The beginning of 2019 was mostly characterised by letting go of things. Some of the things I let go of were physical items I had outgrown. Some were items that I only thought I wanted. Some were items I was given and felt obligated to hold on to. Objects represent your feelings towards the person who gave them to you. They represent who you wanted to be when you got them.
These things are the ones that are very hard to get rid of.
”<high pitched noise>” ~ Marie Kondo
That’s right. I’ve been watching the Netflix show “Tidying Up With Marie Kondo” after it exploded all over Twitter. In my defence, I liked KonMari before it was cool.
The Digital Purge
“Is your cucumber bitter? Throw it away. Are there briars in your path? Turn aside. That is enough.” - Marcus Aurelius
Goodbye weekly newsletters that I never read. Goodbye, promotional emails for companies that I used the trial of for like a week four years ago. Goodbye, statistics from the Medium blog that I don’t have any posts on.
I un-followed a lot of Twitter accounts in that first month, and I am continuing to do so with the very cool Tokimeki Unfollow by Julius Tarng.
The Physical Purge
“thank u, next.” - Ariana Grande
My living space is not large enough for the amount of stuff I had. I got rid of a whole bunch of it through many many trips to the charity shop. This has made me happier in a lot of ways: more room for new stuff; less clutter to make me feel cramped and cause anxiety; re-connecting with some off stuff that I do actually like, but was buried under a mountain of gubbins and bumph.
The Great Kondo-ification of my living space went on and goes on.
The Emotional Purge
“If the rule you followed brought you to this, of what use was the rule?” - Anton Chigurh
I use the great Todoist to organise the things I have to get done. It was a graveyard. Stuff I once wanted to do, but have lost interest in. Things that I felt obligated to do that weren’t actually necessary or urgent.
Tasks that progressed me towards a goal I no longer held close.
Deleted them all.
The end result is that my list of tasks now much more closely represents the things I need to do and the things I want to do.
