I am not so much of a minimalist. Instead I was almost a hoarder. I filled my craft room aka home office with clutter that I hope to use one day to the brim. That did not happened. That One Day never came. I just keep buying and keep collecting. Until one day the inside minimalist of me said out loud that I scared myself. Enough!
So here I am. Reduced 30% of the things that I own. Either by giving away, donating to local churches...Etc.
Where to start?
1. Start room by room.
Tackle each room even if it took you more than a week to do it. I literally downloaded an apps which is called the 30 minutes. Which mean you listed down things that you want to do. To clear out or something like that. Then set start on your phone. Once that 30 minutes time is up, stop whatever you are doing then move on to the next task on your list. By doing this not only you will be more efficient and you will achieve more by doing this. You actually set on your kitchen timer or alarm.
2. Use boxes
Use several boxes. But in my case which I have already tossed most of my things I was using garbage bag. It worked just fine. You dont have to fold every each clothes or fold every each piece of paper that you are going to give away or donate. Just tossed it into the designated box or garbage bag or plastic bag. Make sure you have a few boxes label as Recycle, Donate, or To Sell. In my opinion, selling takes a long process. It has a few risk if you are left un-monitored. Risk are if you posted advertisement online for quite sometime and those things just sitting in the box. Chances are you are going back to open those box and say to your self that you should keep that. That action it self is called endowment effect. You can search that one up on Youtube. It is basically means that the thing it self has no value until you make it worth something. If in doubt, ask yourself these questions: If you are in the store right now, will you buy it? Does it flatter you? Does it fit on you? If the answers are no toss it back into the box or bag and seal it up. Do not open it again. Just get rid of it. The second risk is that if you are on the way to minimize your things you will be very busy which also means that you wont have the time to run to the post office to send the parcel. So, be generous. Give it away.
3. What is that remain
What should you remain. In my case, my craft room was clutter which items that I wished or I delusional-ly thought that one day I might have the time or creativity juice hit me i can make it out of something. Mostly are recycle items that other people no longer wants. Now I have give away most of my junk and recycle most of it. I only keep fabric, ribbons, sewing notions, stationery and some papers. Stationery, I used to have a big stack. I was almost a stationery addict. I bought almost any kind of pens, scrap papers etc. Just to name a few. But now I only keep few that I use every day or our family would use often. Such as a few colours of sharpies, pens, pencils, ruler, plain white papers for printing, wrapping papers. I have given away almost 80-90% of stationery to the Sunday school church. Do I regret? At first I thought so. The "what if" keep hitting me while I was packing those stuff. But I reflect on my life. I was thinking that how many thing could I have possibly use for my entire life. Chances are I was not going to use it. I feel great now that I can find whatever things that I need now immediately. I now know where all my things are store.
I guess that is all for today. As a beginner I suggest you to look up more information about minimalism as it will inspire you to own less. The less is more. It is true. I now have more time with my baby and my family. Less stuff also means that less cleaning to do. Less clutter you gain a bigger space of living. What is point if you own so much and yet you are not happy right? But for me not only that. I also save more money as I dont shop or buy as I used to. More on that , the benefit of being a minimalist.
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