In the last Minimalist Blueprint post, I explained the reasons for making a formal evaluation about the exact amount of stuff you have and also the reasons why having definitive knowledge about what you own is helpful in the mission of creating space.
This post offers the steps you need to take once you have made your inventory.
Once you know exactly what you have, the next agenda is to figure out what exactly to do with it all. This process can be overwhelming because it conjures up many of our emotions such as fear about losing our stuff, anger about breaking attachment to our stuff, and frustration due to the physical process of moving our stuff. I think all these emotions are fine and normal. If they arise, let them come, and continue to take action.
But before any decisions can be made, the next step is to create a detailed, cohesive personal mission statement. While this action might sound odd, it’s a highly practical and important step for two important reasons.
1) Produces Focus- Creating a personal mission statement provides clarity about where you want to be in your life. If you don’t know where you’re at and where you want to get to, it’s difficult to reach the next level of your personal development.
2) Estbablishes Boundaries- A personal mission statement offers a baseline when making some tough decisions about what things need to go and what doesn’t. Anything that doesn’t align with your personal mission statement needs to go. It doesn’t make any sense to keep yourself attached to things that aren’t going to help you get to where you ultimately want to be. That is why taking the time to create a personal mission statement is crucial.
The Personal Mission Statement Process: I don’t believe the process of creating a personal mission statement must be too long or elaborate. Just find a place and time where you can be by yourself for awhile. Think about where you are in your life right now and where you want to be. Maybe you want to be self-employed within the next 2 years, or work and travel in a non-location dependent career, or create a better family life. Whatever it is, think about it, and write it down.
My Personal Mission Statement: For me, my personal mission statement is this – “I want to spend my time focusing on my essentials: Family, Close Friends, Health/Fitness, Sports, and Education. I want to create positive change within the community, enjoy myself living life, and inspire others along the way.” So for me, anything thing that isn’t going to help me do this or contribute to this, has to go.
After you finish creating your personal mission statement, it’s time to go back over your inventory to figure out what stays and what goes.
Putting It Down On Paper: Grab one piece of paper and one pen. Draw three columns. Label the head of the first column The Necessities, label the middle column label The Essentials, and label the third column Other/Superfluous. The goal of making the graph is to have a visual representation of what should go and what should stay. It’s much easier plugging in what goes into the columns and then taking action to move your stuff instead of trying to decide individually each time for your stuff. I think this method is also less stressful.
The Necessitates Column: This consists of anything you have that you NEED to live. Food/Water/Clothes/Medicines/Hygiene products.
The Essentials Column: This is made up of everything that can help you achieve or maintain your personal mission statement. If you want to be self-employed, books you have about running a business would fit into this catergory. If you have a general statement such as live a healthy and active life, all things that help you achieve that standard go into here.
Everything you put into these first two columns will be kept.
The Other/Superfluous Column: This should be anything that doesn’t fit the first two. For example an old ironing board, or unused steak knives, or boxes of outdated papers. Also, anything you have that fits into the first two categories (i.e., is needed) but you have too many of, goes into this column. For instance, clothes is necessary (for all intents and purposes) for me to live. In my inventory, I found I had over 25 pairs of boxers. That’s crazy. Yes it’s a necessity, but having that many isn’t. So in that instance, I put boxers in the other/superfluous column. You can do this as well. Only you can really know how much is enough. But some questions to ask yourself are “Do I really need this many of X thing?”, “Am I only keeping this many of X thing because I am afraid of running out?” Be honest with yourself. If you REALLY need 16 boxes of tissues or running sneakers, by all means put them into the essentials list and keep them. But if not, put them in the other/superfluous column.
Rule: If you didn’t know you had it before you completed your inventory, it’s automatically in the other/superfluous category. This rule will help prevent you making justifications for why you should keep it. If you didn’t know you had it before and you were living your life, it’s not something that needs to be kept around.
What to do about the Grey Area Stuff?: This is an interesting sub-topic. We all have a lot of stuff that there is a case can be made it can fit into any of the 3 columns such as something like a television, or a painting, or something an old friend gave us. For example, I have on television in my inventory. TV isn’t a true necessity. However, television contains ties to my mission statement even though it’s not a direct complement. For instance, I watch sports and self-educate with informative programs, two of my essentials, while using my television. For that reason, I decided to keep my TV–for now. The key with the Grey Area Stuff is to see how it fits into your personal mission statement. If something you own complements your personal mission statement, keep it for now and you can always evaluate later on. Just don’t let your mind make everything into a Grey Area matter. If that happens, it probably means that there is too strong an attachment to your stuff and your subconscious is trying to create arguments to keep everything.
I hope this helps and is informative.
This is part 1 of 2 in “What To Do After Making Your Inventory” in the Minimalist Blueprint Series. Part 2 of 2 focuses solely onto the other/superfluous category and getting ready to take the action steps of actually getting the stuff out of your living quarters.
Reggie, Good stuff here! Your mission statement paragraph prompted me to finally start putting mine into words. I wrote a first draft last night.
Willow, I’m glad you made the decision to put your personal mission statement on paper and into words. I truly believe that act of writing it down is important because it really forces you to think about it and also at least for me, the act of putting something on paper sort of makes my idea more concrete. Thanks for the comment. If you don’t mind, when you finalize your draft, I’d love to hear what you come up with!
Reggie, I’ll do that! I had a look in an old notebook where I’ve kept our life goals (as a couple) through the decades and I know those goals and ideas will help me realize what has been important to me all my adult life and recognize what has been my actual ‘mission accomplished’ through the years. BTW, I recommend writing one, five, ten year and life goals. It really helps one see progress and encourage continued focus.