- Okay, now you don't have to go extreme so don't be scared.
Now, you can take your house from cluttered and overwhelming
to simplified and calming just with a little bit,
just a little bit of minimalism.
Hey, friends, I'm Robyn.
I help overwhelmed people declutter
all of the excess from their lives
so that they can start living them.
All right, grab your tea and let's go.
(calm music)
So when people see minimalism,
they might think scary and stark
but that's not really the case.
It's actually more of a lifestyle
and you don't have to go to extremes
but we can get to that in a minute.
Now, I'm also going to get into the how to minimize
but first, let's explain why minimalism
might be a good idea, why I love it so, so much
and why you might love it too.
Now, let's go back to the very beginning.
Now, a lot of us grew up with some scarcity
so we started collecting things.
Over time, there became an abundance of things
and then maybe an overabundance of things.
Even if you didn't grow up with scarcity,
you still might have developed clutter
like you probably developed clutter
and if you don't declutter on a regular basis
and start watching what you buy
then your clutter can grow and grow
and as your clutter grows,
it can be hard to find spots to put things
and you can start to have piles of things everywhere.
You can have stacks on your dresser, kitchen counters,
floors, everywhere and what about storage?
Now, boxes filled with things could be all over your house.
Maybe if you've ever moved
and you haven't unpacked for years,
all of a sudden you find that you still have boxes
that you haven't gone through
or actually, after we moved the last time,
our chiropractor was like,
well, you know, you need a box, a room for boxes, right,
and I was like, oh yeah
and we honestly had a room full of boxes
for at least a year.
That was before minimalism of course
but you get the picture.
So your storage can be filled with things that you don't use
and you can't even find space to put your Christmas decor
if your clutter is getting out of control.
For me, I've been there before and as an emergency nurse,
things were real, real hectic.
I was in a really busy, stressful emergency or environment.
I would come home.
I would just really want to relax.
It was 12 hour days and like I said, really stressful.
I just want to decompress and spend time with my family.
but as soon as I walked through the door,
it was just so messy and overwhelming
and I honestly would just be like,
well and I would just start cleaning right away
and I would be like getting really cranky with my family
and I would just want to like head right back to the hospital
and that's not normal
and so what's funny is I remember I read an article
and it was describing the effect of clutter on people
and a real light bulb went off for me and I was like,
wait a minute, this is why I don't like this clutter
like it is literally driving me insane like I get it now.
So I bought Joshua Becker's book
and then we started minimalism.
So once we started, we were minimizing,
we were decluttering and amazing things began to happen.
In just a minute, I'll just discuss how we got started
but first, how does this sound?
You come home to a clean, tidy, simplified home
so you can relax, you can do whatever you want,
you can walk your dog, you can play with your kids,
you can watch a movie, you can write a book,
whatever you want.
It's easy to clean up after dinner which is great.
Maybe we actually enjoy cooking dinner
because it's not so messy
and instead of struggling to find spots to put things,
everything has a place.
There are no backpacks lying around
because there's a spot for them
and there's room in that spot.
Your kitchen is tidy.
There are no piles of things all over your counters
which is what kitchens are notorious for let's be honest.
Your dresser, it's nice, it's tidy.
There's nothing stacked on top of it.
You've got space to work anywhere you need to in your house.
Your living room does not have things all over the place
but instead, it's nice and simple,
kind of like a hotel room.
A lot of us, we really like hotel rooms
and now, why is that?
It's because it's simple.
It's minimal.
The furniture, it's there.
There might be a bland painting.
Really minimal.
Now, in your house,
I don't think your paintings or artwork have to be bland
but the less clutter and stuff,
it's less work for your brain.
Now, our brains get overwhelmed
with lots of things to look at and this stresses us out.
Our eyes and brains want a calm environment to look at.
Your brain does not want to be burning a bunch of calories.
It just wants to look around
at pretty plain stuff for the most part.
Women in particular feel overwhelmed by clutter
even more than men and now why is that?
It's because it feels like the work is never done.
You really cannot relax
if you feel like you should be doing something
and now what you should be doing is recharging,
reading, enjoying some downtime
but instead, you're just looking around at that mess.
Once that clutter and the mess and the piles are gone,
your work goes way, way, way down and all of a sudden,
you don't need to actually manage that clutter anymore.
You don't even realize how much you're managing clutter
and it's also way easier to clean
because you don't need to move things
all over the place anymore
and you might even find
that you get along better with your family
because you're not getting frustrated with their clutter
and they're not getting frustrated with your clutter.
So how do you declutter?
Now, I use a checklist that I made a few years ago
and it has my process on it and the questions that I ask
and I will link that below
but the most important question that I think,
it's my favorite, to ask is
does this add value to your life?
Now, if you're keeping something
and it's not adding value to your life,
you need to let it go.
So this could be clothes that you don't wear,
things that are stuck in boxes
that you're just keeping out of guilt
or because they're sentimental,
maybe a painting that you don't really look at or enjoy,
it's just sort of there and you're like meh
or just you might have way too many spatulas.
An example that I often like to give
is if you had a food processor, a blender,
a chopper, cutting board and knives.
All of those things are used for processing
and cutting food.
You don't necessarily need all of them
but you don't necessarily only need one.
So a lot of people, they have like those chopper things
but they don't really use them.
Meanwhile, they've got a food processor,
they've got a blender, you've got knives.
I would suggest getting rid of the chopper
if you're not using it
because those other things can fill in very well.
Another example is of course the Instant Pot
that so, so many of us have.
You might have an Instant Pot.
You might have a slow cooker
but honestly, your Instant Pot can do both
so you might want to declutter the slow cooker.
Maybe you have a rice cooker
and you're like, I don't need a rice cooker.
I can just use my Instant Pot
or I can just use a pot on a stove.
You decide what works for you.
Another example is a lot of us keep clothing
that doesn't really fit us or that we don't wear
but we maybe spent a good amount of money on it
and we feel like we should keep it.
Don't keep it.
It's not doing you any good.
You're not wearing it.
Now, people can get hung up on the idea of minimalism.
They think that it means
that you can't have pretty much anything.
Now, some people go real, real minimal like Joshua Becker.
He's an example of one
and I mean, they have less stuff than we do.
We are minimalists but we're not extreme minimalists.
We don't keep extra things around that we don't use
but we also don't get rid of absolutely everything.
We have things around.
We have paintings.
We have a few ornaments.
We have enough furniture for the family and a guests or two.
I'm not saying Joshua Becker doesn't have those things
but I have appliances in my kitchen.
We even just invested in a pasta rolling machine
because we love cooking.
My son loves making fresh pasta but let's face it.
He'll be the one keeping that when he moves.
The point is not to keep things that you don't use.
Declutter the clothes that you don't use.
Manage your paperwork immediately
so you don't have extra paperwork lying around.
Evaluate your artwork, your ornaments and your storage.
Also, be mindful about what you buy.
It was not an easy decision for me
to actually buy the pasta roller
and I honestly thought about it
for the better part of a year
and finally I was like, yes, I will buy it
and I'm glad we did.
It's very good pasta that comes from it.
Another thing, borrow things when you can
instead of buying them.
A lot of times, people don't realize
that they could borrow things from people instead of,
like for me, I want to start canning things next summer.
Well, maybe I'll just borrow a canner from someone.
I don't necessarily have to have that
and then I can lend to them something as well.
I have a set of bolt cutters that I bought
specifically to make a trellis.
So I have bolt cutters
if you have a canner that I can borrow.
That would be great.
And now when you downsize and declutter,
you make way more room for living.
You make more time
and you can save money on what you don't buy.
You will be happier.
You will be less stressed.
You will be more relaxed
because you are not surrounded by the burdensome clutter
all of the time
and now just a nice, simple surrounding
that is inviting and calming
and you don't also like I said, you don't have to go extreme
but you might find that you actually end up removing more
and that you're just much happier as a result of that.
Now, I made a few videos about decluttering and minimizing
so you can check right here
and I will see you in the next video.
Thanks for watching.
Bye.
(calm music)