“Owning less is far more beneficial than organizing more.” – Twitter / Facebook
We are a culture drowning in our possessions. We take in more and more (holiday, birthdays, sales, needs), but rarely find opportunity to discard of it. As a result, our homes fill up with so much stuff. And because we believe the best solution is to find organizational tools to manage all of it, we seek out bigger containers or more efficient organizational tips and tricks. But simply organizing our stuff (without removing it) is always only a temporary solution. By definition, organizing our possessions is an action that must be repeated over and over and over again.
At its heart, organizing is simply rearranging. And though we may find storage solutions today, we are quickly forced to find new ones as early as tomorrow. Additionally, organizing (without getting rid of our stuff and decluttering) has some other major shortcomings that are rarely considered:
- It doesn’t benefit anyone else. The possessions we rarely use sit on shelves in our basements, attics, and garages… even while some of our closest friends desperately need them.
- It doesn’t solve our debt problems. It never addresses the underlying issue that we just buy too much stuff. In fact, many times, the act of rearranging our stuff even costs us more as we purchase containers, storage units, or larger homes to house it.
- It doesn’t turn back our desire for more. The simple act of organizing our things into boxes, plastic bins, or extra closets doesn’t turn back our desire to purchase more things. The culture-driven inclination to find happiness in our possessions is rarely thwarted in any way through the process.
- It doesn’t force us to evaluate our lives. While rearranging our stuff may cause us to look at each of our possessions, it does not force us to evaluate them—especially if we are just putting them in boxes and closing the lids. On the other hand, removing possessions from our home forces questions of passion, values, and what’s truly most important to us.
- It accomplishes little in paving the way for other changes. Organizing may provide a temporary lift to our attitude. It clears a room and subsequently clears our mind, but rarely paves the way for healthy, major lifestyle changes. Our house is too small, our income is too little, and we still can’t find enough time in the day. We may have rearranged our stuff… but not our lives.
On the other hand, the act of getting rid of stuff from our home accomplishes many of those purposes. It is not a temporary solution that must be repeated. It is an action of permanence—once an item has been removed, it is removed completely. Whether we re-sell our possessions, donate them to charity, or give them to a friend, they are immediately put to use by those who need them.
Removing possessions begins to turn back our desire for more as we find freedom, happiness, and abundance in owning less. And removing ourselves from the all-consuming desire to own more creates opportunity for significant life change to take place.
If you’re struggling with how to get rid of stuff, you can:
1. Challenge yourself to remove the unneeded things in your home.
2. Rid yourself of the extra weight in a permanent manner.
3. Carry a trash bag from room-to-room.
4. See how big of a donation pile you can make.
5. Eliminate debt by selling what you no longer need.
It doesn’t matter so much how you remove them, as long as you do. For it is far better to de-own than to always be decluttering.
Jennifer T. says
I am not looking to be a minimalist. Ever. Just to reconfigure my things so that it better fits my life, allowing to enjoy them without them getting in the way.One thing I’ve noticed in all the years I’ve spent rebuilding what I’ve lost, is that no matter how much you have or how little, its all about how much you actually manage, and how well you take care of those things. I’ve had the same things for many years, and the things I’ve put a side just in case, always end up needing use, each year as my budget tightens. Instead of selling or giving them away, they have found use and have not gone to a dump somewhere right away. And if I have the item I suddenly need, I don’t have to spend money on it, I can just use it. However, now that I have a child, they now have things as well. And though most of it is on lend until they get bigger, it still takes up space as well. And I have also moved into a small room. So now I’m trying to re-evaluate what I can keep around and what I can can get rid of. I cut out everything I didn’t have use for anymore or extras so we’d have space. Now I have just enough, but its still too much and is becoming a clutter problem. The only extra things I’ve bought are what he absolutely needs. But somehow the other stuff just doesn’t fit. No site I’ve been to address exactly this problem. At all. What do you get rid of or keep exactly? Thank you. :)
L says
I started thinning the herd ( so to speak at age 32) as a child of older parents in a family that doesn’t reproduce much I was slammed with inherited items 10 years later. I am slowly with a lot of consideration and care dispersing as much of these possessions as I can into the family. I am keeping some.
I believe in the middle road. I do not like clutter. I do not like things packed into boxes and closets that never see the light of day.
I do enjoy having some old family things. I do like original art on the walls of my home.
I don’t like to not be able to put my hands on what I need right away.
I am a practical, sentimental minimalist if I can really be called minimalist at all.
I love things of beauty. There are so many things in stores, boutiques and antique stores that are a pleasure to see. I do not need to take them home. I enjoy them there and go home to my home which has enough but not too much.
If it is not of use, has no emotional value, gets shoved in a box in the attic or closet it just needs to go. I also , even though I loved my family’s traditional Christmas as a child , will not have a Xmas tree ever again ( if I had children I would). I limit myself to two boxes of Christmas decorations.
I do wish people would stop giving me gifts. I go to christmas parties and I always pick the smallest looking thing in gift exchanges. I get a lot of pity. Little do people know I am very pleased to not bring something fancy home!
The concept of experiences not things is increasingly appealing. Theater tickets, ski lift tickets, going to a fair or concert, lunch with friends,hiking in the great outdoors are all worth more than any high quality knickknack.
I don’t want a minimalist house. In a purist minimalist home it feels like it has no soul or has the personality of an enormous overly tiled white bathroom.
I want a home with character but which isn’t a shrine to consumerism. I want a homey home without the newest or greatest. I like my greatgrandmother’s bread knife, my Mother’s self portrait, my grandmother’s fruit bowl, my Dad’s desk and my Aunt’s book shelves. In the bottom left hand drawer of my father’s desk I keep his wallet with everything he had in it. I like to hold it in my hand.
In their extremes both attachment and detachment can be negative. I keep less things than most of my friends but I also believe the right path is somewhere in the middle
Angie says
*like*
robyn says
love the middle way!
Connie says
I like your concept “L” about just being in the middle.
Erin says
Beautiful, L. I completely agree about the middle way.
H says
Here, here… I have tried for three years to get my family to only buy one gift for my two kids. And that for the adults we go snowmobiling, skiing, attend a sporting event, something that means time spent together. And each year i am told I am ruining Christmas. So I sell or regift and feel empty because my Christmas wish of spending time together is ignored.
My job was eliminated last week. I am choosing to see it as an opportunity to gift myself with time. It’s my chance to start anew, inside my home and myself.
How encouraging to read from others who “get it”.
Patti says
One of the best things that ever happened to me was in 1994 when I lost all of my belongings (home, cars, everything…minus the clothes I was wearing) in a flood. It drew the dividing line between wants and needs, and I was amazed at what I could live without.
Twenty-one years later, I occasionally create another “flood”, purging anything in my home and workplace that isn’t essential to life or making a living.
Sidney says
Talk about turning ashes to roses! Good for you, Patti. I admire you and your attitude/outlook so very much.
kathy says
I loved this article and I love de-own as opposed to declutter. Is this your word? I will surely give you credit when I use it. And I will use it, I love it.
Frank Wm Carr says
Hello, I am 25 years old, from the US, and have looked at this site a little bit. This made me consider some things, and I may consider myself a budding minimalist. Yes, no doubt about it, my apartment is a mess. But I am throwing away or otherwise ridding some things that don’t have real value anymore. This is a principle I want to adopt.
For example, I have been very interested in collecting a advanced layman level science series from beginning to end. Yes, I’ll still try to obtain and read all the books (as I love science). However, now, whenever I understand the book overall, it’s not so necessary to keep it because, after all, the purpose of reading a non-fiction book is to learn and understand the content, not to memorize it. In other words, it’s about the key concepts, not the minutiae. (Should you ever have to review something from the book, no worries, you’ve got the web on your side.) Another benefit of selling it is that someone else gets to have it, and hopefully learn from it. Honestly, though, I still prefer the hard copy. Ditto for fiction, by the way.
I take advantage of free downloads, especially a Bible study tool (yes, I’m a Christian) that will save me shelves of Bible tools and Bibles, and of course, money. And I used to love to bounce the basketball without playing the sport itself (may sound eccentric, but, hey, so am I sometimes!). Well, those days are over and I’ll just give it to another guy willing to tackle the hoops. Finally, I was really into old technology (8-tracks, Betamax, C64, you name it), but I figured this is the 21st century, so it’s time to move past that. A lot of newer technology isn’t really necessary either, by the way.
So whether I discard, sell, or give away my items, it’s out of my life and (at least in the latter two cases) into another’s. Remember, there’s still a long way ahead of me, and my minimalism journey has just begun.
Grant says
Yes you are exactly right. I grew up in a large old stuffed house with fat moody people. I myself followed my parents example for a while until I decided to follow Christ. It’s been a lot of change over the years since 2007 (Age26). However I’ve discovered that stuff, things, food,sex and hobbies do not fulfill a man’s heart. The things you own end up owning you and one makes decisions in relation to their commitments and perceived fullfill to stuff. Therefore since I can’t take this junk with me to heaven and it weighs down a man soul. I’ve been pruning my life, my fat, my finances, my heart and now my stuff. I’m more free now and set apart from the world than ever before. Thanks you Jesus! Get rid of the stuff that slows you down, its a snare. If your buying stuff for fulfillment and meaning. Then you have a problem, cause nothing in this world will fill you up. Choose life Frank cause every decision you make either brings forth life or brings death. Excessive stuff is a symptom much like clogged arteries and rolls of body fat. The best part of living light is that you are free to follow Christ without choosing between two masters.
Teresa Forrester says
Yet again another inspiring article. My declutter and de-own process is still underway. I am beginning to really notice the difference. I have boxed items to go to the thrift store to sell, but they only accept so much at a time. I am looking for more ways to sell my usable stuff. As I clean out items, I find that I will go back and get rid of more than the first purge. It is really freeing to see less clutter in my home. God Bless!
enna says
I grew up in a horrible situation or hoarded CRAP. I thus developed a hatred of STUFF… much like my disgust in seeing obese people. it’s a mental illness. I aways embraced minimalism. I didn’t even know it was such a hot topic til lately cos it’s been my way of life. can’t wait to move to my new smaller apartment this summer! I have the joy of the smallest apartment being luxuriously accommodating to me and my ”STUFF!”
Sidney says
Enna, I was really feeling for you and your previous “horrible situation,” until I read “much like my disgust in seeing obese people.” Wow, that is really unfortunate that you judge others you don’t even know by their weight or size. People get into that condition for a lot of reasons — some of which are their *own* terrible pasts — and to be so full of condemnation is baggage of another kind. I hope you get past it, since you’re obviously working on your life in other ways.
Mereta says
Love the tips. I just wrote a small and not so indepth blog on ways to help the clutter down. I am new to Simple Living and I am blogging my journey as I go. Thank you for the tips, I will definitely be reading more from you!
Mereta says
ways to *help the clutter stay down :D
Gayle says
Mereta, I liked the first version. ;) It gave me a mental image of a gentleman helping a lady down from a carriage, as in, “Let me help you get down and out of here.” Now to go say that to my clutter!
:)
Karen says
Tiffanyle, I too lost my husband. He was constantly telling me that we had too much stuff, I needed money when he passed away and went through my house to find so much junk I didn’t need. I had a sentimental reason to have these things. I tried to go back to work but being a hospice nurse, it was impossible. I decided to accept widow benefits from my husbands social security. Then I attacked my bills. I tried to glean them down as much as I could. But I talked myself into keeping my tv satellite and my internet. I love this as I don’t go out much except to my kids houses, so I decided I deserved tv. I am trying to work from home and have been scammed several times. I am learning slowly but surely that “less is more”. I am starting today to clean up and over what I would normally do… I am sitting within 10 ft of useless things that I don’t need and I will be getting rid of in the next month…or as soon as it is warmer. Good Luck with your new life…. We will make it…
Vicky says
Hi Karen,
I am sorry to hear you lost your husband. I admire all that you are doing to simplify. I came by simplifying and moving toward minimalism a very different way a few years ago and have been astonished at the things I can get rid of now that I was reluctant to six months to a year ago. This includes TV channels. I was intimidated at first by not having cable channels, but I finally made the break, and I don’t miss getting that bill every month. But I do watch some online things. Anyway, I mean to say that it’s a process that can yield really pleasant surprises over time. No hurry, but stay open. I read a lot of books now. Good luck.
SimpleBetterSolutions says
Leading a more simplified life is so rewarding. We go through a purge on a regular basis. It always feels so wonderful knowing that the things we no longer need can help someone else. I encourage my clients to do the same. My tagline is: “Simplify your life. Discover more hours in your day.” It is so true. When you are not bogged down with stuff, life is so much better. I have a simplify your life blog that you can reach via the link below.
http://www.simplebettersolutions.com/category/simplify-your-life-blog/
I look forward to sharing your wonderful article via my website.