Sloww

| The Art of Living for Students of Life

Intentional Living Challenges (Slow Living, Simple Living, & More)

This page is intended to be a comprehensive compilation of all the intentional living challenges and experiments I’ve seen out there to date. Bookmark this page to come back and find your next challenge!

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Sloww Intentional Living Challenges

 

Simple Living & Slow Living Challenges

Just want to get started with slow living? Here are the best posts to read first:

  • Live like the Ikarians
    • The Blue Zones are quite possibly the holy grail of slow living: Long healthy life, minimal impact on the planet, meaningful relationships (“us” vs. “me”), 95% plant-based diets, drink wine and tea with family and friends, clear purpose based on satisfying low-level needs, no care about time, walkable communities, gardening, enjoy physical work and find joy in everyday chores, enjoy being outside, etc.
  • A Year of Slow Living Experiments (Cait Flanders)
    • Cait has some great slow living ideas that you can experiment with too: slow mornings, slow money, slow move, slow breathing, slow technology, slow food, slow consumption, 30 days in nature, slow work, slow travel, and slow evenings. She tried 1 per month, but you can take them at your own pace.
  • 21-Day Busy Boycott Challenge (BeMoreWithLess)
    • “If you are overwhelmed with busyness, try this free 21-day challenge and trade your busy life for a full one. Sign up and you’ll receive 4 emails (one per week). Each week for 3 weeks, you’ll receive a new Busy Boycott challenge action to practice for 7 days. Next we’ll send you a PDF will all three weeks of content so you can revisit the challenge anytime.”
  • Try Slow Traveling for Your Next Adventure
    • I’ve curated the best slow travel tips, including: Go into it with the mindset of living like you’re at home (or even better) living like a local, balance your itinerary and leave open time to create space, margin, and spontaneity, save money or spend locally, do everything at the right pace, and more.
  • Meditation Retreat
    • Silent meditations, eyes closed, no speaking, and slow-walking meditations in nature. “The only words I heard or read for ten days were in three counseling sessions, two guided meditations, and nightly talks on mindfulness.” Check out “I Used to be a Human Being (NY Mag).”
  • “Sleep and drink with the dogs” 1x/month (Stoicism)
    • “Stoics would sleep in the dog basket once a month and drink the dog’s water. For a few days, you live like a dog. And you realize that it’s possible and it’s fine. And that removes fear. Often what stops us from realizing our ambitions is fear. If we make ourselves totally at home with failure and utter disgrace we will feel a curious lightness and sense of possibility because we won’t be held back by the constant thought, ‘What happens if…?’ We will have fully explored the question.” — Alain de Botton

Minimalism Challenges (Spending)

Follow the FIRE community and start saving 50%+ of your income:

  • This is what you need to do for financial independence and to retire early (FIRE).
  • “One In, One Out” Rule
    • Don’t buy anything new until you finish decluttering. If you must get something, use the “one in, one out” rule. Or, better yet, try one in, two out.
  • 1 Time Use Rule
    • “I told myself I wouldn’t buy it if I could only use it one time (coffee, fast food, shots at the bar).”
  • 3 Day Rule
    • “If I really wanted it three days later, then I could go back and buy it.”
  • 10/10 Material Possessions Theory (The Minimalists)
    • “Here’s an exercise for you. Take a moment and write down your ten most expensive material possessions from the last decade. Things like your car, your house, your jewelry, your furniture, and any other material possessions you own or have owned in the last ten years. The big ticket items. Next to that list, make another top ten list: ten things that add the most value to your life. This list might include experiences like catching a sunset with a loved one, watching your kid play baseball, eating dinner with your parents, etc. Be honest with yourself when you’re making these lists: it’s likely that both lists share zero things in common.”
  • Use It Up Challenge (Our Next Life)
    • “Rather than simply tossing things into the blue bin, or putting them in the thrift store donation box, we’re going to start asking ourselves: If we knew this thing was going straight to the landfill when it leaves our hands, would we treat it differently? Would we try harder to get more use out of it?”

Minimalism & Decluttering Challenges (Getting Rid of Stuff)

For overall decluttering, my #1 recommendation is Marie Kondo’s book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up:

  • Closet Hanger Method (or Reverse Hanger Trick)
    • Gained popularity after Oprah mentioned it. You turn all the things in your closet around so the hanger is facing the wrong way. After wearing something, you turn the hanger the correct way when you put it back. After a set period of time (6 months, 12 months), you get rid of anything that is still facing the wrong direction because you haven’t worn it.
  • 20/20 Rule (or Just-in-Case Rule) (The Minimalists)
    • “Anything we get rid of that we truly need, we can replace for less than $20 in less than 20 minutes from our current location. Thus far, this hypothesis has become a theory that has held true 100% of the time. Although we’ve rarely had to replace a just-in-case item (fewer than five times for the two of us combined), we’ve never had to pay more than $20 or go more than 20 minutes out of our way to replace the item.”
  • 90/90 Rule (The Minimalists)
    • “Here’s one that has worked for us: Look at a possession. Pick something. Anything. Have you used that item in the last 90 days? If you haven’t, will you use it in the next 90? If not, then it’s okay to let go.
  • 30-Day Minimalism Game (The Minimalists)
    • “Find a friend or family member: someone who’s willing to get rid of their excess stuff. This month, each of you must get rid of one thing on the first day. On the second, two things. Three items on the third. So forth, and so on. Anything can go! Clothes, furniture, electronics, tools, decorations, etc. Donate, sell, or trash. Whatever you do, each material possession must be out of your house—and out of your life—by midnight each day.” By the end of 30 days, you will have decluttered 465 things! Use #MinsGame to see other people who are playing. Some people have suggested flipping the order when your motivation is highest — 30 things on day 1, 29 on day 2, etc.
  • Packing Party (The Minimalists)
    • “(Everything is more fun when you put ‘party’ at the end.) We decided to pack all my belongings as if I were moving. And then I would unpack only the items I needed over the next three weeks.”
  • Get Rid of Everything! (“My Stuff” Documentary)
    • A 26 year old puts everything he owns in storage. He goes to the storage unit to retrieve one item per day to try and understand what is actually necessary. It’s described as, “a one-year human experiment about what truly matters.”

Digital Minimalism Challenges

  • Digital Declutter Your Smartphone
    • Lots of different ways to do this one. Courtney Carver says, “This is what I do to make sure I am the boss of my phone instead of the other way around.” Her tips include: no email on her phone, no apps on the home screen, no notifications, and more.
  • Digital Declutter Experiment (1 month)
    • “Its purpose is to help you reset your digital life to something more intentional and meaningful. You can think of the digital declutter as a process to transition toward digital minimalism…During this break, you’ll confront life directly, without the dulling mediation of a screen, allowing you to rediscover which activities and behaviors really provide value in your life, and which are mindless distraction.” — Cal Newport
    • 3-Step Process:
      • Take a Break from Optional Technologies (for the entire month)
      • Identify What Really Matters (and what you really want to be doing with your time)
      • Reintroduce Technology (in an intentional manner)

Purpose Challenges

  • Ask “why” 5 times
    • Asking “Why?” five times is a technique to help you get to the root cause of a problem (or goal, or decision, or purpose, etc)
  • 90 Percent Rule (Greg McKeown, Essentialism)
    • “As you evaluate an option, think about the single most important criterion for that decision, and then simply give the option a score between 0 and 100. If you rate it any lower than 90 percent, then automatically change the rating to 0 and simply reject it.”
  • Spend 4,000 hours planning for your career
    • If you spend 6 minutes planning for a 2 hour dinner out, that’s the equivalent of spending 4,000 hours (2 working years) planning for an 80,000 hour career. This is just another way of saying be intentional with your life and think long and hard about what you really want to do.
  • Identify 4-5 life roles using the Four Burners Theory
    • The challenge is to narrow down the list of roles you play in life. “Imagine life is a game in which you are juggling five balls…work, family, health, friends, and integrity…Work is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it will bounce back. The other four balls…are made of glass.” — James Patterson
  • Write your own eulogy
    • Here’s an example from slow living author, Brooke McAlary: “Quick to laugh, creative, compassionate, with a wicked sense of humor, Mom was never without a new plan or adventure on the horizon. She made one hell of an old-  fashioned, was spontaneous, loyal, introspective, and believed wholeheartedly that we all have a responsibility to leave the world a better place than we found it. Mom, we’ll miss you always. Thank you for our roots, but thank you even more for our wings.”