How to De-clutter Your Life
- Vittoria
- Aug 27, 2017
- 3 min read
Our minimalist journey started very recently, if you read our story "Why We Founded Simply EcoNomads", you would know that while Adam and I were in Tuscany for 3 weeks in July of this year we came to the realisation we wanted to do more for the planet and we wanted to do it while exploring our beautiful world and discovering everything there is to see around us.
What Is Minimalism
As I mentioned in my last blog "4 Steps Towards Sustainability", minimalism is not the art of owning nothing, nor living in a sterile space, and it has nothing to so with owing a certain number of objects. This lifestyle is inspired by the Japanese Zen philosophy and it is more about your mindset than your physical reality. In fact, minimalism is about having only what is necessary, and doing only what serves purpose in our life, so it's centred around what is essential for you. We tend to surround ourselves with object to fill a void, and end up carrying around confusion, chaos, untidiness; so our primary needs end up buried under a mountain of useless junk.
Through minimalism we can get rid of all the excess in our lives, removing everything that doesn't serve a purpose.
The Purging
The hardest part is simply to begin, because it will seem like an impossible task and it will feel like an endless process. But trust me you will get out on the other side so much happier! Minimalism will change the way you look at your possessions and the purging phase is the most liberating experience I ever had. You will get so much satisfaction seeing your space getting clearer.
Where should you start?
1. Pick a room in your home that is not currently making you happy
2. Look through all the objects in the room and make a list of everything in it
3. Assess each object by asking yourself the following questions:
- What purpose does this object serve?
- What need does it satisfy?
- Does this object make you happy?
- When is the last time you used it?
- Do you have another one that does the same job?
- If you lost it, would you be upset about it?
Once you have answered all the questions you will have an idea about where the object belongs.
4. Set up a box (or an area of your house) where to pile up different categories:
- Give back to owner/ give to a friend or family
- Sell online
- Donate to charity
- Documents
- Memories
- Not quite sure yet
- Trash
These are my tips on how to make this process easier:
1. Start from the biggest items, such as furniture
2. Move everything out of its place into a temporary spot so that you can see the space under a different light
3. Breath deeply and don't get overwhelmed (easier said than done)
The Benefits
Once you are done with the purging phase you will feel so much better: you won't have as many things to attend to, so you will spend less time cleaning, ironing, dusting, washing the dishes, and wasting time worrying about your things. Plus you will know exactly where everything is and your life will just simplify. Your space will become clearer, simpler, and therefore organised. Now every time I go into one of my rooms I find something that I don't use and that annoys me, and I love getting rid of it. I am so much happier and calmer because the more things I get rid of the more stress goes away with it. You probably don't even know you have it; but trust me, YOU DO!
You will start living with your necessities as top priorities and not your belongings,
which will re-calibrate your spirit in a way it's difficult to put in words.
I hope you found this useful and that you can begin your journey into a more meaningful life.
If you want to know about our experience then you will love my next post "Our Extreme De-Cluttering Journey"
with before and after picture.
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