{"id":10158,"date":"2018-09-20T14:37:08","date_gmt":"2018-09-20T12:37:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.munich-business-school.de\/insights\/?p=10158"},"modified":"2018-09-20T14:37:08","modified_gmt":"2018-09-20T12:37:08","slug":"month-of-decluttering","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.munich-business-school.de\/insights\/en\/2018\/month-of-decluttering\/","title":{"rendered":"I Got Rid of 496 Personal Belongings in One Month\u2026 and I Feel Good About It"},"content":{"rendered":"

Did you ever try to get rid of all the stuff that is piling up in your apartment? Stuff you have never used for anything, but you once thought might be worth keeping because you might need it someday (a day that never came and is most likely to never come)?<\/p>\n

I have just finished my so-called \u201cMonth of Decluttering\u201d and got rid of 496 of my personal belongings in just 31 days. Yes, 496! And I feel really good about it \u2013 despite being a woman who likes to have a closet full of clothes and plenty of knick-knacks that add a personal and cozy touch to the atmosphere of my apartment.<\/p>\n

At any rate, let us start from the get-go. It all began when I participated in a „Success Factor Happiness“ workshop, offered by one of our professors, Dr. Christian Schmidkonz. There is an elective with the same name in our Master International Business study program, and the students really like it. Thus, our university management figured it could be interesting for MBS staffers as well, and it definitely was.<\/p>\n

A significant part of the workshop was dedicated to the topic of mindfulness, i. e., the ability to attach awareness to what we do, how we do things, and how we experience our own feelings and thoughts. In this context, concepts such as minimalism came up, i. e., to focus on a handful, but relevant things, things that make you happy!<\/p>\n

A 31-Day Journey Towards Minimalism<\/h3>\n

During the workshop, I got intrigued by an exercise called the \u201cMonth of Decluttering\u201d, a challenging approach to mindfulness that encourages you to become more minimalistic by disposing of or giving away stuff each day for one complete month: one piece on day one, two pieces on day two, and so on \u2013 increasing exponentially until day 31, at which 31 pieces have to be decluttered at once. In the end, it all sums up to a quite impressive amount of 496 pieces.<\/p>\n

I decided to give it a try and to combine business with pleasure, or rather, mindfulness. Initially, I did not have any expectations, but it sounded like fun.<\/p>\n

On the first day, it was pretty easy, as anticipated: that old bathrobe, full of holes, was meant to be thrown away for years anyway. Great start, check!<\/p>\n