Break one cookie into two pieces for a 3-year old, and you’ll be surprised how they react. It’s magical for them, as they see one treat transform into two. More is always more for them—their pleasure has been doubled!
Children around this age are unable to understand conservation. As kids get older, they begin to develop the capacity to understand that taller glasses of water don’t necessarily mean more volume than wider cups. And you can’t cheap out and multiply how many cookies they’re getting by breaking them up, either.
It’s an interesting study in human psychology.
As adults, we can smile at these tricks of the mind. We have learned to reason and critically evaluate much of the world around us. And we’re certainly too smart to fall for these sorts of mind games, aren’t we?
Not so fast.
Despite our experiences and understanding of the world, we still remain fallible to manipulations of perception—but this time, on grander scales.
For example, research has found that we tend to fill our plates no matter how large they are. The bigger the plate, the more the food we add to it. When plates are larger, we tend to underestimate the amount of food present. This, of course, can lead to overeating and weight gain.
When space is available we look to fill it.
This phenomenon is also obvious in our ever-expanding houses. Today’s residences are 61% larger than only 40 years ago. Despite a significant recession in 2008, median home sizes continue to steadily increase.
Many have grabbed the largest home their pre-approved loan will allow and subsequently filled them to the brim with stuff. As a result, the average household now has 300,000 items.
Never before have humans burdened themselves with so much space and so much stuff.
If we are ever going to break this growing trend, we need to get intentional. We ought to think hard about the amount of square footage we decide to own. And we ought to work hard to overcome the tendency to fill all our empty spaces with more and more physical possessions.
Here are three lessons to prevent you from continuing to amass more:
1. Re-examine your values.
If you were to say, “I want to downsize my house” or “I should declutter the garage,” those would be great goals. But they’re not values. Instead, values transcend time and objectives. Values, often times, form the basis for minimalism in our life. But more than that, they inform our specific practice of it.
What do you believe? What’s important to you? What guides your purpose in life or your philosophy of minimalism? And how do you want to be remembered? These are the powerful questions we must face and ask ourselves as minimalists. Who am I, what’s important to me, and does my life’s energy reflect that?
2. Start smaller.
When I embraced minimalism, I tirelessly decluttered our 2,200 square foot home in Vermont. Like most families in America, we had spent years filling every room, every closet, and every empty space. There were countless nooks to sift through, and it took months to pare down our belongings. But eventually, the space felt more open and more empty. We began to envision a life lived in a smaller home.
When we moved to Arizona, we chose a 1,600 square foot home. In so doing, we now save far more money, time, and energy than ever before. We took a risk and never looked back. But we didn’t start with the move first, we started much smaller—decluttering drawers and closets and rooms. Eventually, as we did, we began to discover we needed far less space than we imagined. And when we moved into a smaller home, we felt much less temptation to fill it with things we didn’t need.
3. Recognize fallibility.
Even the best of us get caught up in the drive to amass more space and more stuff. Just look out at the world and you’re apt to see flashy cars and McMansions almost everywhere. It’s human to be fallible, to make mistakes, or get caught up in this rat race of collection. Despite our values, we sometimes purchase and fill when we ought to lean on what’s most important to us.
When this happens, it is important not to punish or demean ourselves, but to return to step one: examine your values. What have you learned about yourself and how can you return to these values? Remember, you cannot change the past, but you can always learn from it.
We will always struggle to accurately judge the amount of stuff we carry throughout our lifespan. Whether it’s a broken cookie or an ever-expanding home full of stuff, our perspectives can be manipulated by the world around us. Society influences us and space affects us.
However, by revisiting our values, starting with small steps, recognizing fallibility, and learning from our past mistakes, we can overcome and counteract many of these tendencies. We should know better by now anyway.
About Joshua Becker
We live in 1600 sq. ft. It is a condo and plenty big. Three of us lived here when we moved in and we always needed a guest bedroom. I have a lot of craft items in small baskets. If they start filling up, I give a bag away to the YMCA, local schools and the public library. I get all my craft supplies second hand.
All of your points are spot on! We just made the move from 3000 sq. ft. to 1300……and we are in love (both with the house, and each other :))
I like the point on recognition of fallibility that you mentioned.
I find big empty spaces to be cold and uninviting. Chilling even. May be a reason why many try to fill it with ‘stuff’.
I actually dislike big interior spaces altogether. When we’ll become home owners I hope we’ll find a small house with a big yard, not the other way around.
Had to laugh at the beginning of your post, as my now college age son refused to eat anything that was “broken” (cookies, crackers, etc.) during his toddler through younger years. However, the rest of the post I can relate to.
Though I never desired a “McMansion” or what many consumers believe to be “the finer” materialistic things in life, I did manage to help fill our typical Midwest suburban house with sale items, garage sale items, and thrift store finds. While I devoted lots of time and energy to keeping most of the unnecessary clutter displayed, or appropriately organized and stored, it got so the garage (and basement) was much like you have previously described. Your epiphany during one of the many cleanout/organization days with your son, really hit home.
This past year has been transforming and liberating for me. I wish I had learned sooner that instead of wasting time organizing and cleaning I could have just had less stuff to begin with and more time to do things I enjoy and value.
That black-and-white photo threw me – I thought you were adopting the habit of “The Minimalists” and posting B&W photos of old white men.
Minimalism = one comment
1,600 sf is still huge by world standards. You aren’t embarrassed to live in that size space?
I would love to hear how folks deal with sentimentality. I have inherited a quantity of furniture from parents and grandparents. So has my husband. We’ve both been sick and are therefore slow at sorting and giving away. But, we are working on it slowly. As an example we have 4 rockers that we want. One rocker was my great grandmother’s. My grandmother rocked and read to me in that one and it fits my back perfectly-very comfortable.
Another rocker is interesting to look at, probably built by my great grandfather, belonged to my grandmother and then my mother. Not so comfortable, but awesome family history.
A third rocker is only about 25 yrs old and was my husband’s before we married. It fits his back perfectly. He wants it.
The fourth rocker is plain unfinished wood, boring design and neutral on comfort. It would be fine it painted and put on the patio.
It’s easy for me to say keep the comfy rocker for me and the comfy rocker for hubby and prob get rid of the plain one (even though my Dad bought it for me decades ago). No brainer. However, the one my great grandfather built and passed down through my family…I feel like a traitor getting rid of it!
Anyone care to mention how they deal with this type of sentimental situation? We don’t have other family members that want our items.
Keep all the rockers. Find other stuff to let go of instead.
Pick one and donate the rest. You won’t miss them. Take pictures of them if you think you’ll “regret” giving them away. It’s easier to look at a picture than it is to clean and upkeep multiple chairs.
It really comes down to re-evaluating your values and what’s more important to you.
As a millennial, it’s interesting to see that things really hasn’t changed that much. Many of my friends are continuously amassing stuff or moving into bigger houses. Lifestyle inflation continues to be an issue without people realizing it. Maybe they are happier that way, but it certainly is not for me.
I believe getting down to the basics, and ask yourself, what does it matter more to you? How do we make room for more intangible things that we care about more.
Neoliberal capitalism has hit millennials particularly hard. Maybe you don’t know any poor people, because they’re out there and they’re not buying homes with huge square footage.
Our journey to minimalism began 18 months ago, and the sheer amount of things we discovered we didn’t really ‘need’ was astonishing. I think minimalism helped me discover our values and find out more about myself in the process. Those values, in turn, have helped our journey into minimalism. I think you are so right about starting small and keeping those values in mind, thanks for the reminder :)
We have rule in the house. If we buy new toys or new clothes, there should be old toys and old clothes to be donated. Yes, space brings sanity that makes my life organized and peaceful.
After 35+ years in our successful design firm, we have indeed see homes grow to footages more than most homeowners use. We often ask our clients what rooms they depend on each day. Kitchen, baths and bedroom is all many use. We encourage our clients to make these areas work to their best first before adding more things to simply fill space. Our younger clients are so refreshing in their goals to live with less, yet better quality items and not following the norms of their parents.-Laurel
Thank you for providing this community of fellow minimalists!!!
It’s staggering how we can LOSE this outlook by participating in communities whose values are those of needing material possessions.
I was devoutly minimalist, then worked for 3 years in a financial services job I felt lucky to have landed! It slowly broke me into “needing” to buy a brand new car, a bigger home, and never being satisfied with any of it because other people had more or better.
Thousands of dollars later (earned and spent) I realized it wasn’t worth the income for me to keep that work environment, because it made me emotionally fragile, anxious, jealous and unhappy.
I’m living on savings for the summer, enjoying frugality, adventure and uncluttered space and time.
Things aren’t worth it if they don’t serve joyful outcomes.
Love.
We are five people in a 1000 square feet apartment. this is generally considered ‘spacious’ around here (and we are certainly not surrounded by minimalists). 1600 square feet for a family of four would be overwhelming to most. I begin to wonder whether a common European household would be thought of as ‘minimalist’ over in the States. ;-)
We moved into an older, larger, less-expensive house when we were expecting our fourth (and last) child, and oddly enough, I could sum it up as “Bigger house, less stuff.” We wanted space for the kids to play and hang out, not space for more things– the bathrooms are small, the bedrooms are smallish, but the family room is relatively huge, so there is floor space– room for everyone to have a seat on the sofa, room for people to sprawl out with books and games.
That said, I think the “less stuff” bit is mostly me– if you give my husband storage space, he will fill it– so my answer to that has been to limit the storage furniture, and we honestly have less than in our smaller house, which has made all the difference. We got rid of a lot of things when we moved, so I gave away the storage furniture that used to hold them, and that kind of puts a limit on what we can own. I think it’s possible to live smaller in a bigger space, but it has required some intentionality. I should add– we live in SoCal, so installing solar (and a whole-house fan) was our answer to the obvious issue of more square footage causing more energy usage.
When our family of 5 lived in a 2,500 sq. ft. home, we foolishly thought we needed to fill every inch with furniture and decor.
Then we moved into a 1,100 sq. ft. home and quickly realized we had too much stuff.
Next year, 4 of us + our 2 dogs plan to relocate to Florida and live in a 26-30 ft. 5th wheel.
It’s funny how a person’s mindset can change with a little perspective :)
Ireland, Dublin. 36sq meters or 386 sqft. Me, husband and two kids. Sucesfull hosting people on Couchsurfing.com. Yeap! It is all about having fewer but the best quaility items. Sold over 650 items and twice as many given away on Irish adverts.ie (like Craigslist) or to charity shops.
House gets even rented on airbnb when we travel. We pack personal items to 4 trunks. The rest stays for guests. Minimalism means freedom.
People often question my husband and I as to why we still live in our small apartment and haven’t moved to a bigger house and also why we seem to have/want so little stuff. For us it’s simple, we have enough space/stuff to live the way we want and more space/stuff would just be more to clean. I love a clean house but hate giving up a lot of my time to cleaning. We can clean our whole apartment thoroughly in a few hours and we can easily do quick spruce-ups as needed in less than 20 minutes if company is coming.
It also keeps us from buying a lot of extra stuff as we really don’t have a place to store it without the apartment looking/feeling cluttered. One of my pet peeves is having to move a lot of stuff to get to what I need in a closet or drawer, after clearing out a bunch of clutter years ago we rarely have to do that. When I do comes across a situation like that it now triggers me to re-evaluate what’s stored there.
Just want to thank you for your inspiring emails! I always read yours right away when I see it pop in my email. I am on the journey and they give me a nice boost. I did a good run through of the house at the beginning of the year and many trips to Goodwill. Really felt good! Over Memorial Day weekend we had to replace a ceiling in a bedroom and had to move everything out of the room. Since I do not have an extra room to put it all in, the furniture and belonging are all over the house. Although I am grateful I purged, clearly there is plenty of more work to do. Great opportunity to go further when putting everything back when the room is finished. There is such peace in open space. I have to laugh at myself because I am eyeballing everything. Thank you for your inspiration. I know by the end of the year I will be in such a better place, less stress and open time for the things that really matter.
My fiancé & I have been embracing Minimalism in our move from renting a shared 2000+ sq.ft. house to a 740 sq.ft. one-bedroom apartment next month. It’s been such a great process for both of us, though definitely difficult at times! I wrote a blog post recently about how we’ve gone about getting rid of a ton of our stuff.
We are a family of 4 living in a 1400 sq. ft. Home. With young kids and only 1 and 1/2 bath I used to feel that we needed a larger home because as the kids get older their interests grow, that need equipment, art supplies, sports etc. However since I’ve started this minimalist journey, I see that this home will do just fine. We live in the Bay Area where living on one income is not always an option but we’ve made intentional changes to align with our values. I’ve even left my job to be more available to my family and it’s been wonderful. The decluttering piece is still a work in progress but I am filled with gratitude everyday and am enjoying getting rid of things and making life more simple. Thanks Joshua, for these reminders that really we always do have enough irrespective of how much stuff or money we have. Your articles are always inspirational.
I’m in the process of downsizing.
Sold my house(not huge, but more than I needed). Now I am renting while looking for a small condo. Have gotten rid of quite a bit so far. Don’t miss any of it. I know some more will probably need to go, but waiting to see what works best in the new home.
Out of all your articles this one not only resonated with me the most People often walk into our open/minimal home and wonder why it’s so “empty.” It’s all about values and our home spaces are one of the first places to start showing our kids we value them more than we value spending time organizing/cleaning/maintaining the stuff we’ve accumulated around them.
I agree about empty space, it’s lovely to look at and very calming. The next step is raising your kids as communists so they understand how capitalism is anathema to a minimalist lifestyle. You can be a cappie or minimalist, but you can’t be both.
I remember back in 2000 when we first bought our house, it was my husband & I and 1 cocker spaniel, with dreams of starting a family, that’s why we bought the 2000sq ft house. We sat on the floor in our completely empty house, & I said , “we will never have enough stuff to put in this house” (we were coming from a 1 bedroom small apt). Back then we actually used our 2 car garage to park our 2 cars. Fast forward 17yrs, it’s still just my husband & me & 2 dogs, and it seems we have not one empty space in the house for anything. And our 2 car garage is now filled with, everything but cars. My husband gets frustrated that we still have credit card debt, though we haven’t charged on any credit card in several years, (except for AmExp, that we PIF ever mth), it doesn’t understand where those chgs came from, my answer is always the same. “Look around, everything you see in this house, cost money, we only had enough stuff to fill 2-3 rooms in this house when we first moved, now, we have no space, that’s where our credit card debt came from, not to mention, we’ve replace every appliance at least 1x, some 2x, the roof has replaced, we replaced the central A/C 2x” I have started to declutter junk, wasn’t junk when we bought it, but it’s just stuff we dont need & really don’t use and or love. I’ve embraced the minimalist idea & working it everyday, it’s a slow drip, but progress still the same. Not only am I declutter’g in the house, but also concentrating more on getting out of debt faster. We are reaching retiring age & with no kids to burden with getting rid of our stuff. I’m hoping to get to the point, that when the time comes (years from now, God willing), the realtor can sell the house & all its furniture/contents & give a young couple a good start without all the excess stuff.
When we first moved into this house (bigger than the last one, with our third child due just after the move) it felt huge.
Now we have four children, two of them teens, and I have to remind myself that this house is big enough and will start to empty soon. Kids will start to move out over the next 5-10 years and 1200 square feet is plenty.
300 000 objects, though, I can believe. I think in this household at least 200 000 of those are Lego!! :)
We downsized to a smaller home but still 2000 sq ft because we could not find a home that was smaller and functional. I love small spaces and loved the process of getting rid of a lot of stuff. It was a harder process for my hubby but he doesn’t miss anything that we didn’t move with us. We now have the one in – one out rule and am still working on our adult children not to buy us stuff but experiences :-)
It’s a continual journey. But I’m glad articles like his remind us peristence + intent will eventually become habit. Simplicity allows for even more… of everything.
I’m recently early retired living by myself in a 750 sq ft apartment. I could easily cut that in half. Difficult finding smaller places. Always enjoy your articles.
I appreciate how your posts always have an action step implied, Joshua. It’s so easy to “consume” another idea and move on unchanged, but you always invite us to stop and act in even a small way. I have never been challenged by square footage, as I have never really had a choice in that matter, until now. We are building a home from the ground up. The freedom to make it work for us and our values is powerful stuff! But part of our story in this home will be sharing it with others. Invitations to come and rest. Hospitality and caring for people. This goal requires more square footage than I would choose for myself as a minimalist, so we have to be extremely intentional about every item we bring into the space. More room for people, not things! Thanks for continuing to encourage us.
A friend of mine would always have something negative to say about the size of our home as if it somehow offended her! “Your house is so small”. Well, excuse me, you don’t even live there, so what’s your problem, we are fine! Really weird how some people need to make comments like that. It used to make me feel bad or “small” myself, and now I don’t really care after I discovered minimalism and that less is definitely more!
So true, Holly! I have experienced this with many life changes I have made for myself. People are comfortable the way they are, until someone chooses different. Your authenticity makes them unconsciously uncomfortable because they don’t have it. You’ve asked them to question themselves! If we keep living the testimony of minimalism, they may come to want what we have. Peace-Time-Space. So good.
So true! Sometimes the “less is more” mentality revolves around our relationships, I’ve found :) There are plenty of us out there who definitely want to encourage you to stay the course. With Love.
I live in small flat ( 14 Square Meters), at the beginning I felt bad because could not buy things, there is not space, but now I am happy because without knowledge I started to live as minimalist but now is my thought to live without love to the things!. This would be a long journey but I started. My challenge now is my closet :)
Fumio Sasaki, is that you? :)
The cookie analogy….. doesn’t always work like that.
Young kids will often freak out if you break their cookie. What was once whole is now in pieces, ruined.
Aside from that, yay! to minimalism!
Thank you for all the inspiration.
The statistic that the average household has 300,000 items is mind-blowing. How can a person keep track of that many items? But maybe that’s the point–you CAN’T keep track of that many items.
For those comparing house size, I don’t think the point of the article is to say that they are living in a particularly small space, just that as they made changes, their perspective changed to see they needed less than before.
We are a family of soon to be 6, living in a house far smaller than 1600 square feet (~1,200). But I don’t consider this particularly large or small. It’s just what we have currently that seems to suit where we are. Actually, I would love a larger house, but it’s not a high enough priority for us at this time.
Great comment! I agree. Minimalism isn’t always about getting smaller. It’s also about getting free of stuff and debt and time-consuming practices so we can spend more energy on people. Regardless of house size. But, for people who don’t have a handle on this concept yet, a larger house will equal more stuff to fill it. It’s a constant journey, isn’t it. Congrats on your large happy family!
Great article. It’s so easy to think we need more when really the true blessing is being happy right where we are with what we already have. I appreciate getting your articles in my inbox to be reminded of this on a regular basis. Being grateful is truly a practice.
The idea of children not understanding the concept of quantity reminds me of a Christmas years back, our two Daughter’s both received Christmas cards from their out of State Great Grandma… as they opened their card’s, my oldest exclaimed ” I got $10.00 “… my younger daughter said ” ahhh, no fair…I only got $1.00 “, they were each holding up a ten dollar bill.
Priceless.
Great article. It has been my experience in the last few years,
after losing both of my parents, and in-laws that we need to be mindful of what we want to burden our children / families with, when we pass away. Recently when trying to empty my in- laws
home , my teenage sons came across really neat toys that Mom
Mom had squirreled away for that ” Someday”. Both of them
commented on how wonderful it would have been to play with
these toys with Mom Mom. You are spot on when you say that
we need to re-examine our values. Perhaps the question should
be, ” Do we want to be remembered for our stuff, or who we were
as a person ? ” We come into this world with nothing and we leave
with nothing. Thank you for writing this blog, you are so inspirational.
Hi Joshua, I love the reminders you send out they are really meaningful to me. When you gave the example of how you simplified in stages, I thought how wonderful it would be if you also gave examples of your own fallibility in that section! I have found that when others share their learning through mistakes along with their successes it can be more supportive and meaningful, and help others to avoid the same traps!
Many tears ago we moved into our 1600 sq ft house I thought it was good for 2 adults and one child but people would say what a cute little house. But we had Two more kids and still live there and they are all grown now. And glad we didn’t buy a bigger house. My husband did build a mother in law suite we rent to my son and his wife who like me is a minimalist. Even when I didn’t know that is what I was.
some of the happiest and close-knit families I know grew up together in smaller homes. Its sad how media has defined what we should have and not love.
It can be difficult to fight the impulse to fill your empty living spaces. Once you enjoy the calm and tranquility of empty space there is no going back to the chaos of clutter.
“Stuff” turns into being more burden than pleasure
I agree > depending on the stuff, it needs to be cared for and maintained, insured and in the end just chewing up your time and finances. Changed my lifestyle from a “I want” to a “what do I need?” lifestyle years ago. Enjoying a lifestyle that cares for what I have and in maintaining everything on a regular basis, experience enormous freedom.
You are so inspirational! I have learned so much from your writings over the last year. It has now really shaped our thought process on purchases, decluttering and giving away things for others to enjoy. As you stated, it is about values. Thank you so much!
It’s so helpful to get a reminder such as this. Nature abhors a vacuum and we equally culpable! The part about social referents is important; it’s easy to fall into the trap of keeping up with the Joneses when our circumstances are all unique.
Two years ago we sold our 4BR house with a full basement, two sheds, two car garage, an attic, etc. and chose to move into a 3BR apartment with our adult son. No basement, no shed, no garage, no attic. Needless to say we got rid of lots of stuff! Last week my son moved out and I am terrified as I look at his empty bedroom because I fear that I will find a way to buy more stuff to fill it up. This article came at just the right time for me. Thank you.
When we recently moved into our new home, we had to make a conscious effort not to just “fill the space”. We got rid of extra items and realized how freeing it was to have empty space to move and live in!
Good reminder to be aware of our space and to not give in to the temptation of filling it entirely, no matter what the size of the house.
Funny – my house is also 1600 square feet but where I live it is considered a large house.
1600 foot square. Rotfl. I live on 160 with my wife and father.
545 sq ft apt. Piano, console table, 2 chairs, futon. Space enough for my 2 dogs and me. Stress-free living!
I received this email and there was no author listed until I linked here. However, I knew it was Joshua, I recognize the way you speak. Somehow you take something people wrestle with and cause them to embrace it. Or perhaps I’m just so open to what you are saying that it just sounds beautiful. Anyway, I love the way you write, thank you for the inspiration. I treasure each email. I saw your documentary about four weeks ago and have cleaned out two closets and have a ton more to do. I lived in what I called shoeboxes while raising kids and then 1600 sq ft for the last 11 of child rearing. Boy was it tight in there too. Five years ago I got my dream home, 3300 sq ft. Last year I received asthma and went downhill fast. Now I’m struggling with a full time job, a family I want to spend time with and a monstrous home full of crap. My husband hired our daughter to clean twice a week. Helps us and her. I manage to do meals and minor clean up sometimes but am weak and unpredictably out of order. This was my motivation. First I need to simplify my life, belongings and obligations/upkeep. Eventually we may need less costly housing so it will come naturally. I know I won’t work until retirement (47 years old), I’m never sure about next week.
Thank you again for your guidance!