byJamieJune

Hello everyone! I am jumping right into this post to talk about one of the most important things that has helped me to simplify my life. And to put it shortly, it’s because I’ve been learning a lot about the concept of minimalism.

Now before you roll your eyes and click out of here, hear me out for a minute.  I use the word minimalism, (although I REALLY don’t like calling it that), because it makes people automatically think of depriving or restricting.  They assume that minimalism means that you can only have ‘x’ amount of clothes, that you can’t have any decorations, that you can’t have anything other than the basic needs, and you can’t like to shop or spend money.

They won’t even entertain the thought of minimalism because what they know and have been taught about minimalism is simply not true. At least in my opinion.  

Let me tell you why.

My Story

My husband and I have moved three times since we’ve been married (and probably a lot more times to come before we settle haha) and it’s been an eye opener for me every time we move.  We have never lived in anything but apartments until this last move.  Each experience was different.  But every time we always asked ourselves the same question. 

“How do we have so much stuff?!”

After this last move, I spent hours going through our things, deciding what we should keep and what we could get rid. I remember thinking ‘geez, if I had less stuff, maybe I could more time and energy for other things’ (not to mention this move would be much easier!‘).

I didn’t think about it much until a few months later when I was listening to a podcast that started talking about minimalism.  They talked about how great it was, how it changed their life, how it saved them time, how it made them feel closer to their families, etc. I thought the concept sounded nice, but actually executing it felt totally unattainable and unrealistic to me at the time. 

But then it reminded of me how it felt when we moved to go through and clear the clutter. It made things easier for us and we didn’t even seem to notice certain items being gone.  I started wondering, if maybe they were on to something.  

Looking for more information, I started listening to more TED talks, different podcasts, and reading more about different perspectives about minimalism.  The more digging I did and the more I learned, the more I realized that everything I thought about minimalism was wrong.

And then it clicked.  

Minimalism isn’t restricting, it’s merely simplifying.  

When this realization hit me, I actually got kind of excited. Simplifying didn’t seem so crazy anymore.  I could actually do that!

Common misconceptions

Now before you think I went and threw every excess thing I had away, think again. Simplifying your home doesn’t mean go throw everything you love out the door! You can defiantly keep things you love. In fact, that’s almost exactly what minimalism is.  

It’s keeping the things you love, surrounding yourself with them. It’s deciding what you really value and to holding onto those things. I don’t think you should ever get rid of something that truly brings you joy.  If that was the case, I wouldn’t be able to get onboard with this. I would be resentful toward the idea and no one else would do it, let alone make lives better.

But it’s just the opposite! You are making sure things that don’t add value to you stay out of your home, and instead, make room for the things that are.

If anyone knows me personally or has followed me for a while, means that you know I love to shopping.  People always ask, “How can claim to be a ‘minimalist’ when you love to shop? Isn’t that going against what you are trying to tell people?

To put it bluntly, absolutely not!

Why a minimalist home isn’t as crazy as you thought

You can shop and buy things that make you happy. I’m not saying you can’t buy anything new or that there are certain rules you have to follow to purchase things. If you have been needing something, or have been thinking about purchasing something for a long time, see something and know how much it would help you in your life, why wouldn’t you want those things to help you?  

But what it does do is ask important questions like, do I really need this? or do I own something similar at home? Would this actually be helpful or would it just sit in the closet/basement? Do I like this better than the one I already have at home? Do we need a new one?

Simply asking myself the right questions is SO helpful to me when I am trying to make my work at home easier. Just because you are simplifying, doesn’t mean you have to simplify everything little thing.  You are simply eliminating what isn’t essential to make you happy, and therefore, making your life simpler.

So after discovering all this, I made up my mind to choose my own definition of minimalism (or what I like to call simplicity) as merely:

“Identifying the essential, and eliminating the rest.”

That’s it.  No restricting, no depriving, and no being cut off by social society.

Why it works (especially for moms)

Mothers know the struggle more than anyone when it comes to having a lot of stuff.  There are SO many things that comes with having kids it’s almost overwhelming.  Toys are everywhere, high chairs, sippy cups, diaper bags, burp cloths, swings, baby gates, the list goes on and on!  

Studies that show that women stress and complain about clutter more than men.  (Big shocker right?). Also, studies consistently show that women tend take on more of the negative feelings associated with having a ‘cluttered home’. Being more sensitive to their home environment, and feeling a greater sense of responsibility for the up keeping of the home (aka, feeling guilty about clutter.)

Research also shows that women who feel their homes are messy and cluttered tended to report experiencing depressed mood as the day went on, whereas women who described their homes in restorative terms were much less likely to report depressed mood. 

Did you get that?

Our home environment is affecting us as women!  Our attitudes, the way we treat our children, how we treat our spouses, the way we handle situations, and even how we feel about ourselves!  

And if we are depressed and moody because of our home environment, what do you think it’s doing to our family relationships?

I know that all of this is true because I have felt the same way. When my house is a mess, I internalize it.  It feels like I’m surrounded by ‘to-do’s’ making me feel as though I can’t relax and enjoy being home from a long day. Because I feel like I should be doing more. I have a REALLY hard time feeling happy when my house is a disaster. I knew beforehand that I was in a bad mood about the messy house (I didn’t need research for that).  But I didn’t know how much it would effect how I felt about myself. 

And so I sat on that realization for a while and I remembered thinking: if clearing clutter out of my home would make me a better wife/mom and help with my priorities, I decided I would at least give it a fair shot.  What did I have to lose?

And you know what happened? 

I slowly felt a weight being lifted off of my shoulders. Lot’s of little things started improving. I was happier, I wasn’t as stressed, it felt better to be home, I didn’t feel so behind, it made me in a better mood throughout the day. Which in turn helped me be able to be more pleasant to my family. Do I still have my bad days? Of course. But are they are less often? absolutely!

So how do you start?

A lot of items in our home were easy to sift through when I starting going through our things. For example, I knew that we probably had a lot of extra towels but I didn’t really know how many until I counted.  It turns out we had 20 bath towels!! That wasn’t even including our beach towels, or our daughters 2 towels. I knew right away that I could live without fewer towels (which in turn helped the amount of laundry immensely!). That wasn’t too hard of a decision for me to make. 

But other things are a little more tricky.  Especially the sentimental items (which I will probably go into depth about in a different post).  However, the most helpful thing for me to do was to ask myself questions. Questions like:

• Is this item serving me now? Does it serve my family?
• Do I use it daily? Weekly? Monthly?
• Do I already own something similar?
• How many of these do we have? 
• Do we need more than one?
• How long has this be untouched?

Another thing that really helped me was to set a designated spot for everything. Somethings obviously needed more space than others, but if it didn’t fit in that space, I seriously had to reconsider what I had in that space. If it didn’t fit, or if it was spilling out to areas that I didn’t want it in, I had to make changes. This may not work for everyone’s homes, so don’t take it as a bible course, but it’s just something that really helped me organize and declutter my home.  

Minimalism doesn’t mean always tidy, it just means easily tidy

THIS IS SO IMPORTANT TO REMEMBER!!

PLEASE don’t feel after you start this journey that your house always has to be clean.  You are always going to have some house work (you do actually live in your home), but the point is not that it’s always clean, but that it’s just easier and less stressful for you to do so. 

The main purpose of all of this ‘clearing the clutter’ stuff is so that you can have more time for your families, to have better relationships, to feel better about ourselves, to have more joy, to have more time for your priorities.  

Again please, DON’T make this a stressful process.  Do it one room, one section, one thing at a time.  (But of course don’t drag it out and stare at it, do something about it!).  If you are reading this you are probably already feel overwhelmed and this isn’t about adding to your to do list. I understand that this process is harder for some than for others. Do your best.

In short, if your house is still a mess sometimes, IT’S OK. We are moms, we have children and life happens. I just to wanted to share in case it could help someone else like it has helped me!

Thank you for reading! I truly hopes this helps you and your families to live happier.

Until next time!

XO, Jamie