I like to think I’m a minimalist but I know I have a long way to go. Being a minimalist doesn’t mean everything in your house is white or gray and that you have a cute cactus plant and nothing else in sight. Minimalism is somewhat relative and you can be anywhere on the spectrum. I’ve found for me that minimalism is a mindset I adopt; one of courage to push myself towards living with less.
It’s easier for me to slowly get rid of things when I first “experiment” not living with them for a while. For example, I recently decided to put all the little kid dishes away (like the matching color sets from Ikea) and only keep out one set per child. So child A kept out the orange cup, bowl, plate, fork and spoon and child B kept out the green set. I kept all 12 (seriously why do I need 12) of the other sets, I just put them in a bin on the highest shelf of my pantry.
What happened next kind of blew my mind. I was teaching my kids to wash their own plates so that they could be reused at the next meal. Without the temptation to just grab a new cup for every tiny sip of water my dishwasher wasn’t really even full enough to run at the end of the day! It took me half the time to load the dishwasher and clean up from cooking dinner that night than it normally does and it felt SO good.
The next space I wanted to tackle was my boys room, specifically regarding toys. The room would get cleaned once in a while but it mostly was in a constant state of disaster with large and small toys everywhere never being put away. I have reorganized the room several times and no storage solution for all the things really worked.
So it was time to make a drastic change and experiment again. While cleaning the room I filled two storage bins with toys. I told the kids that the toys would just be put away for a while, we weren’t going to make any decisions yet about what we keep or donate. This really helped all of us feel at ease about the process, knowing that if they really missed a certain thing we could go get it.
I have two boys that share the room. On the ends of their bed I put a smaller basket that they could put a little collection of toys in. The only toys left in the room are legos and trains. These are stored in bins that go on the floor against the wall. It was easy to decide to focus on keeping legos and trains. These toys have a lot of creative potential and they get played with a lot. A lot of the other things just kind of got in the way.
My son’s reaction was amazing. He said, “I like having less things. I want it clean like this all the time.”
Wow…I was pretty blown away how my 7 year old was getting into it. It’s been a few weeks now since we first did this experimental purge. When I’ve asked the kids to go clean up their room they do it. They do it and it looks great and I don’t have to micromanage them!
I think just like us adults, children can get overwhelmed easily when it looks and feels like there is a mountain of things to put away. It seems pretty clear to me now that when my kids are not feeling overwhelmed and they know they can manage something, they are successful and excited about having a clean room.
So when it comes to minimalism, you do you! Don’t be afraid to experiment and decide what works well for your family. I think the value in experimenting with minimalism is to shift our focus away from a materialist culture. It seems that when we do this we allow for creative potential and a more streamlined lifestyle. But at the end of the day there is no right or wrong to minimalism, you have to figure out for yourself and your family what your happy balance is.
I thought it would be fun to share my favorite resources for minimalism and decluttering inspiration and support!
Allie Casazza at AllieCasazza.com
Dana White at A Slob Comes Clean
Marie Kondo at KonMari.com
Instagrammer: Minimalist Mom Life
What are your favorite resources? Are there any cool minimalism tricks you have tried recently?
