“Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.
Whenever I have opportunity to speak on the benefits of minimalism, I allow time at the end for some question and answer with the participants. I believe strongly the journey of minimalism is a personal journey. And as a result, I always expect there to be unique, specific circumstances in the audience which could not possibly have been addressed from upfront.
And while each setting, venue, and audience vary from presentation to presentation, the first few questions from any audience are nearly identical. Depending on who I call on first, I will receive one of these questions: What about my sentimental items and family heirlooms? What about my books? What about my kids’ toys? My husband/wife will never go along with this idea, what should I do with their clutter?
Interestingly enough, each of these questions sound unique. And in some ways they are, they do represent different personalities and/or family dynamics. But there is one great similarity in each of these questions. And it is this similarity that causes too many people to get stuck in their journey towards a clutter-free home.
Notice, each of these questions represent the apparent “toughest” thing in their homes to declutter: books, heirlooms, or clutter from someone else in the family. Each of their minds has quickly raced to the most difficult area in their home to declutter. And the thought of removing those items from their home seems daunting.
My response to their question is always the same: Take heart. You don’t need to start with the hard stuff. Instead, start at the easiest place possible in your home. Build up little victories and momentum by clearing the clutter from your automobile, a drawer, your living room, or maybe your bathroom cupboard. You’ll quickly begin to experience the benefits of living with less… and you’ll know what to do when you finally arrive at the seemingly impossible areas in your home.
A few years back, I ran a marathon. It was the fulfillment of a life dream. I had always wanted to run one as an exercise in self-discipline and focus, but the challenge always seemed to difficult. How would I ever run 26.2 miles? What about that stretch of mile 20 to mile 26? Where would I find the mental strength to run through the “wall” as I neared the end?
The fear of running 26.2 miles kept me from even trying.
That was, until I picked up a book titled, Run Your First Marathon. While I ultimately found conversations with other marathon runners to be a bit more helpful in my training, this book by Grete Waitz provided me with all the motivation to get started. Specifically, it was the training guide that motivated me the most. It read:
- Day 1: Run 1 mile.
- Day 2: Rest.
- Day 3: Run 1.5 miles.
- Day 4: Rest.
I found great motivation in this training plan. You see, I knew I could run one mile – that was an easy step. I even knew I could probably run two miles… and that would get me all the way through almost the whole first week. Suddenly, I stopped worrying about miles 20-26.2 and I just stayed focused on accomplishing what I knew I could accomplish. Ultimately, the lessons I learned while running 1, 2, and 5 miles prepared me to run 10, 12, 14. And the lessons I learned running 10, 12, and 14 miles prepared me to run 18, 20, and eventually 26.2.
So go ahead. Start your decluttering journey with the easiest step – just pick one drawer. And leave your toughest questions for mile 20. You’ll get there when you are ready.
Darlene says
Thank you, Joshua! I made my first attempt at paring down my shoes today….shoes are my chocolate. While I made significant progress by donating almost 50 pair of shoes, but I was left looking at a rack of about 75 shoes still remaining. I felt so disappointed with myself…simply defeated. After reading the article, I am feeling a little better knowing that my quest today was just the beginning. I am determined to bring myself to a happier state and rid myself of unnecessary clutter that I have accumulated in all areas of my life…today was just one of my first steps…still working on my first mile. Thank you for the motivation!
Jane Slater says
Remember when we used to have one or two pairs of shoes? That’s no longer the norm. But we did fine with just one or two, years ago.
Kate says
I was thinking about this recently in terms of food. People say ‘I could never be a vegetarian/vegan, I love X too much!’ So, don’t give that up. Give up something easier and see how it feels. Go from there. So, in minimalism, ‘I could never get rid of X’ doesn’t mean you can’t get rid of other, less important things. And who knows? Next year, you may find it’s not as important to you anymore to own X, to eat X, to keep up with the Joneses. These journeys to arbitrary labels are ongoing, and can be taken at any pace, and stopped at any point. It’s personal. It’s about what improves every individual life. Thanks for the reminder!
Happy Annie says
Excellent post! I find that because my home is very simple and clutter free that I CAN keep sentimental items from my childhood, my kid’s art and writings, and a huge bookcase filled with my well loved books. Getting rid of all that other meaningless clutter I had before allows plenty of space for the things that have meaning for me and the things I love. Living simply and with minimalism as a goal does not need to look like a sterile white room with a white table and 4 white chairs with nothing on the walls. It just means getting rid of all the non-essential items that are blocking the way to what really matters to you. :)
Laura says
I love this, it’s exactly how I started, by taking the junk which was more of a hindrance than help and moving on progressively to things like clothes which didn’t fit me anymore and then the books no longer read before the dreaded academic notes which were all digitised anyway. I have a lot of heirlooms but it’s nice to accept that it could be a while before these get reviewed and even then if they do stay knowing that’s okay simply because reducing the clutter and entering into minimalist living is such a personal experience. Great post Josh!
Derek says
Erin that was the most profound thing I’ve read in weeks. Unfortunately you have caused many readers to scratch their heads with confusion at your attempt to mass induce a little cognitive dissonance about this otherwise innocuous subject. You are smarter and more thoughtful than 95% of the people who read this stuff.
Erin says
While agreeing we all have too much and much of it is unnecessary, I have two fundamental concerns.
This corporate culture which has relentlessly pushed materialism, simultaneously relegates family connections and traditions and much else to the dustbin. It’s always urging “starting over” each year – new colors, new house design, new clothes, new self. One’s earlier connections (especially to family), or home arrangement, or clothing, are all treated as disposable, an embarrassment, or or a burden. (“It’s not your father’s automobile,” “It’s not your mother’s dishwashing detergent,” i.e. their product, in being different from what is used by those who brought you up, is good) Even the self is seen as something to be changed out. Style is everything, whatever “style” means. Something in this de-cluttering feels like a cultural rejection of caring about one’s roots, about history, about family. It’s not recycling what has value or even recognizing what does, but tossing it. Baby clothes and toys saved for grandchildren can save family a fair amount of money, reconnect adult children to their own childhoods and their parents, reminding them of how much love and care they received. For adult children who have lost connection with their parents, such items, filled with love, bring them a new awareness that they are a part of culture, a tradition. And in seeing that cotton clothes from the 70s are all organic, one also has a deeper sense of that time, and how much needs to be fixed now.
The second concern is with books. While it would be nice to be able to declutter all one’s books, and have only a single device, not all books are digitally produced, and even if they were, it means that some corporate entity would control what will exist, so what can be read, and what can be censored. The Church burned the library at Alexandria – so much of humanity’s accumulated knowledge was lost – and it also censored out part of the ancient texts. They took out what Asian religions teach – that the mind and body are connected, and that people have the ability to affect things with their feelings (hearts) (what Masuru Emoto is showing now with messages from water or what Gregg Braden is showing http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmMNlmn1DPc). A home library can a very unique treasure of material, not unlike the biodiversity of plants that some people work hard to preserve – whether it contains books on traditional healing, or a personally built collection of a group’s history, or books of maps, or old children’s books, or textbooks, or a broad or narrow collection of art books or poetry books. I read once about very poor people in North Africa whose families were tasked with preserving texts for hundreds of years, a very great honor. Thanks to them, not all was lost at Alexandria because some texts were held in private homes, in caves, and are a gift to humanity. Do we really want corporations, through digital patents, to make the decisions about what is available for us to read and what material they would gladly wipe out (perhaps Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the US, or books criticizing US foreign policy or Monsanto, or texts of indigenous healing or natural health or of Aryuvedic or Chinese medicine about what plant material cures diseases)? A family’s book collection can grow from generation to generation, the work of the family’s imagination and knowledge.
We see we need to grow our own food because it can’t be left in corporate hands. While it seems okay to toss out processed food and cheap books, don’t we (and not just corporate funded libraries) need to keep control of organic seeds and unique collections and rare books? Buddhists monks like very simply but they are guardians of books and art work, both of which were immediately destroyed by the Chinese when they took over Tibet, in order to destroy the culture, by detaching it from its knowledge base.
When we declutter private libraries, what are we doing?
Finally, something in decluttering is missing the distinctiveness of objects, that are not dead things with no meaning, but are alive with history and significance. It is good to move away from the empty materialism of this culture but in the process, how do we make sure we are not losing hold of the texture and history of things, which give heart to family, culture and meaning? How do we not make history and culture the next disposable, items?
Melanie says
These are the things I struggle with as I declutter. My mom kept all of our cards and I just went through my 4 yo birthday cards with her last weekend (I am 52). It was fun and I kept my doll from when I was 5 that my granddaughter enjoy playing with. Many of the granddaughters took things from my mom’s house. But how many heirloom quilts does one person need? My grandmother, husbands grandmother and my mother all quilted. And what to do with all the photographs? How many do you need to keep? I kept some of my mom’s holiday decorations that were from my childhood and have gotten rid of some of the newer ones. And my husband and I have agreed that if we take something in we need to give something away. I can only use so many quilts and so I need to let someone who doesn’t have one use it. I will keep the books I cherish and part with those that aren’t as important to me so that others can use them.
Christy King says
I think that minimalism and decluttering aren’t about just blindly getting rid of things. You should keep the things that are meaningful for you and your family.
Most of us, though, have a ton of stuff we’ve accumulated and don’t even care about.
Even regarding my books (and I love real books, the heft, the smell….), I’ve been trying hard to buy only books I know I’ll want to read multiple times or use as a resource, and to sell or donate the books that have no personal meaning and I won’t read again.
I have a small collection of books I’m done with but am saving for my son when he’s older. Not that he couldn’t just check them out from the library, but I hope there will be some connection knowing they were mine.
Anne Stockwell says
I think that’s where good judgment has to come into play. Do all the things you own have equal value? No. Can you take better care of the high-value things, and enjoy them more, if you winnow out the chaff?
Rachel says
Good points, but also:
1. You can save books on your own cards or other devices, which are not controlled by companies. I read PDF books all the time–on my Nook, Kindle app, phone, or computer.
2. There is nothing my grandmother has that I want. Everything she owns would be a poor substitution for her and my memories of growing up with her.
3. People used to pass stories down verbally. Maybe we should connect to one another without stuff. I can take these stories with me anywhere. In Civil Disobedience, Thoreau sits in jail displaying the difficulty of imprisoning the mind. We can be stripped of all things physically, but as long as we are in good health, we have our thoughts.
Steve says
For me this is something like being a window washer on the Empire State building;’ by the time you get finished it is time to start again. So how do you gain ground and keep it? Particularly in a family setting where you have shared space…
Greg at Tiny Bit Better blog says
Steve, I’ve been struggling with the same question I don’t know exactly how to explain it, but even with the two of us and our 5 kids that are still at home, it’s working. Maybe this will help for you….
1. I give 15 minutes a day to “mindful” decluttering some part of my physical environment, either at work or home or in the car
2. The wife gives 15 minutes a day to mindful decluttering at home
3. Each of the 5 kids gives 15 minutes a day to decluttering either their rooms or the common areas. They alternate between the two so their rooms are actually starting to show some progress and the common areas are too.
By the way…for the kids, what I’ve noticed is that they have very subtly moved into the side of keeping things more tidy so they don’t have to do the same work twice if it’s not necessary.
Maybe that will work for you too. Cheers!
Kristi S says
Thank you for this!
Christy King says
One thing that’s helped us is the “one in, one out” rule. Even kids can learn that if they want a new toy, one will have to be donated to charity. On a bigger scale, just before Christmas and his birthday, I remind my son that he needs to clean out his room so he’ll have room for new stuff.
Since I’m still in the decluttering process, I often get rid of two items for each new one.
gale says
For me it is to stop bringing stuff in. Stop buying it. Stop accepting it from well-meaning relatives and friends. Also go through the mail immediately and through junk away and deal with all that daily. Otherwise you have a pile that grows!
Terri says
I too find decluttering is a process. Small steps sometimes giant leaps other times. Some things are harder, some easier. Amazing how momentum builds the free-er I become. At the end of the day the results are always the same, I love space, I love less. I’ve never missed a single thing I move on to other places.
I’m appreciative of all the bloggers and commenters who keep sharing their stories. It keeps me going.
Kathy says
Another great post….and a super reminder that the journey of minimalism (and yes it is a journey) is a bit by bit process…and that there is no where to arrive…only a growing appreciation of what is really important in our lives. Keep up the good work and constant reminders of that… And for anyone who still wonders if they are a minimalist…here is my own definition on my blog asking “Are you really a minimalist–and five questions to find out.” http://smartliving365.com/?p=1375#more-1375
Sarah says
This is absolutely the way to go, whether it’s a room, a whole house, or in my case, a storage unit. For almost 3 years, I avoided the issue and this year, I just started at the easiest place – the front! One box at a time, one trip to Salvation Army at a time, one blog post at a time.