A quest for a clearer and calmer environment.
We enter the world with nothing, but from the moment we are born, we start accumulating ‘stuff’. My earliest possessions include a stuffed bunny rabbit from my parents and a blanket my great grandmother crocheted for me and yes, I still have them. And this is the problem – the things we can’t let go of that clutter our cupboards and take up precious space in our homes. I’m fortunate in a sense that growing up I shared a bedroom with my two sisters with only a small cupboard space to house my belongings and then in my 20’s I moved to Japan with only a couple of suitcases (and I admit a good pile of things I left for my parents to take care of for me). Living in small apartments in Japan restricted the amount of things I could buy for my home and therefore when I returned to Australia in my 30’s I probably had far fewer things I owned than the average person the same age.
But I returned from Japan with my husband, our son and our daughter on the way. And now we have been living in the same house almost a decade and working from this space as well, we have all the paraphernalia that goes along with 2 children and our current lifestyle. And things are not nearly as organized or minimalist as I would like them to be. I see the wonderfully simple, coordinated and carefully curated interiors as I scroll through Instagram or ponder over featured homes on The Design Files and dream of living in one of these calm and peaceful spaces. But how can I hope to achieve this?
Well the answer for me I think is by making mini moves towards this goal and adopting ideas than can make your home feel calmer even without removing items. A good few years back, my husband gifted me a copy of Marie Kondo’s, ‘The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying’ and later a copy of ‘Zen The Art of Simple Living’ by Shunmyo Masuno. In recent months I have also been watching YouTube videos from The Minimal Mom and The Minimalists. I have a very long way to go but the following are some of the tips I have picked up from these tidying and minimalist experts and when the whole job feels overwhelming, it’s great to have small tasks that you can tick off that make a big difference to the way your whole environment feels.
- I think one of the easiest and most satisfying changes you can make in your home is the pantry overhaul. A quick Pinterest search for ‘Pantry Makeovers’ will provide all the inspiration you need to get started and there really is something very calming about opening your cupboard doors to clear containers filled with oats, rice and flour without all the coloured packaging yelling at you. I am not an advocate for spending money on fancy containers that bring more things into your home but I was lucky to use some Christmas money gifted to us one year to add to my clear containers and there are really reasonable options around that I believe you will feel like money well spent.
- Closely related to my first tip, is the recommendation from Marie Kondo to remove all labels from everyday household items such as the hand soap containers, detergent etc and keep things in plain dispensers. It really does help to remove that visual clutter with all the coloured graphics and fonts competing for your attention. Of course I wouldn’t suggest this for items where you need to recall the exact ingredients or for substances that might be harmful if mistaken for the wrong item but just everyday things you use that you don’t change.
- Give everything a home. It’s such a simple concept but the kitchen bench piles are usually just a collection of homeless items. I think you probably need to de-clutter all the things in your life that you are no longer using to make new homes for the extras so this one can really be a work in progress but as the experts would advise, you have to make it just as easy to put something back as it is to take out.
- Line up your shoes. This is one of the first changes we installed in our home after I read the ‘Zen’ book. We follow the Japanese system of removing our shoes as we enter the house but before it was easy just to kick them off and leave them in a jumbled mess and now we make sure to line them back up on the shelves and keep them neat. It makes it so much easier when it comes to vacuuming the entrance as well now without having to tidy everything first.
- Buying quality over quantity. This one is easy for me – I like nice things and I have found in life that in general the more I have spent on an item, the longer I have kept it in my life. I’m not easily tempted by ‘fast fashion’ purchases so looking for classic pieces that you can have for years to come makes more sense in the long run. I also adopted the Marie Kondo system of folding clothes which really does make it easier to see all the items in your drawers and keeps them neater. It is so much less stressful to open a drawer and be able to see exactly what you are looking for.
- Spend 5 minutes tidying a day. Okay, I admit I have not done this one consistently yet but when I have given it a go, you really can make a difference to a space in as little as 5 minutes. Just straightening the cushions and throw on the lounge immediately makes out home feel tidier and more organized and usually once you start, it can often extends beyond 5 minutes and to a different part of the house. And even if it’s not perfect, it will be improved. This one also extends to the digital clutter on my desktop that gets out of hand all too frequently.
- Make one space or room in your house as beautiful as possible. This is one tip that really resonates with me. Often we procrastinate and make excuses for our environment because we are waiting to have the money to buy the right pieces of furniture or to have our own home or to get the right piece of art to tie it all together. The advice is to start with what you have – pick your favorite items and arrange them as beautifully as you can. Having one area of calm and beauty in your home might just motivate you to keep going and improve more areas. It won’t be perfect but it will be better and it’s a step towards the ideal environment we dream of.
- And my last tip on this list is the letting go of things that are neither useful or beautiful. This one can be so difficult because of the feeling of being wasteful or needing to hold onto items for ‘just in case’ or because of the sentimental value they hold. Marie Kondo suggest leaving sentimental items to declutter last when you work through your home probably because it’s the hardest but also because it might be easier when you have had more practice in other areas of your home. I think it is best to remember that you can’t take these things with you when you leave this earthly world and we shouldn’t leave it to our loved ones to sort through when we are gone – they will have enough of their own ‘stuff’ to deal with.
