Declutter to Detox: My Version of Project 3,33 and More

What is Project 3,33? 

In the introduction to this "Declutter to Detox" Series, I outline each of the three methods and philosophies I will be talking about. Project 3,33 was the second step of my declutter jounrey. The basic idea of this process is that you choose 33 items of clothing, jewelery, shoes, and jackets to wear for 3 months. Everything else goes in boxes in the basement for the duration of those months. Sports wear and pijamas are not included in the 33 items. The 33 items are what you are wearing on a daily basis, to work for example, and pijamas and workout clothes should not be worn out of the house (unless you are actaully working out!).

My Version: Project 1, 30

I altered the original Project 3,33 a bit since I started this in February in cold Canadian weather and wanted to focus on doing this for my fall/winter wardrobe. So my first goal was the “1,30” project. I would choose 30 items to wear for one month because I was fasely hoping that by the end of March the weather would start to warm up (who was i kidding!?). I also ignored jewelry and shoes because first, I don’t have much jewelry and what I have I wear, and second, in Canada, I generally just wear the same warm winter waterproof boots every. damn. day.  

Simple 5 Step Process to my 1,30 Project

Step 1: Lay out your absolute favorite "I would wear this everyday" clothes  

Once I laid all my favorite clothes out on my bed, I realized I was having a hard time laying out 30 items of clothing, let alone 33. That is why I decided to only use 30 items of clothing. This process really showed me what clothes I wore all the time and how many clothes were completely ignored half the time. 

I like the idea of choosing your "favorite" clothes. If you had to pack a small bag and you could only take your absolute favorite pieces, what would they be? I think that for most people that process is pretty straightforward; you can quickly say this, this, and this are sweaters I always want to wear. The second part is hard where you have to choose to fill up the 30 piece mark. Therefore, I suggest you really focus on your favorite pieces, and if you aren't able to find secondary pieces to fill the quota, then simply leave it at what you have. Choose your items carefully and don't choose something just because you need one more piece. Adjust this number to fit your goal and lifestyle; make your own version of this project that will benefit you the most!

Some Items to include: 

1. Make sure you have a diverse range of clothing. Have a good amount of sweaters (depending on the season), and from there add some t-shirts, tanktops, longsleeves, blouses and cardigans. 

My List: 

• 5 Cardigans
• 10 sweaters 
• 3 Blouses
• 2 Pants 
• 3 Tanktops
• 2 T-Shirts
• 4 Longsleeves 
• 1 Plaid shirt

2. Find outfit combinations as you choose clothes. As you lay out the clothing pieces, see what fit together and make sure every piece has a combination. 

3. You don't need that many pants. If you are struggling to keep it down to 33 pieces (or the number of your choosing) see how many pants you are putting in. How many jeans are you including that are almost basically the same colour? Can some of them go in the box for a while?

Step 2: Put the rest of your everyday clothes in boxes and hide them away

Only two out of the four boxes... I ended up having four big trash bags of stuff!

Step 3: Put out of season clothes in a separate box 

Summer Clothes Taking up Space

I originally believed this would be the best way to make my closet less cluttered. I wanted to take all my summer clothes out that weren't being used anyways and then I would go through the same process of project 3,33 in the summer when I was actually using those clothes and could see what I was missing or still needed. I feel like its a bit dangerous to get rid of seasonal clothes when it's not the seasons to be wearing them. 

Step 4: Hang your clothes up backward

Even though I tried to only keep my "favorite" pieces in my closet, there were a few pieces I included to meet the 30 piece mark that I wasn't 100% sure about. I wanted to meet the 30 piece mark so I would have options but I also did not want to fall back into the habit of keeping things in my closet just because I wanted "option". Often times "options" can just be another word for too much shit! Therefore, I hung all my hangers facing outwards (as you can see in the picture above). Everytime I wore an item, I would turn the hanger back the right way. This allowed my to keep track of what I was wearing and what items I continued to ignore. Being a slightly OCD person, it bothered my that the hangers were not all the same. This made my face the tough questions about how much I actaully wanted a piece of clothing and other times it motivated my to try wearing it again.

Step 5: Did you miss anything? 

As the time period goes on that you have decided on, whether that is one month or three months, can you remember what you put in those boxes? Do you miss it? My rule was that if I was missing a particular item of clothing and I remembered it and wanted to wear it, I could go down to the boxes in the basement and take out that item - but only that item. There were only 3 items throughout the entire time that I took back out of the box. At the end of my time period, I gave the rest of the boxes away, without even looking in them. I clearly didn't miss anything because I couldn't even remember what I put in there.

My Experience 

Originally I planned on only doing this project for one month. However, after a month was up, I realized I hadn't missed much from the boxes of stuff I put away, and I simply continued living with what I had been using up until that point. It was increible to slowly notice how little I actaully needed. I had always loved listening to The Minimalist Podcast and tried to incorproate their philosophy into my lifestyle, but until I saw Project 3,33 in their documentary, the ideas of minimalistm had not fully imprinted themself into my brain and day to day life. I needed to carry out an extreme process like this to realize that I really did not miss much. 

My closet during those months, where I had the rest of my stuff in boxes in the basement, was clean and spacious and beautiful. I could see everything and I knew I was wearing only my favorite pieces, so it was incredibly easy to get dressed in the morning and have only favorites to choose from. 

Sneak Peak to Next Week... KonMari 

I feel that it is important to start to brdige over into what I will be talking about next week because the order in which I am posting this series is the order in which I went through the process of decluttering. Once I had completed Project 3,33, I started reading Mari Kondo's book "The Magic of Tyding Up". This book resonated with me on so many levels from my passion of organizing and decluttering to mental and psychological affects of tyding up a space. 

The ideas of The Mininmalists and philosophy behind Project 3,33 vary from some things that Mari Kondo discusses. As I read her book during my "1,30" project, I started to shift my ideas and I ended up doing a second wave of decluttering, which ended up adding to the outcome and my overall experience. 

I think it is important to address this now already, since the first two posts really focused on having a certain number of things, like 33, and really only have things in your home that "add value" to your life. All of these things I think are great methods and concepts. I simply felt that Mari Kondo touched more on the value of and relationship to the stuff that we do have. Not all stuff is bad but it needs to spark joy in your life and make you feel happy and calm in your space. And you can only do this is you only keep what sparks joy. The way she talks about showing graditude towards your stuff in order to let go of it and she says to only keep what you use so that your things can be passed on to others who will find more joy from it. This pressented me with a new perspectve of how I keep, take care, and let go of my things.

My point is that once I started reading her book, I realized that I had kept 30 pieces of clothing in my closet for my version of Project 3,33 when in fact not all 30 pieces really "sparked joy". I needed to adjust my approach to how I was decluttering my space, in a way that worked for me and combined all the philosophies that were inspiring me.

Declutter to Detox: Minimalism and The Minimalists

The Definition of Minimalism according to the Minimalists

The whole idea of minimalism based on The Minimalists is to live meaningful lives with less stuff. Their podcast and website and books touch on all different topics of life and all of the things we accumulate. They talk about living minimalistic life with kids,  minimalism in education, in relationships, and so much more.

Want less, have less … start living consciously!

The main lesson I took away from this was to simply stop buying so much stuff. I realized I already had so much, and I definitely did not use all of it. Their advice is to make a list of all the things you might buy. I suggest organizing it into wants and needs. Look at the needs and ask yourself if all of them are really “needs”. Then, with the “wants”, write it down and let it sit for at least a week. If you are still thinking about the item and wanting it after that week, look in your closet or house and see if you have anything similar and make sure it truly is one of a kind that you really love and will use.

My biggest take away is to not over-buy. One of the main discussions within my university classes is the way in which our society today is so focused on having more and so afraid of scarcity. Generally, people don’t realize that we already live in a world of abundance. But that is often still not enough. We buy because we feel that we will be prettier if we wear that face product, and we will be skinner if we can wear that dress, and we will be successful if we can have the big house. All those messages come from our contemporary capitalist society telling us to consume so they can profit off of our fear of lacking. That is not always bad, and often times we need things but try to become more aware and simply be more critical as to what you are bringing into your life and space, physically.

Box it Away … did you miss it?

The “action” component that I took away from the minimalists is what they called a “Packing Party”. They called it a party because they invited people over to help them do this to an entire house, but a one-person party works just as well! The idea is to pack everything in your house or in one room up into boxes for a few weeks or a couple months. Then, as you live in this space, you only take out what you need. For example, you need a pan to make breakfast, take it out! If you need that second leather jacket, unpack it! Whatever you unpack you keep out and at the end of the time frame you have set for yourself, whatever is left in the boxes goes away – don’t even look at it.

Personally, I think this is quite extreme. This might be a great tactic for you and I think it could definitely benefit people who have a tendency of collecting things and not even knowing what they actually have, or for people who have such big homes where things are just completely neglected and not used anyways. For me, my “stuff” consists mainly of my one bedroom in the house I share with my two roommates. I have very few books, pictures, and frames, all of which are in use. I also wear the majority of my clothes.

My Version ... do what works for you!

So instead of putting everything into boxes, I went through my closet intensely and took out clothes and accessories that I hadn’t worn in a long time or where I would always opt for another piece of clothing instead. I had so many leggings for working out but I only ever used 2 pairs. I also had a number of cute tops but they either did not fit my body the way I wanted them or the weather in Canada where I study wasn’t where I would be wearing them.

I put all of these clothes into boxes and put them in the basement for 3 months. This was in January, so three months would be the end of March beginning of April, to try and give myself a range of seasons. I put these clothes away with the intention that if I missed something or needed it, I could go down and get it out, just like in The Minimalists’ “Packing Party”. I had 3 big garbage bags of shoes, tops, sweaters, scarfs, old slippers, etc. that I somehow just didn’t feel I needed to get rid of prior to this. The amazing thing is that I completely forgot about all the stuff in the basement. I went down only twice and took three things out over the course of the three months. It was really an eye-opening experience.

Purging the Closet

The second part of this process is still to come next week with “Project 3,33”, or as I call it “1,33”. I did this process of boxing things away with what I learned from The Minimalist together with this 3,33 project! I will talk more about the actual process of decluttering and minimalizing my closet and what specific steps were taken. Lots of pictures to come as well! 

The Emotional and Psychological Impact in Life

Though this process of listening and reading their philosophy, I developed a new perspective to how I approach "stuff". My first concern was the amount of waste that was being created by buying and storing things and then getting rid of them shortly after. We live in a fast-paced world where we are constantly stimulated by media and the newest fashion, technology, fad as pushed in our faces every single day. It's hard not to feel compelled to keep up. 

Spending the last few months listening to The Minimalists, I have started incorporating their practices that resonated with me into my life. I make lists of what I want to buy and think about it for a week before buying. I have a few things on my list even currently and I am getting much better at not buying something just because I see it hanging in the store. I don't feel like the same want any more to buy buy buy. 

Every time I feel the need to feel that dopamine high we all get in the moment we buy something new, I think about the greater effect. If I buy this product, will it add value to my life? Or will it be forgotten or thrown out in the new few months? Will I be adding to more pollution to the environment with this (impulse) buy? I am slowly finding that even with what I buy now, I am looking for environmentally friendly, biodegradable, and sustainable products. 

I want to continue to live a more conscious and aware life. I want to continue to be amazed by how little we need to live and truly be happy. I want to practice a more sustainable lifestyle by incorporating my version of minimalism into my life. Minimalism is a great way to declutter your home in regards to your physical belongings, but it can also declutter your life. Find your version of minimalism because it is all about the kind of life you want to create for yourself.