Less IS More (How Getting Rid of Stuff Changed My Life)
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You’ve seen or heard about this Tidying Up show. Maybe even read Marie Condo’s book. And the concept of minimalism has been floating around for long enough you’ve considered trying it. Less is more and all that jazz.
But honestly, going through your whole house IS a lot of work. And studies have actually shown that Americans tend to replace all that stuff they threw out while dejunking rapidly.
So don’t do it. Don’t jump on the dejunking band wagon and clear out everything.
Don’t get me wrong, I like Kondo’s and Minimalism’s message. Her message is that you should keep the things that bring you joy (in a nutshell). Translated,
When I walk around my house and see piles of things waiting for me, sometimes I start thinking those things are priority over my true treasures. Or even if I don’t attempt to take care of the pile, it weighs on me, and I’m less happy to spend time at home.
So instead, try doing something that works for you.
Try attacking one problem area.
We live in a charming home built in the ’50s. I love the brick, the beautiful hardwood floors, the charm of individuality. I love stories the neighbors tell us about how the yard and house used to be. But in all the charm, there is very little storage space!
In this last month of maternity leave, I’ve never cooked so much in my life, and it’s largely because I tossed a bunch of sippy cups.
Sippy cups. Gone. And now I actually like cooking.
It started when I realized that I hate unloading the dishwasher (the bottleneck in keeping my kitchen clean) because I hated finding a place for everything. Then while watching Kondo’s show, it suddenly hit me that everything should have its own place.
Duh.
I know. But still, this felt revolutionary to me, because when I looked at my kitchen, I realized that the cups were the worst part of unloading the dishwasher. The regular cups and glasses didn’t have a place to go because the sippy cups had taken over.
My oldest son never would take a bottle, so we skipped straight to sippy cups and tried pretty much every single kind to find the one he would take. And in the end, he uses the simple Take & Toss ones.
And while the other ones were great in teaching him how to drink (and will likely come back out for the baby), for now, they were just in my way.
For weeks now, I’ve cheerfully emptied the dishwasher because everything had a place, and it didn’t require my jigsaw puzzle skills to do it. And somehow, that turned into more cooking. Cooking was never very fun when I dreaded the cleanup.
Less IS more. Less stuff makes your treasure look bigger because it’s easier to see.
