The Purging Stages
The reason for all of this cleaning out and purging is to create a blank slate. By stripping down my life to as much of a skeleton as possible, I’ll be able to build and curate who I am and what I own to make my life as effective and productive and…most importantly…. as simple as I can.
So, that being said, I got a couple questions regarding the purge stages. I didn’t realize that I had mentioned stage 1 without explaining all of the stages, so I figured I’d explain. I think the easiest way to do things is to give yourself one thing at a time to do. That’ll keep you from being overwhelmed, and you’ll be psyched on your achievements even more if you’re not rushing through to get something else done right after. Since I’m in the initial stage of simplifying my life, the purge stage, I created some loose guidelines for simplifying and decluttering, broken down into smaller steps. Remember, I’ve yet to experience any but the first, and honestly haven’t thought much or experienced step 3, so these are rough guidelines:
Pre-Purge: Wardrobe. I’m a huge, giant fan of using your wardrobe as a catalyst to simplification, because it gets immediate results in almost all aspects of your life. You get rid of physical clutter, you donate and help people, you can sell and start a savings, you make life easier by removing distraction and simplifying one of the basic choices of your day (what am I going to wear?), and ultimately you feel more confident because you never have to settle for the clothing that’s clean, but ugly. You get excited about this, and hopefully it leads you to do more.
Step 1: The Big Stuff. Start by laying every bill for one month out on a desk, and figuring out what you don’t need. Cancel whatever it may be, and put that money into savings monthly. Then give your place a good Spring Cleaning style makeover- throw away junk mail, clean out the clutter drawers, shine the silver. Lastly, assess the “Stuff” associated with the hobbies you’re most passionate about. We tend to overcompensate when buying supplies and gear for these things, because we want to prevent “what if” situations that prevent us the joy of doing them. Get rid of all the stuff you don’t need to participate in your hobby on the most basic level, and put the money into savings- we’ll asses and make new purchases later.
Step 2: The Little Stuff. Move on to things that you use every day, but don’t usually think about because it’s just your routine. An example would be alarm clocks- there’s no need for a radio alarm clock, a cell phone, and a computer. Even if you have to set 2 alarms to wake you up, you can set them on your cell and computer, and say goodbye to the actual alarm clock. You can do the same thing with appliances, hair products, personal care products (how many soaps do you need to wash? I only use one for everything, including shaving and laundry, and a sensitive teeth toothpaste), keys, credit cards, etc.
Step 3: The Tiny Stuff. This is the micro-level simplification, and includes non-material things like relationships and investments, as well as fine tooth comb possession purging and even going back over steps 1 and 2 another time. Honestly, Step 3 scares me a little bit, but we’ll see how it goes when we get there.
Think of the process like wet sanding a freshly painted car: you start with the rough grit sandpaper, the big and most effective stuff, and work your way down to the finer stuff to sand out tiny imperfections that may not affect the paint job at all. You finally get to a point where the sandpaper, once dulling your paint job (or your life, in terms of the silly metaphor) starts to shine it up again, only this time it’s smooth and almost perfect. With wax and polish, you have a perfect mirror finish. While the paint may have looked ok before, it’s flawless and as close to perfect as possible now.
