might seem silly to count, but when my babies outgrow a size of diapers, how often am I left with spare diapers in too-small sizes in various locations throughout the house? I will do a breakdown at the end, however, that counts generally “disposable” items in a separate category, like boxes and diapers).

Tuesday, July 2 – one free coloring book

Wednesday, July 3 – one newspaper from the mail

Thursday, July 4 – one pack of 4 glow sticks, two toy cars, one pack of plastic rubber spiders, one wooden kit box w/ 60 colored pencils, 3 coloring books, one squishy toy, three baggies full of 15 “treasures” the kids found at the park (can you tell the kids went to grandparents’ houses today?)

Friday, July 5 – two pieces of mail (bank statements), one box of 200 trash bags, laundry detergent, toilet paper, more diapers (234), 6 boxes that all that plus pantry food came in from Sam’s Club

Saturday, July 6 – two new books for me–this one and this one 🙂

Sunday, July 7 – one coloring page from church

Monday, July 8 – nothing

Tuesday, July 9 – four packages of rubber bands for the flower farm (700 in each, so 2800 rubber bands. However, I will still count them towards the total as just 4, because…yeah…)

Wednesday, July 10 – one pair of new work gloves for Matt, one piece of mail

Thursday, July 11 – one pair of new pajama/leisure pants for me

Friday, July 12 – one piece of mail with a gift certificate + card

Saturday, July 13 – 12 mousetraps, bag of 120 plastic Solo cups, one floral arrangement from a party (just counting the vase)

Sunday, July 14 – nothing

Monday, July 15 – ten T-posts

Tuesday, July 16 – nothing

Wednesday, July 17 – one new book from my Book of the Month subscription (by far my favorite way to treat myself! THIS book was the pick for this month)

Thursday, July 18 – two pieces of mail (tax document, insurance document)

Friday, July 19 – two certificates of completion for the kids’ swimming lessons

Saturday, July 20 – ten dollar store toys from the kids playing games at a local fair, 3 crocheted stuffed animals bought for them by their aunt + 2 beaded bracelets, one free shirt from the parade

Sunday, July 21 – nothing

Monday, July 22 – one magazine

Tuesday, July 23 – 17 black floral buckets we acquired from Trader Joe’s for use on the flower farm, a new (to us) blue truck we bought from my mom for the farm, new documents relating to the purchase of the truck (5 pieces of paper)

Wednesday, July 24 – one free shirt from a Pioneer Day parade

Thursday, July 25 – one floral book I won in a giveaway, 3 new pairs of harvest snips for the farm

Friday, July 26 – a new flusher for the toilet, a piece of mail from the insurance, 2 free bookmarks from the library

Saturday, July 27 – a piece of mail (again, from the insurance)

Sunday, July 28 – nothing

Monday, July 29 – two pieces of mail (bill, invitation)

Tuesday, July 30 – one piece of mail (another invitation)

Wednesday, July 31 – new card for my wallet, refills on my contact lenses (counted as 6 boxes)

TOTAL NUMBER OF ITEMS: 865 (667 of which are generally considered disposable/consumable). That effectively leaves 198 new items for the month brought in the house! On a month with no birthdays, major gift-giving holidays, or school in session!

YOU GUYS!!

Let’s talk about this.

Item Debriefing

I knew the number would likely be higher than I would guess, but honestly, this was kind of mind-blowing to me. If I estimated that the number was even just double this for any month involving a birthday/major holiday/during the school year, then that effectively means we are bringing somewhere along the lines of 18,000 items into our home each year (which becomes “just” 4,158 annually if you are not counting the things that are considered generally disposable, like plastic bags, paper cups/utensils/plates, diapers, etc.).

NO WONDER SO MANY OF US ARE COMPLETELY OVERWHELMED!!

Now, a lot of the items coming in were paper clutter, much of which we can pretty easily recycle or otherwise get rid of. However, those are all still items we need to manage, so if for some reason we’re not able to keep on top of filing or going through the mail, it’s easy to see how quickly the piles could get out of control.

Honestly, this explains so much.

I felt like my decluttering journey wasn’t making sense — I was getting rid of boxes and bags and van loads of stuff more months than not, so how come my house still seemed so hard to manage? Well, during busy seasons such as now, when I haven’t been able to actively declutter much for a few months, that’s effectively around 600-1200 non-disposable things we’ve probably had come into our home. Considering that I’ve been so busy that I’ve barely had time to even look through the mail once a week, I’m starting to see where the problem is originating.

So, What to Do Now?

Because I’m so frugal by nature, it’s really, really hard for me to turn down free stuff. Because of that, I am often the one many people in my family circle go to first to see if I want something. On the one hand, I LOVE this — I’ve gotten soooo much good stuff this way, including a diaper bag in the last week from my sister-in-law that is AMAZING and so much better than any diaper bag I’ve used in the past.

But I also have to be real with myself.

During crazy intense seasons like the one I’ve been in for months (and that–honestly–I don’t know when I’ll see the end of), I know that I really just don’t have time to be sifting through a lot of stuff to decide what to keep and what to donate. What’s more likely to happen is that I’ll acquire the stuff and it will sit for months on my bedroom floor or in my basement until I eventually go through it in several months and then donate the majority of it.

So what I need to do first is to start being MUCH more selective about what I say yes to accepting. I need to ask myself before agreeing to take something if I have an IMMEDIATE use for the item RIGHT NOW. If not, I need to pass. Now, I’ve kind of started already doing this, but there are certain things that are much harder for me to pass up. I do hope that just being super mindful of how much stuff came into our home over the course of just one ordinary month will help make it easier for me to just say no in the future.

Next, I need to set up easier-to-access systems for 1) paper, and 2) memory/sentimental items. I *kinda* started to set a few things up, but they’re not super easy to access or very organized, so I’m terrible at following through on actually putting stuff there. Instead, I have three catch-all spots for paper and things I want to put in memory bins (like photos or special cards), which are completely insane right now and have almost zero organization to them.

The paper system will require a dedicated afternoon (at least) of work as I go through everything, but the memory bins are something I just need to budget for and purchase. I like the idea of going with a super heavy-duty cardboard memory bin like this one from an aesthetic standpoint, but I do worry about the ability of that to keep stuff safe in the event of a flood or something. So maybe just simple plastic bins will have to do.

In any case, I’m quickly seeing that it’s my SYSTEMS that are creating the bottlenecks right now, and that I need to make my systems as easy and foolproof as possible so that’s it’s nearly as easy to put stuff away as it is to keep it out.

Lastly, I need to try and be much more strict about the “one in, one out” rule. If I bought new lounge pants, I need to declutter an old pair of lounge pants. If we bought new shoes, we need to declutter a pair of old ones. If I can consistently do this day in and day out when new stuff comes in, no matter how busy I am, that should at least keep the general flow of stuff going OUT a lot closer to the amount coming IN (without needing to do a big declutter above and beyond that).

Clearly I still have a ways to go, but this gives me some hard data that I think will be a really useful tool going forward.