Am I Really a Minimalist? I’m About to Find Out…

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Since returning from the UK at the end of September, I’ve had a renewed enthusiasm for decluttering. Partly this was inspired by the success I had in finally letting go of old possessions stored at my parents’ house, and realising how far along this path I’ve now come… and that there is an end in sight. Partly it was inspired by Marie Kondo, whose book about the magic of tidying-up even managed to spark enthusiasm in my husband, who for all his dislike of mess and clutter, is never quite as keen to do anything about it as I’d like!

This enthusiasm has meant that every weekend since we have been back (4 so far) there has been some mention of decluttering, some effort made to donate / sell / fix / discard things that we no longer need, want or use. There has been much discussion about whether things are useful or not, needed or not, wanted or not. To be honest, whilst the idea of a clutter-free home is very exciting, the groundwork needed to achieve this is rather less so.

You may remember a few months ago that I mentioned  we were planning to move at the end of this year. We’re buying a flat in a community we love and can’t wait to move in. The only thing stopping us is that it isn’t quite ready, and we’re still unsure about whether it will be ready at the end of the year. We’ve renewed our current lease a couple of times on short term contracts, and the current one is due to expire on 21st December.

We’ve been wondering what to do next, and whilst faced with (yet another) weekend of thinking about decluttering (because the “thinking” part seems to take up far more time than the actual “doing” part), I had an epiphany. Decluttering will take as long as we have. Whether that’s two weeks or six months, it will expand to fill the time and deprive us of spending that time doing fun stuff. What if we set ourselves a deadline…and don’t renew the lease?!

Moving the week before Christmas might not conventionally be the best time, but actually we won’t be doing any last minute Christmas shopping, we won’t be decorating our home and we won’t be having family or friends over, so really it’s the ideal time! There’s just one detail missing…where will we move to?

And that detail is the beauty of it.

What first attracted us to minimalism was the freedom it promises. The freedom of a life not enslaved to stuff. The freedom to spend our time doing the things we love, enjoying the company of our friends and family, taking the time to explore the country we live in. Our possessions restrict us. They take up space and they take up time. We’ve been working to reduce our possessions to just the essentials (meaning the things that we personally need…essentials of course, are different for everyone), but moving out with nowhere to go? That is the ultimate test.

The truth about moving, is that whilst we always tell ourselves that we’ll get organised beforehand, what actually happens is we run out of time and shove everything in boxes, which we move at great effort… These boxes then languish in storage until we (finally) get around to opening them, at which point we wonder why we ever bothered to keep all this stuff (having forgotten that we even owned most of it) before taking it all to the charity shop after all. That isn’t going to happen this time. That can’t happen this time. We will move the essentials. The superfluous will go.

Strictly speaking, we have somewhere to go. The other advantage of moving out at Christmas is that people often go away, and we have friends and family whose homes we are welcome to stay in. The emphasis is on “we”. There may be room for us, but there is no room for lots of stuff.

Is this really a good idea?! I don’t know. Maybe I’m wildly underestimating how much stuff we own, or how easy I will find decluttering. Part of me wonders what will happen if our new place still isn’t ready when our friends and family come back from their Christmas holidays and no longer want us squatting in their homes. Only a small part, though. A far bigger part of me is relishing the adventure. That’s the fun part of life, isn’t it? To explore the unknown, to take risks, to accept challenges, to have experiences…and learn and grow from them, whatever happens and however things turn out.

That’s why we chose minimalism, after all. To set us free.

 I’d love to hear your thoughts on this! Does this appeal to your sense of adventure, or would you balk at the unknown? Have you ever experienced something like this yourself, and did you have far more stuff than you realised? Or have you moved recently and discovered that you are far more minimalist than you thought? Freedom is one of the things that appeals to me most about minimalism – is it the same for you? Or are there other motivations for you to live with less? Please join in and leave a comment below!

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A Minimalist Wardrobe: The Ideal…and the Reality

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When I think of the contents of my ideal wardrobe, I picture something like this: I open the doors to a neatly hung and folded small selection of clothes, all of which I like, all of which I wear, and all of which I have worn recently. I have a clear idea of what matches what, and actually most things match a number of other things. Choosing an outfit is easy. I enjoy wearing the things I own, and they make me feel good.

This, however, is my reality: I open the doors to a wardrobe with shelves stuffed with messy piles of various clothes that I can’t really see, plus a rail with a jumbled assortment of things. I have only worn half the items I own in the past 9 months. Many of the items are too small, the product, I suspect, of working long hours behind a desk for the first time in my life, which hasn’t fared well with my love of baking (and eating). I’m never entirely sure of what goes with what, and I spend far too much time trying on and discarding outfits, before leaving the house flustered and grumpy. Most of the time I imagine I look like I’ve pulled an outfit together from the jumble sale, and that doesn’t make me feel great.

Wardrobe Pre Decluttering Oct 2015

The contents of my “minimalist-in-the-making” wardrobe October 2015.

I’m very clear about what I want, but how to get there? This is my ongoing struggle. It’s been a while since I tackled it, and feeling inspired by my recent decluttering success I decided I needed to make the most of the momentum, and give it another shot.

At the start of the year, I conducted an experiment to find out how much of my wardrobe I actually wore. The idea was, I tied a scarf to one end of my wardrobe and as I wore things I put them the other side of the scarf. I was planning to review it after 3 months, but then it was autumn and the weather was changing…and I hadn’t worn much of what I owned, so I extended it by another 3 months… and then a bit more, it seems. It was 8 months when I finally looked at the results.

Wardrobe Minimalism Scarf Trick

The starting line…

Scarf Experiment Wardrobe minimalism 9 months later

…and the finish. Everything on the left of the scarf has been worn, and everything on the right has not.  You can clearly see I haven’t even worn half of the contents : /

It’s clear from this that I probably own twice what I actually need. I only wore half the items in my wardrobe! When I started the challenge I had the idea that I’d discard what lay beyond the scarf, but then another idea came into play.

On holiday I finally read Marie Kondo’s The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying. It’s not a book about minimalism but it is still very inspiring, and I particularly liked her views on clothing. She has some great ideas about folding, and also on letting go of things that no longer serve us. I suspect that Marie Kondo is someone who enjoys shopping, and is less concerned with waste, but many of her points are relevant whether this is true for you or not. (If you haven’t read the book, I’d recommend reading it.)

Marie Kondo says you should only keep things that “spark joy”. As someone passionate about zero waste, I think I have a different idea about of “sparking joy” to someone who enjoys shopping and puts great pride in their appearance. That said, it did make me realise that several items in my wardrobe that I wear regularly do not spark joy. I don’t feel good wearing them. They sap my confidence. I keep them only because I don’t want to send them to landfill.

I also realise that many of the items in my wardrobe that do spark joy no longer fit. (Or maybe I mean did, and would.) If you told me now that I’ll never slim back into them, I’d probably get rid of a quarter of my wardrobe. I know you should never keep clothes that you intend to slim into as it rarely happens…but I really want to believe it will with me!

Then there’s the question: if I remove everything that no longer sparks joy, and everything that no longer fits, I am left with very little…can I trust myself to buy the perfect capsule wardrobe? Can I face the idea of buying so many things at once?! (Answer: of course not!)

I’m still deciding where the balance lies. The weather here is just changing to summer, so there is still the opportunity to wear winter clothes for a few more weeks. I want to give myself the benefit of the doubt that eating less cake will mean my summer skirts fit once more. I didn’t let the excuses stop me from going through everything in my closet, however! I removed another 30 or so items from my wardrobe: the things I disliked the most (even if I still wear them) and the things I know in my heart I will never fit into, or actually wear even if I did. That means my current wardrobe count is around 105 items, including underwear, socks and sportswear. This time last year it was 139, after a big decluttering effort reduced it from 169.

What I do know, is that decluttering definitely gets easier. Getting rid of 30 items a year ago was far harder than getting rid of 30 items today, even though I had less to choose from. Maybe the next 30 will be a breeze! ; )

Now I’d love to hear from you! Is wardrobe decluttering something you struggle with? What are the reasons you hold on to things? Are there any excuses you tell yourself? What are the best tips you’ve found for letting go? Or do you have a minimalist capsule wardrobe? How did you do it? What are your tips? Anything else you’d like to share? Please tell me your thoughts in the comments below!

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5 Decluttering Tips for Letting Go (What A Difference a Year Makes!)

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This time last year I was back at my parents’ house in the UK, being forced to confront all the stuff I’d stored there for “safe keeping”. It was an interesting lesson in why hoarders shouldn’t get second chances, and I got rid of a lot of items, but I’m sorry to say, there were still several boxes remaining.

Everything that remains in storage

Everything that remained in storage at my parents’ house as of September last year. Yes, after the decluttering took place!

Fast forward a year and I’m back at my parents’ house (we went back to the UK for my brother’s wedding). My parents’ house is absolutely full to the brim with stuff, and as I’ve learned to let go of more and more, I find the amount of things they have more and more noticeable. It should be noted that whilst I always say that it’s far better to lead by example when trying to encourage change in others, and we shouldn’t preach or tell or instruct, I always fall down on this when it comes to my mum. Somehow the rules don’t apply! Maybe it’s because I only see her once a year, I feel I haven’t got the time to spend demonstrating change and waiting for it to catch on, and need to get right in there… or maybe it’s because I internalise all my preaching and bossy-ness and have to let it out somewhere! I hadn’t been back there two minutes and I was trying to persuade her to begin decluttering. (They tell me they like the clutter. Well, my dad does. I’m not completely convinced.)

Of course it wasn’t long before my parents pointed out that rather than declutter their stuff, I had a whole load of stuff of my stuff in their house that I should be focusing on. And they were right.

Well, what a difference a year makes! Sometimes it feels like we’re plodding away and not much is changing, but being put in exactly the same position a year later really made me realise how far I’ve come. Somewhere, in this past year, there’s been a shift. I didn’t notice it happen – maybe it was gradual there was nothing to notice – but it has happened. This time, when faced with decluttering, there was no internal struggle. There was very little debate. This time, I was ruthless.

Why was it so much easier this time round? Probably because decluttering is a skill I’ve been trying to master for a while, and I’ve learned a few lessons along the way.

1. Hoarders shouldn’t get second chances.

Anything that’s been in a box for a year (or really in my case, for almost 4 years) cannot be needed. Rather than opening boxes with the excitement of seeing what’s inside (it will cloud your judgement!), remember – you’ve long forgotten what’s inside. Instead, focus on the best way to pass these items to good homes. Stay detached. If you’re really brave, don’t open at all. Send straight to the charity shop!

2. If you’re passionate about zero waste, you can’t keep stuff in storage long-term (especially at someone else’s house).

Sometimes we find things in boxes that we like, that we remember fondly or we wish we had use for. That doesn’t mean we need them. If we liked them or needed them that much, they wouldn’t be sat in a box! If you really want your items to have value, give them to someone who needs them and will use them. Sell them on eBay or give them away on Freecycle or to the charity shop. Items sitting in storage gathering dust is just as much a waste of resources as sending something to landfill.

3. “Just in case” rarely happens.

Keeping items “just-in-case” is a waste of time (and space). Especially if the “just-in-case” items live in a box in storage. If you suddenly need the item, will you even remember where you put it? Let someone else get good use from your items. If you really need something you previously got rid of, you can borrow it, or buy another one second-hand when you need it. Chances are though, you won’t.

4. We live in the present, not the past.

Old photos of places we no longer remember, diaries and letters from years ago and other collected paraphernalia remind us of the people we were, but don’t necessarily represent the people we are now. If they bring up feelings of regret or sadness, are completely cringeworthy, or evoke no feelings at all, they have served their purpose. Let them go. We don’t need to be reminded of who we used to be! We live in the present, not the past. We should be creating new happy memories and living in the moment!

5. No matter how hard you find letting things go, if you keep trying you WILL succeed.

I was a natural hoarder. I’d collect, and accumulate, and hang on to things. It was how I was brought up, I’ve realised – there was always the option to store something if I wasn’t sure what to do about it. As a result, I never learned the art of decluttering or letting go. It’s been a hard lesson to learn. It takes time, and patience, and perseverance. But like all new habits, the more you practice the better you get. Keep flexing the decluttering muscle, and each time it gets a little stronger. I’m not perfect, not by any stretch of the imagination, but I’ve come a long way simply by not giving up.

So… what became of that pile of stuff? Most things went straight into boxes to the charity shop. A few (more specialist)  things went onto eBay…I felt there was more chance of connecting them with a better owner this way.  A couple of things came back to Perth with me (they may yet be decluttered). Those old diaries of my early teenage years?

Shredded Documents

Pages of paper filled with teenage angst are memories I’d rather forget! Those diaries served a purpose at the time, but their job is done. I felt rather excited that these pages will begin a new life as compost, and I will no longer be weighed down with awkward memories.

Shredded and added to the compost pile, and along with them a lot of teenage angst I’d rather forget!

With every item given away, sold, donated and shredded, I feel lighter. Stuff weighs you down. It’s a burden. Especially stuff spread across continents, and stored in other people’s houses.  It’s a relief to know next time I visit my parents for a holiday, I won’t be crawling through the storage space hunting down boxes to sort. I won’t be wasting time contemplating whether to keep things I’d already forgotten about. There will be no guilt at items left languishing.

It’s been a long road, this journey to a life with less stuff, and it’s been hard work, but I finally feel like I’m turning a corner, and that I’m seeing the benefits. Benefits like more time. More freedom. It makes me wonder… why did I ever think a bunch of stuff was more important than these?!

Now I’d love to hear from you! Confession time… do you have boxes languishing in storage, in your attic, garage, spare room, or worse – a relative’s house?! How many of them are filled with “just-in-case” items or stuff that you can’t even remember?! what is your biggest barrier to letting go? Or are your closets free of clutter? If so, what tips do you have for letting go of items? What has worked best for you? Anything else you’d like to add to the conversation? Please leave your thought in the comments below!

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