Spring cleaning in 9 days

One thing I love to do before or early spring is… getting rid of things. 😉 In my case, these are both physical items, as well as files on my computer or phone.

This year, for the second time, I got rid of a lot of unnecessary things using the technique called 27×9 (which I got to know thanks to Marci Shimoff). The task is this - for 9 consecutive days you throw away, give away and/or sell 27 items a day. If you miss a day, you start over (!). Seems impossible to do? I thought so the first time I did this, but then I realised that despite living in a flatshare and my numerous moves, during which I usually get rid of some things, I still accumulate a huge amount of them...

This process, in a way, makes us aware - to which things we are attached and does it serve us at all? How many times have we said to ourselves "maybe it will come in handy one day" and put something aside to then not use it for years? According to the idea that everything is energy, also the objects around us are energy and everything that happens, even our thoughts, have an impact on them. So if, for example, you want a new start, to get rid of old habits or a fresh perspective, for starters you get rid of old things! Staying in the same environment, surrounded by the same "rubbish", it's just difficult to make any significant change in life.

I recommend that you give it a try and even if you don't manage to make it to the end of the process, I promise you it will be an amazing relief. When it comes to digital files, or e.g. piles of paper sheets or other things in larger numbers, just so it's not too easy, I group them by subject and treat one "topic"=one thing. For example, birthday cards from six months ago - I do not count each one separately. You know, in the end the decision is yours - you have to ask yourself, is this something part of a larger whole, or is it worth counting as one separate thing?

Of course, if you plan to give away or sell something, you don't necessarily have to do it within these 9 days - you just put the items away in a specific place and take any initial steps to say goodbye to them, such as photos for an online auction. Returning something we borrowed counts just as much as our own things.

If there are any items you are unsure about, you can do something like this: put them in a cardboard box and seal it with tape. You then store away that box somewhere in the closet or in the attic. If you do not open it for a longer period of time, e.g. 6 months, you can go ahead and get rid of the things that are inside. Clearly you don't need them at all. 😊

If you decide to give this a try, I'd love to hear how it went and how you feel afterwards!