Why I want to be more minimalistic

There are many reasons why I want to be more minimalistic. To me, it just seems like the perfect life-style. People who calls themselves minimalists, just always look so neat and put together. They look like the kind of people who have everything under control, and no task seems to be impossible. Sometimes, I wonder if they are even human.

I think my main reason is, that I want to be clutter-free. As you might have read in my earlier posts, I have managed to accumulate a rather impressive amount of clutter. It came to a point, where my room always seemed to be messy, I could never find the things I needed, and I am not kidding, there would be times where you could barely see my floor.

All this clutter just seemed to grow, and grow, and grow, and it was draining me of energy and focus. It was a vicious circle; a mountain, that seemed impossible to climb.

Let me tell you, when you have a huge pile of junk in the middle of your room, you are not exactly thrilled to invite anyone in. But more than that, you are less inclined to not mess it up further. You see, when everything is a mess, you might as well leave that dirty sweater on the floor; you will tackle it when you start cleaning your room. And you might as well leave that glass there, because you can take care of that next time. And no time to organize your make-up; it will be quick to fix later! The only problem is, that there never really seem to be a 'later'.

For me, all this mess just kept building up, and it was always in the back of my mind, as a task that needed to be done. Even when doing homework, or socializing with others, I always felt guilty that my room looked the way it did. And it kept draining me of energy, and it was harder to stay focused on other areas of life - like starting to exercise, eating healthier, doing homework, laundry, or starting a new hobby.

Two days ago, I did a massive clean-up of my room, following my 7 step method. It now looks clean and tidy, and there is only one box in the closet I need to sort out. Of course I still have plenty in the basement room, but that is far from a one day project. But since then, I have had so much more energy, and I seem to enjoy life a lot more. I truly believe that clear surroundings keeps a clear head.

The other reason is economy and stress. A few years ago, I went down with stress, big time! I had to take a break from my education to work on it. And that had some rather serious consequences for my economy.

In a period of 6 months, while I was down with stress, I took out no less than 26.000 crowns from my savings account. That is about 3.765 US dollars, or 2.641 British pounds. In addition to that, I also had a job beside school, where I made extra money. And I have no idea what they were all spent on.

To me, it is rather scary, especially since I used to be really good at managing my economy, and set money aside. Seeing this number kind of woke me up, and I realized that I needed to get a serious grip on my spending habits. Apparently, shopping made me buy more, maybe as a way to comfort myself, or temporarily decrease the stress.

I am currently in a better place, than when everything started, but I still need to get a better grip of my spending habits. And what better way, than to go through all your clutter, and regain control over your possessions?

The thing is, all that money went to a lot of things. And maybe by sorting out, and getting rid of some of these things, I will be letting go of some of the things that weighed me down, and hopefully be more aware how I spend my money in the future. I guess you could say it is a way of facing your problems in a more physical way.

This ended up being a lot longer than I intended, but I guess that is what happens when you start to let your mind flow free. ;) Feel free to comment, and share your own minimalist reasons or stories, I would love to hear them.


Related posts:
- 7 steps to decluttering
- Questions to help you declutter
- My decluttering project

My decluttering project

Sometimes, I think I am a hoarder. And I am only half kidding. In my relatively short life, and my limited amount of space, I have managed to accumulate an impressive amount of clutter. I don't want to think about how much money I spent on things, that I don't even use, or that I aspired to use, but never really did.

Currently, I am a student, and I live in a small dorm-room, with a small basement room to have some stuff in. And throughout the years, I have been buying a lot of things, but I have not really been throwing anything away. Whenever there was something I didn't really use, i just put it in my basement room, to "sort it out later". Out of sight, out of mind.

As you can imagine, living here for 3,5 years, this have given me quite a bit of junk in the basement room. All from 7-8 years old clothing items, barely used rollerskates, half used shampoo bottles for when I wanted to try a new product (but didn't want to throw the old one away, in case I wanted to use it again), empty storage boxed that I no longer wanted in my room, and other stuff. There are two half-crushed moving boxes full of old clothing, and the rest is thrown in at random, mostly in grocery bags, or old storage boxes. Everything just thrown in there in one big pile.

In other words, my basement room was/is the stuff of nightmares. So I decided to start decluttering. My basement room measures around 1 or 1,5 meter on the short sides, and around 1,7 or 2 meter on the other side. I am not really sure. But when I started, the pile (and it really was one big chaotic pile of junk!) reached up to my waist; more than 1 meter in height. I am not joking; when I opened the door to dump more stuff in there, I had to be careful, because there was a considerable chance that it would start pouring out.

I have now started decluttering, and have gotten a few things done. I use the 7 step method to do so. I started by doing a decluttering of my dorm room, to have a relatively clean area to work with. Then I went down to the basement room, and grabbed maybe 7 grocery bags full of old clothes, and dragged all of it up to my dorm room. I have sorted out a good part of it, but some items are harder to decide on than others. I actually found a few pieces to put back into my wardrobe (I am also working on updating my functioning wardrobe, you know, find the right note, and make sure everything matches with something, and so on), so it is not all bad.

For me, this is going to take some time, but for every bag of junk I throw away/recycle/donate/sell, I feel a little lighter, and more motivated to keep going.

I will probably keep you updated along the way. Feel free to comment with your own succes (or horror) stories, it is always fun and inspiring to hear.


Related posts: 
- Decluttering method - very effective
- Questions to ask yourself while decluttering

Questions to help you declutter

Decluttering your house can be an overwhelming task, and you will be surprised how many things you have emotional attachments to. Here are some quick questions you can ask yourself, when you are unsure about something in the decluttering process. Feel free to add more suggestions in the comment section, or tell me about your decluttering project. 

Questions to help you declutter: 

1) If I were shopping right now, would I buy this item again? 

2) How long have it been since I used this item?

3) Do I really need this item?

4) Does it bring you joy?

5) Do I have sentimental feelings/personal attachment to the item?

6) Am I unwilling to get rid of it because it was expensive, even though I never used it?

7) How many versions do I have of this item? 

Related posts: 

- 7 steps to help you declutter

- My decluttering project

7 steps to decluttering + 3 bonus tips to stay on top of clutter in everyday life

My attempt on a capsule wardrobe - a work
 still in progress
(and yes, some laundry in the closet ;)

The first 7 are the actual steps to decluttering your room, and the last 3 are tips for staying on top of the clutter. I have read a thousand articles on how to declutter, and I put together these tips, and developed my own method. I find this method to be the easiest and most effective to actually accomplish, especially if you don't know how to attack all your clutter, or maybe if you are a little lazy, or just short of time. You can do it all in one day, or you can break it up and take care of one step every day - whichever suit you the best.

I hope this method will be helpful, and feel free to comment, and share your own tips, decluttering projects, or other things. 

The 7 steps to decluttering:

1) Pick an area of your room to start with, for example your desk. The goal is to make it look as neat and tidy as possible. Clean everything on there, put things in the place where they belong; just make it look neat and tidy. All the things you don’t know where to put, or don’t want anymore, goes in the middle of the room, until you are satisfied with what is left in the area. If the area is very cluttered (for example a make-up section with hundreds of useless products you need to sort out), you may want to just make it look neat and tidy, and move on to the next section. You can always return to this section, and declutter it further. Trash is thrown away. 

2) Using the same method, move to the area next to it, and go around the entire outside of the room, until you are left with a pile of stuff in the middle of the room. By now, your outsides of the room should look nice and perfectly neat, with a huge pile of stuff in the middle. 

3) Depending on the size of the pile, you can divide it into sections, and tackle one at a time, or you can split the items into categories, ex. clothing, hygiene products, shoes, accessories, exercise equipment, etc. 

- Start by finding all the leftover trash, and throw it away. This could be paper, old 

recites, empty bottles, and whatever else you need to throw away. 

- Now, find all the things that have a specific place in the room, and put them away. 

This way, you have better overview of what is left. 

4) Start tackling the pile section by section, and sort the items into different categories, one by one. 

- Trash

- Stuff to donate

- Stuff to to sell

- Stuff you are not sure wether to keep or not

- Stuff to keep

Alternatively, you can combine the donate/sell categories, and go over that one later. 

5) The trash, donate and sell section are pretty self-explanatory. After this, you start with the stuff you want to keep. You either put it to it’s rightful place, or if it doesn’t have a place, you find a place for it. This is the organizing part of it, where you try to make a nice and lasting system for your things. If you have a system, it will be easier to find things, and you will be less likely to clutter. 

6) You should now be left with the stuff you are unsure about. Here, you repeat stage 4; sort it into the same 5 categories, and repeat step 5. This can be the hardest part, as you may have sentimental feelings for some of the things, or feel guilty throwing something away. Sometimes it can be necessary to go over this again and again, until you figured out what to do with it. If you combined the sell/donate pile in step 4, this is the time where you sort it. 

7) If you have been over and over the ‘unsure’ pile numerous times, and still can’t decide, put everything in a box, and store it away. Sometimes leaving it alone/out of sight for a while can help. 

Bonus tips: 

1) Be realistic. If you have accumulated a lot of clutter, don’t expect to be able to get rid of everything right away. Be careful you don’t go on a rampage, and throw away stuff, you will later regret. It will probably take a few times, but eventually, you will get to a place you are happy with. 

2) Change your habits. There is no point in throwing a bunch of things away, if you immediately run out and fill the room up with a bunch of new stuff. I am not saying don’t buy new stuff; but always ask yourself “Can I see myself using this item years ahead, or is this just because I think my friend/neighbour/other looked good in it/had it in their living room?”, “Does this suit my lifestyle, or is it something I temporary aspire to be?”. This way, you will only buy things you know you will use, and you will actually get your money’s worth. Of course, this takes a little trial and error, but if you practice it stubbornly, you will eventually learn. 

3) If you want to continue decluttering in your new, neat area, you can put a decluttering box in your closet, or somewhere else. Every time you find an item you want to sell or donate, put it in the box. When the box is full, you empty it and either sell/donate/put away, and continue. This helps you stay on top of things after you decluttered your home. 

Related posts: 

- Questions to ask yourself to help you declutter
- My decluttering project

Welcome to my blog

This is a blog about the life of an aspiring minimalist (well, me). I felt inspired to start this blog because of my own decluttering journey, which you can read about in another post. This blog will probably be about more than minimalism, but that was what inspired the name.

This post will also contain a chronological list of all the posts written on the blog, and feel free to comment, if there is something in particular you want me to write about.

The blog is still under construction, so the layout might be changing until I am happy with it.

Please be aware: Comments advertising products, blogs or homepages will be deleted, wether it is your own or someone else. Thank you. :)


List of posts:

- 7 steps to decluttering + 3 bonus tips to stay on top of clutter in everyday life
- Questions to help you declutter
- My decluttering project