4 tips for minimizing clutter
So for almost the entirety of my life I've been a bit of a hoarder. I refuse to get rid of things even when they're broken partly because I feel bad and have romantic plans of repairing the thing, or because I'm straight up sentimental about the thing. In order to combat this problem I've tried to adopt some minimalistic habits, but I'm still a really bad minimalist. I keep trying, though, and over time I've developed a couple strategies that have helped me significantly slow down my consumption in the first place, and be better at removing items from my space that no longer serve me. So if you also struggle with decluttering or keeping too many things around and want to start reducing this, here are four tips for minimizing clutter than I’ve found really helpful, and hope you do too.
Seek a community. First things first, don't try to do this alone. If you're like me and there is a psychological or emotional block keeping you from reducing the crap in your home, your first step is to find like-minded people who can help keep you on track. This can come in the form of reading books (my favourite so far is Kinfolk Home and New Minimalism), watching YouTubers like Jenny Mustard or Rachel Aust, joining the Minimalism Amino app, watching the Minimalists documentary on Netflix, reading The Minimalists blog, or going to meetups. I do all these things and went to my first minimalism meetup a couple weeks ago, and all of it is necessary for me! Because I'm trying to undo almost 30 years of bad programming from advertisers, TV, comments from others etc, not to mention my natural tendencies. So I need to flood my brain with a lot of new info and ideas in order to override this and having a community of like-minded people can be really helpful for this.
Set the bar higher for what comes into your home. When I started my sustainability and ethical shopping journey a few years ago, it slowed my consumption all the way down. I could no longer justify having 15 new fast fashion outfits every season, and the ethical fashion items I could justify buying were way too expensive to allow me to continue shopping as much as I did before. I also used to buy useless crap because of... reasons I guess? I don't know why I did it, but I'd do things like buy a three-pack of spatulas when I already had four because the three-pack was on sale. Seriously, what the hell?! Who does that? WHO NEEDS 7 SPATULAS?! It was after a conversation with my brother that I realized how downright silly this behaviour is, and how badly it needed to stop. I am now much more careful to only buy what I need, and only replace things once they're dead for real.
Learn your limits. Remember how I said I hold on to things even when they're broken and I have no idea how to repair them? Yeah, it's because I'm way too sentimental about objects. The New Minimalism book has a section about the archetypes of people who have trouble getting rid of things, and I am definitely the Connected type, where I associate some greater meaning with objects. The plus side of this is that I can feel very connected and happy in a space, but the downside is clinginess and clutter because I can't get rid of stuff. Now that I know this about myself, it's much easier to recognize when I'm clinging to something that's not worthy of my time and effort and simply let go... which brings us to the next point.
Rip off the band-aid. As I write this, I am currently three days into the #MinsGame / Minimalism Challenge - a game/challenge where for the duration of a month, you get rid of one thing on the first of the month, two things on the second, three things on the third, etc etc. By the end of it, you've removed 450+ items from your home. It sounds daunting, I know. I debated doing it for months before a friend (who I met online through Instagram - see?! Refer to point 1 on this list haha) encouraged me and assured me it would feel really good and freeing by the end of the month. I needed to rip off the band-aid in order to tackle the clutter in my home, and playing the #MinsGame was one way to do that.
I'd love to know your thoughts about this whole idea - leave them below, or find me on Instagram and let's connect on this topic. The more people discussing slow consumption and minimalism, the better in my opinion.
