Wednesday, June 17, 2009

100 Thing Challenge

This is the first installment of my journey down the 100 thing challenge. I first heard of it a couple of months ago as I was perusing the internet and came across an article written for Time magazine. The motivation for the author was a gentleman who started his own journey arbitrarily settling the bar at 100 with numerous stipulations. Others on the blogosphere have started their own challenges and now it is time for me to start mine. I am about 75% through with my inventory and have:

(363) Clothing Items
(155) Books/Media
(83) Sporting Goods/Hobby
(51) Kitchen/Household/Electronics
(46) Misc/Other
--
(698) Subtotal

I have the over under set at 800, but it will be interesting to see where I finally come in at. My definitions are pretty loose, but I am striving for an exact inventory. A few things will have to expand for example a box of CD’s is listed as media, but I intend to inventory them. Similarly, there are boxes of camping, climbing and bicycling gear that are currently counting as one item.

My goal for this rather fun exercise is to determine what is important to me and my go forward goals. Right now that is loosely defines as “Supporting my family with time and financial means through mathematical analysis work while taking time for adventure sports and travel.” I did not even realize that I valued travel, until I thought about the things I would try to do if I only had a year to live. Secondly, to determine what items are cluttering my life and holding me back from pursuing my goals. It is pretty easy to say that ash trays and barware are probably due to be discarded and donated. Finally, I would like to simplify my life by carefully selecting and organizing my personal possessions. I hate not finding things and I have too much non-daily use stuff in convenient places and too-much daily use stuff in inconvenient places. I have no interest in whittling down my possessions to an arbitrary limit, but I would like to create a place for everything in my currently spacious living situation.

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