Moving Towards Minimalism

I have given myself a new official title: Manager of Stuff.

I can very easily spend most of my days managing stuff. Picking up stuff, putting stuff back where it goes, cleaning stuff, charging stuff, drying stuff, making decisions about stuff, organizing stuff, and nagging my family about stuff. Some days I feel like the walls are closing in and I'm just surrounded by mess. And rightly so, right?? I've got 4 messy kids and a husband who likes his stuff.

Now, I'm not one to get sentimental about things and hold onto them, but man oh man, STUFF sure has a way of accumulating without me even noticing. And I'm really a very simple girl at heart. I love an organized home. An unbusy schedule. I love minimal décor, clean lines, organized drawers, etc. I hate junk drawers, cluttered counters, and stacks of papers. And yet here I am, surrounded by too much unorganized stuff.

We had a speaker at Mops talk to us about purging items from our home and decluttering. She challenged us to get rid of a certain amount of items, and after I did that, it felt so nice. But it wasn't enough.

And then I stumbled across the YouTube channel The Minimal Mom:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeLICYOqHfIrfSAQq1TT7PA
And her blog TheMinimalMom.com 

Go visit it for a second and tell me you don't feel inspired to become a minimalist! This Mom has paired down so many areas of her home for her family of six and she says there are so many benefits to becoming more minimal. After browsing her blog and YouTube videos, I had a major AHA! moment. The more stuff I have in my home, the more chaotic it feels. The more stuff I have, the more I have to take care of. The more stuff I have, the harder it is to keep my house clean. 

If I can get rid of anything unnecessary that is causing me undue work or worry, WHY NOT!?

There are a few areas in my home where I'm already pretty minimalistic. Each child only has 2 pairs of shoes. I don't own many pairs of shoes myself. I don't stockpile a ton of food. I don't own many kitchen gadgets. I bought one of these boxes for each child and into them goes special sentimental items I want to keep, such as hair from their first haircut, sweet cards they have made for me, and baby dedication mementos. Other than that, I toss most of their schoolwork and artwork. I can be ruthless when I need to be.

However, there are others areas that I'm not so good at! For example, I think I have too many clothes. I love having lots of pretty items hanging in my closet to choose from, but at some point this Fall I realized it was actually getting hard to choose an outfit in the morning because I had TOO many options! 

So I'm challenging both myself and you guys! Particularly during this holiday season of excess, I think we could all benefit from getting rid of stuff. I took 20 minutes this morning and filled 5 bags full of items to donate. It was mostly toys, books, and clothes. Give yourself a small set amount of time and see what you can come up with to give away! And let go of the guilt. You really don't need the stuff.

I get it, having stuff makes us happy. But at some point it can be requiring more energy from us than it's worth. Would you consider yourself a minimalist? A hoarder? Somewhere in between?