Okay to Cheat a Little

I've told a few friends about my "Ten Thousand Things Decluttered" project, and one of the questions that they ask is "Do you count every single thing?"

Well, I said, I'm not sure if I should. I mean, every single thing ? Is it too silly to do that? Example: so far, I've been counting a pair of earrings as a single item decluttered, even though I could argue that it is actually two physical objects...

No, said my friends (laughing a little), count everything .

"A bead is a thing, a button is a thing!", said Claudia. "If you want to really count to ten thousand, you should do that."

In a phone call yesterday, Tai said, "Hey, see if you have any poker chips to get rid of...you could count those!"

Heh, that was a bit spooky. I looked over at the box of poker chips on the countertop that was coincidentally sitting there just waiting to be tossed.

On the wise advice of my friends I am going to cheat a little today, which will boost my count by exactly 417.

Why not? I might as well have some fun with this process.

Hmmm, so let's see...that will make 2579 items decluttered.