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Declutter

The Joy of One

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I have long been enamored with the concept of One.

How lovely would it be to have One coat you could wear all year? One pair of shoes that worked with every outfit? One bag that filled all your needs? One pen, One pan, One sauce pot, One spatula, One lipstick of the perfect shade.

Ahhh…..for me, that’s minimalist heaven. It’s the culmination of all the decluttering I’ve been doing, and minsumerism I’ve been practicing, for the past decade.

One is restrained. One is elegant. One is beautiful.

I talk a lot about Limits in my book, The Joy of Less: like limiting our shirts or books or towels or plates to a certain number or certain space.… {Read more}

Stealth Decluttering

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In the past, I used to engage in big, glorious acts of decluttering—the type in which an entire closet is emptied and the contents scattered across the room, each item awaiting its fate. Sometimes I’d put on music, pour a glass of wine, and dance around my castoffs.

Ah, those were the days… If I tried that now, a pint-sized scavenger would be dragging whatever she could grab to far-flung corners of our home. And I’m sure a good amount would be adopted as new (albeit unconventional) playthings.

So now I declutter in stealth mode.

Instead of extravagant purging sessions, I pare down our possessions quietly, piece by piece.… {Read more}

Decluttering Update: Hello eBay, My Old Friend

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Hello eBay, my old friend I’ve come to list with you again…

Sometimes you reach a point in life when you have things all figured out—you’ve accomplished that elusive goal, you’ve designed that perfect lifestyle, you’ve tweaked and fine-tuned your way into the ideal routine.

And then what happens? Well, things change, of course. One of the tenets of Zen Buddhism is that life is never static—and that the desire for it to be so is cause for great suffering. Better to accept that change is the rule, and embrace the twists and turns that occur along the way.

I had once decluttered my way to minimalist nirvana.… {Read more}

Storage is Not a Solution

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Look at any organizational website or catalog, and you’ll find a plethora of boxes, bags, and containers billed as “storage solutions.” No matter what the item, there’s a vessel to hold it—big, small, tall, flat, thin, wide, clear, colored, fabric, plastic, leather, wood.

Put them on shelves, pile them in closets, stack them in your attic, basement, and garage. If you run out of room, gather them up and stick them in a storage unit across town.

And presto—your clutter problems are over!

Uh, not really. Storage is not a solution.

Just because it’s out of sight, doesn’t mean it’s out of mind.… {Read more}

Possessions as Promises

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When Plumblossom was just a few months old, I bought an infant swing. I never thought I’d own such an item—but desperate to get my daughter to nap, I went online and discovered this “solution” to my problem. It promised to calm my little one with its gentle rocking, and send her off to sleep in no time flat; the Amazon reviews confirmed its efficacy (“My baby naps 3 hours in this!”). I couldn’t part with my money fast enough.

My enthusiasm to acquire this new thing made me think: what are our possessions, really, but a bunch of promises? That dress promises to make us look stylish; that smartphone promises to keep us tech-savvy and connected; that cookbook promises to make us a culinary whiz; that moisturizer promises to take years off our face; that heirloom china promises to help us remember our grandmother.… {Read more}

Walls of Stuff

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An observation from my minimalist life: when you don’t have a lot of stuff in your home, you tend to look outward for entertainment.

When my husband and I lived in our tiny flat in England, we rarely spent our leisure time indoors—other than reading or cooking, there simply wasn’t much to do. Instead, weekends and evenings would find us walking the streets of London, or the idyllic paths of the countryside.

The same holds true now: even though we live in a larger house, there’s still not much to keep us inside. During the day, I usually put Plumblossom in my Baby Bjorn carrier, wander through the neighborhood, and chat with anyone who happens to be out and about.… {Read more}

Sinking the Boat (or Ancient Chinese Decluttering)

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There’s a popular Buddhist story about Layman P’ang, a successful merchant in 8th century China. He was a family man who, instead of becoming a monk, chose to pursue a lay practice and study the sutras with his wife and children. Worried that his material wealth might impede his path to enlightenment, he put all his worldly possessions in a boat, and sank it in the middle of a river.

Ah, don’t you sometimes wish you could do the same! Decluttering can be a long and arduous process, as we agonize over each possession. Should we keep it? Should we part with it?… {Read more}

Minimalist Holiday: Declutter-Gifts

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For many aspiring minimalists, a certain temptation arises at this time of year. On the one hand, you have the urge to purge your household of unwanted things; and on the other, you may be expected to produce gifts for friends and family. It seems like the perfect opportunity to kill two birds with one stone; but can declutter-gifting really be pulled off with panache?

It’s tricky, but I think it can be done—as long as the declutter-gift meets one of the following standards:

It’s an heirloom. And by heirloom, I don’t mean the velvet Elvis that’s been sitting in your basement for the last twenty years.… {Read more}

Twenty Questions to Clear Your Clutter

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In your quest to declutter, sometimes a good interrogation is in order. If you caught a trespasser on your property, you’d likely question their presence—why not do the same for your stuff? That way, you can determine whether it truly belongs in your household, or needs to be escorted off the premises.

To that end, here are twenty questions to ask of your clutter:

1. What are you? Let’s face it—if you have to ask, the item under scrutiny should already be halfway out the door. It might sound like a ridiculous question, but I’d wager that most of us have plenty of unidentifiable bits and bobs in our junk drawers and garages.… {Read more}

Exorcise Your Clutter Ghosts

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We all have some clutter skeletons in our closets—purchases and behaviors that have junked up our homes, emptied our bank accounts, and perhaps even chained us to an unsatisfying work-spend treadmill.

And despite our best intentions, some of these demons continue to haunt us, sucking the space from our homes, the money from our wallets, and the joy from our lives.

In the spirit of Halloween, I propose an exorcism: let’s call out each of these clutter ghosts in turn, and banish them once and for all!

Novelty. If you find yourself idly browsing retail websites, paging through catalogs, stopping by the mall every weekend, or otherwise looking for things “to want,” the ghost of novelty may be haunting you.… {Read more}