The Start of the Journey

I am starting my journey towards minimalism.  I’ve been thinking about trying to live in a more minimalist way for some time.  Various things have happened in my life over the last few years which have made me want to change how I live.  I also recently started reading about minimalism and thought, “this is for me”. I found the idea very appealing. At the moment, I have quite a large family home and I know I will be moving very soon to a much smaller place.  This is the spur that has started me on the road.

My goal is to reduce my things by about 50%.

Why 50%? It’s a bit off the top of my head but it is a easily measurable number, more or less, and is the minimum requirement for my move.

I have always been a neat and tidy person, but there have always been things that I have not known what to do with and so kept for no particular reason. However, these things were always at the back of my mind and seemed to weigh me down. I would feel uncomfortable when I thought about them. I always had a feeling that all was not quite right.

Over the last couple of years, I started reading about clutter clearing and began to apply some of the principles to my belongings – asking myself “Do I love it? Do I need it? Do I use it?” This helped me decide what I wanted or needed to keep and what I could sell or give away. I then experienced what one might call life changing events and I realized that I hadn’t achieved all my dreams and I felt that my possessions were getting in the way.

So I thought I’d start with the bedroom and my clothes.

First of all, I made a list of all my clothes and shoes, which came to a total of more than 150 items. I was in a state of shock, I had no idea I owned so much. The most surprising thing for me was that I had a large number of skirts and dresses and, in fact, I don’t wear skirts and dresses very often, especially in winter. I usually wear jeans but the skirts and dresses far outnumbered the jeans – 35 skirts and dresses to 13 pairs of jeans.

However, I don’t think I can be extremely minimalist in my wardrobe as I live in an area where you can have very cold or very hot weather and so I need a few things for these extremes.

Having several wardrobes available, the first thing I decided to do was to put the clothes I don’t wear very often in one wardrobe and the ones I wear regularly in the other wardrobe. I wanted to see if, after a couple of weeks, I needed any of the clothes in the second wardrobe and then choose whether to keep them or give them away.

First step, take it slowly.

(All clothes that I didn’t keep were donated to charity unless too worn).