- This is a disaster.
(upbeat instrumental music)
We live in a culture full of stuff,
bombarded with advertisements pushing us
to buy more stuff.
We accumulate more and more and more
until we need an extra storage unit to fit it all.
Today there are more self-storage facilities in the U.S.
than there are McDonald's, Subway, and Jack in the Box
restaurants combined.
I heard about minimalism a few years back
and it was something that really piqued my interest.
Minimalism is a lifestyle movement of living
with less material items.
There's this whole community of people living this way
and connecting online.
You have all different types of people.
Seems like a really beautiful way to live your life.
I have one friend who just lives out of a tiny
little duffle bag.
And he's ready to travel at the drop of a dime.
- I think it's always good to have less
and only have the essentials.
- What's the hardest part?
- I mean I think it's easy, that makes it easier
because it's hard to have more things.
- I hope this week can allow me to find some
of that freedom for myself.
There are these two guys kind of like at the forefront
of this movement on social media called The Minimalists.
They made this Netflix documentary called Minimalism.
I got The Minimalists to come into the studio
and asked them some questions about how I could start
my own minimalist journey.
- What are some guidelines for living a minimalist life?
- Minimalism is not about deprivation.
It's about bringing what is important and I think
really what it comes down to is what is adding value
to one's life?
For everyone it's different and it's always changing.
- We've got a lot of clutter.
Even if we do a really good job of organizing it
it's still organized hoarding.
- I have a 90-90 rule where if I haven't used something
in the last 90 days and I don't plan on using it
in the next 90 days I'll probably get rid of it.
- What advice do you have for me while I do this experiment?
- Get really clear on why you're doing it.
I think we all understand the how-to.
- I do feel somewhat attached to my items.
Through this experiment I really want to let go of that.
I don't want to empty out my room right now.
What did I get myself into?
What I quickly started to realize is that I've been holding
onto stuff for years.
I consider myself to be someone who's pretty frugal.
It's not that I was buying more stuff,
it was that I hadn't been letting go of anything.
I'm overflowing in yoga pants.
After going through everything I realized
I have a lot more stuff than I thought I did.
Here's the breakdown.
14 pieces of wall decor; 55 books;
25 candles, slash, trinkets; 13 journals;
53 makeup items; 120 beauty, slash, hygiene products;
24 pairs of shoes; 15 purses and bags;
22 miscellaneous accessories; and more than 300 items
of clothing.
I decided to box everything up, shove it in a storage closet
and at the end of the week I could decide
what I want to keep and what I want to donate.
All that I'm really left with is work stuff, laptop,
my bed.
I'm not moving furniture because I've nowhere to put it.
But I emptied everything out of it.
For the next week I would live with only the essentials.
This included a hat, an armband and headphones for running,
my yoga mat, a foam roller, my water bottle,
one book, a small bag, a binder full
of very important documents, and my speaker.
I cannot live without my speakers.
I listen to music every single day.
My meditation's on here and I use it for my yoga practice.
This gratitude journal was hidden underneath
10 other journals.
I completely forgot that I had this.
I also write in my gratitude journal every night.
I limited myself to only essential hygiene products
like a toothbrush and toothpaste, face wash, soap,
and deodorant.
Makeup would not be considered essential.
I picked out enough yoga clothes and workout clothes
to get me through the week just so I wasn't doing
a ton of laundry, and a few key items of regular clothing,
mostly dresses just because they're easy and make me look
the most put together with minimal work.
- Decluttering is merely the first step.
The real purpose of minimalism has to do
with the benefits we experience once we're on the other side
of the decluttering.
- I thought that after I emptied my room I would feel empty,
but I feel really good.
Looking around my room and seeing how clear it is,
it's nice.
I'm feeling optimistic about this week.
- I'd like to see if this experiment would allow me
to free up my time a little bit more.
I'm gonna time myself and see how fast I can get ready.
Seven minutes and 23 seconds and I am out the door
on my way to work.
My hair is wet, no makeup.
But you know, I'm not gonna be late.
I thought I would feel a little bit empty walking
into an empty room after a day of work.
It's kind of refreshing, it really is.
Look at this beautiful van.
- Beautiful.
- [Sky] What's his name?
- Oscar.
- Oscar, I love that name.
So I met this guy, Jim, when I was walking down the street.
He was in this really cool green van
and it looked like he was living out of the van
so I stopped and asked him hey, like what's your story?
He said that he had given up his life to kind of go travel
and to live out of a van.
I love this thing, it's so great.
I want to get one.
How did you find this lifestyle and what did you give up
to live this way?
- I gave up my career at the time which was
restaurant owner.
I had two restaurants and a cocktail bar.
My minimalism lifestyle started when I sold my house.
I used to have like a 3,500 square foot house
with tons of stuff in it.
Slowly by surely I eliminated and eliminated stuff.
It's not like I watched documentary, I read a book about it.
It was just something that came out of me naturally.
The goal of it all was just to live a life of not
being encumbered with, not just with things
but with timetables and schedules and appointments
and expectations.
- It's only day three and I'm already having to do laundry
because I didn't account for the fact that I would need
a pair of underwear for working out and yoga
and then a pair of underwear for actually wearing.
So I already ran out of clean underwear.
Kind of like going on a date tonight, a kind of date.
I don't know if it's a date, whatever.
I can't really put on any makeup and I'm starting
to get a pimple right here.
So this is where minimalism starts to be not fun for me.
At first it was nice not having to choose what I'm going
to wear.
Now I'm really bummed that I can't choose.
I really feel like a slob today.
Ryann, do you think I look like a slob?
- Just be honest.
- You need to go change. (laughing)
The minimalist life is not, it's not cute.
- I'm on my way to Santa Monica to interview this woman
who I met through minimalist.org where they have
all these community meetup groups in every major city.
I just hit up the one for L.A.
I'm going to talk to her because I want to get
a female perspective about this lifestyle.
For me I think one of the biggest things has been
just like not wearing makeup, letting go of some clothing,
and living with very few pieces of clothing.
I feel like I'm a little lost in how I put myself together
every day.
- I would say that my space is very well curated.
Everything that I have in here I love it
or it has some sort of story behind it or serves
some sort of purpose, if not more than one purpose.
- You don't have any clothes.
How do you feel as a female?
How do you feel it has affected your expression,
if it has?
- [Melanie] If I don't love it or feel really good in it,
it does not stay in my closet.
- Were you somebody who always had worn makeup
and was attached to that kind of stuff?
- I like makeup.
I like to feel pretty.
I'm a lot more intentional about the makeup products
that I have and that I own.
- I have this idea on minimalism in my head I think
when I started this.
- You learn that oh, it doesn't have to be so extreme.
You can kind of make it your own.
- I really think that our material possessions
are a physical manifestation of what's going on
inside us.
Once I started dealing with that external clutter
I was able to deal with what was going on
inside of me.
The mental clutter, the emotional clutter,
the spiritual clutter, the financial clutter,
this internal clutter.
- What I learned this week is that there's no right way
to live a minimalist lifestyle.
But that it did add a lot of value in my life
and freedom to live with a lot less material items.
I think I'm somebody that's too messy and gets too sweaty
to live with so few clothing items,
although I do think I'm going to end up donating a lot
of my clothes along with a lot of my other
material possessions.
I love the way my room is now with it being so simple.
I felt like my head space was a lot cleaner.
I was able to get out more and meet more people
and live more in the moment.
Writing in my gratitude journal and I can't talk
'cause I have my retainer in.
I am grateful for my retainer, mouth is (mumbles).
I mean I am grateful for this 'cause it keeps
my teeth straight.