It took
a lot of hard work
but the end result was worth it
(Intro music)
Hi Explorers, Morgan, and Chris here, documenting
our journey towards full-time family travel.
This week we got
serious about downsizing and we channeled our inner
Marie Kondo
Our goal is to downsize
to almost just our travel bag
that we are going to take when we travel
a very minimalist approach, a
very extreme version of
Tidying Up. Right...and
If you know Chris
or your getting to know Chris this
is difficult because he's a bit of a hoarder
We have never used this
I actually think we tried once. I've used it
a long time ago
A Potatoe Express. This
is awesome. This is a jacket potato
cooker. Ok, how lazy can one person get?
What's this chunk of wood for?
That is just in case
one day we need a
chunk of wood for something. I found a
box but it has a bunch of random
toothpicks in it. Are
those like your favorite toothpicks?
The process is a little bit easier for
me because I don't have an attachment
to pretty much anything besides things
that can love me back. When I was really young
about five-years-old, my house actually burned
down and I lost
almost everything and
I really realized that the only things
that I missed were really
the animals that we weren't able to save
and I think I have carried that into adulthood because I just hate
clutter, I don't like
extra stuff and it's just
very easy for me to let go of things
this was not the case for Chris
So I just want to assure you
I understand that it's easier for some
than it is for others but if Chris can do it
so can you!
First step- Lead with Gratitude
This is something that we've
never done, this house that we live in now
has kind of haunted us a little bit
because when we first moved in
we were really excited because
we completely think that we are Chip
and Joanna Gaines and we bought a
1924 house and we were super excited to
renovate it top to bottom
we were on top of the counters ripping off
layers of wallpaper
and then I
felt a little weird and realized
I was pregnant
slowed things down, dramatically
so we've had this really weird
relationship with the house but when
we really took a chance
to step back, it's been good
for us, I mean we have had so many
memories in this house and to take a second
to actually be grateful for it
and express that gratitude and
all the things in it and even for the
kids to do it I think was really cool.
What's your favorite memory in this house?
[Jonah] ah Judy!
When you first came home to see Judy
when he was here?
Are you guys ready to clean up?
Yeah! Yeah!
Number two -
Imagine your Ideal Lifestyle
Now one
of the awesome things that Marie Kondo
says is "do you want to take this item with you
into the future?" And then
thinking about our future we really want to travel full-time
as a family and so
keeping that question in mind
with everything that we are doing made
it much easier and a much smoother transition
to like look at the things that we have and be like
yeah, this isn't going to come with us. Yeah I don't want to bring this with us
It's not going to happen in our plans so
keeping that concept in mind
Is very helpful. If you could go anywhere
where would you go?
[Jonah] Ah...Japan!
Japan?
and we probably
can't pack a bunch of stuff to go to Japan, can we? [Jonah] No.
[Morgan] No. Number three- Tidy
by Category and not Location
If you are anything like us we
usually try to tidy by room
because usually we are with
the kids and it just makes a lot of sense for us to
just pull things out of drawers try to get the toys in
place and it just
never ends up being a permanent solution
so what Marie Kondo
always says is you want to
do this by category not by
location and I thought that was really interesting
so we pulled all of our clothes
out and we put them in one
location which is pretty shocking
I think we live pretty minimalistically
and it was really crazy
to see how much we actually had
once we pulled everything out of
of every area of the house.
(music)
So right now we have all mom's clothes in the crib
It's not too many clothes is it?
We have all of Jonah and Jude's
clothes on the bed.
(music)
It's mommy! Mommy?
Hey there's a new thing on the back
There's mommy!
You see mommy? Let me see.
Can daddy see?
Show me.
There's mommy
Is that mommy and daddy? Yeah. Yeah
we used to scrapbook. We found
this scrapbook like this one
Oh my gosh. Do we look any different
now? [Jonah] No.
We look the same? That's a really good
answer. That's the right answer. We
won the best couple award
in the Poconos Mountains at
Camp Cayuga
This spoon is from mommy and daddy went to Wales
The note that I wrote on toilet
paper to you because obviously
I didn't have any paper I was poor
Princess, I called you Princess
As you can probably tell I did not have
any paper to write on, a cute letter
to you. On the plus side if you
need to blow your nose or a tear comes to your eye
when reading this you're pretty much
sorted. Jonah was on this postcard
Aww you were a little model for
a postcard. Is this Jude's hair?
Oh ok. I put Jude's in there too.
This is Jonah's first hair
don't touch it though. Is that
a weird thing to keep you think?
No [laughter]. Maybe
he can make a wig one day.
For a doll or something.
So he thought that it was cool that we
had some of his so he took some off of my brush and put it
in a thing [laughter].
Umbilical cord. That's also something that people keep.
It's beautiful. Where's mine?
Yours is actually upstairs I got to go get it.
Can you go get it?
Number four -
Ask yourself if each item sparks
joy. As a family even
Jonah and Jude, we have really gotten into
this process and looked at everything and
does it spark joy? And the
things that have sparked joy we have folded
into rectangles as suggested
and put them away and the boys
both love doing this!
rectangles. So the first things that
you want to do with pants is
this is just the once example
is
you want to
make sure they are all nice and flat
and fold them in half
and you are going to fold them in half again
and then you are going to go
in thirds
so one third
another third
then they should be able to stand
up
Put this there and umm
do this [Chris] Ok.
and then
do this side.
and then you go
one, two,
three!
[Chris] Oh my goodness! I think
Marie Kondo would be
extremely proud of what you just did!
high-five! Does it not
spark joy anymore?
Does that sloth spark joy? [Jonah] Yeah it does!
awwww!
You love sloths huh?
Aww you love
Marshmallow Man!
This is my pile of
keeping or like selling.
Things that bring you joy?
Let's see what brings you joy so far!
Joy pile!
[laughter]
That was my
dad's teddy bear. Your dad's?
That was my dad's yeah. What are we going to
do with it? Well I gotta keep
that one [laughter]. No, I
understand, that's like an heirloom.
My Pooh Bear, that I had as a baby?
Yeah! You want to give my Pooh Bear away?
Yeah! How come?
Does it
not spark joy?
Yeah. Does it spark joy for you?
It does for me, yeah.
But... oh that's really nice
Thank you. For the items that did
not spark joy we either
tried to donate them, sell them
or throw them away and I think
that the method of just being grateful for
the purpose that it served in our lives
really helped us let go of some things that I think
would otherwise be really hard.
We are going into Goodwill!
Drive-thru Goodwill
I don't know if this happens at all the places but
you drive through and they will just grab the bags out of the car for you and take them
Isn't that cool?
Jonah will you help me take them out?
Will you help me Jonah?
They are a little bit heavy.
Thank you! You got it?
Thank
you very much! You
got it, Jonah! Ready? Ahhh!
Can you pass it to the man behind you and say
thank you?
Thank you!
Alright, see you later!
So what did they give us?
A receipt? No
It's a receipt for a
[Chris] a donation? No
It's a receipt for going
to popcorn
and going to the movie theater
It's a receipt to go to the movies?
I don't know about that!
[laughter] yes it is!
Round 2
a lot more bags
you got this!
Hey how's it going?
Number five- organize space thoroughly and
completely. Once the entire house
was left with only the
items that sparked joy we then
found very specific homes for them
because that's a very important part of the process
you don't want to just throw things in a
drawer again you want them to be tidy
Absolutely and it's an ongoing thing too
like even now we are thinking about the
things that we are bringing back into the home and
making sure there is a home for those things
and it's an ongoing process and
we are going to constantly be looking to
make sure we are eliminating things
as we go and it can be very overwhelming
it can take some people a few hours
to do it can take others who are
much deeper in
clutter 6 months
to do so just
take a deep breath when you get overwhelmed and continue
(music)
Thank you so much for watching! We hope that these Marie Kondo inspired tips
help you decide what kind of future you want
Have you ever tried this method?
Comment down below, let us know
what works best for you because
we love reading your comments
and we could use all the help we can get! And if you love
tidying smash this like button! Right!
See you next week! Adios!
Tidy up!
Say let's do it! Let's do it!
And get a little blah blah blah ok ready? She
pronounces it Marie Kondo
[laughter]
Oh my god!
Still a lot to go huh?
yeah!