First Steps in a Journey to Simplify

I’ve always liked organizing, rearranging, and cleaning out my things. I remember spending countless hours sorting through trash bags of baby clothes my mom kept stored under her canopy bed. I remember wanting something useful to do and constantly asking my mom if she had something for me to organize. I remember frequently taking stock of my clothing, trinkets, and toys, rearranging them and deciding which ones I could part with to sell at a “rummage sale” as garage or yard sales are called in Wisconsin.

With my inherent affinity to organize and only keep what is useful or meaningful, you would think I would have an easy time keeping an organized household as an adult, but I am finding—with quite a bit of motivation and insight from my friend Kayla Snow who is on her own simplifying journey—that merely sorting through possessions in order to fill bags to take to Goodwill is not enough, or, more accurately, does not begin to solve the problem of materialism and excess in my life. It may feel like a success to scale down my possessions and donate them, but I will likely buy more things that I don’t really need and will regret buying in a few short weeks or months.

To be clear, I am not a big spender. I love finding treasures at thrift and consignment stores, but even there, I don’t buy all that much. Still, as someone who tends to be sentimental and nostalgic, organizing and purging is a conscientious, sometimes agonizing process, which means that anything I purchase can add to the problem if I have not been intentional in thinking through if I really need it/if I’ll still like it down the road.

I think the first step is to sort through my possessions and donate what I no longer use or need or that does not have value in some significant way (and the hard part is deciding this!). But then I need to begin to change my purchasing patterns and my mindset about things.

A couple helpful things I have realized:

1. Donating items to a consignment store is really motivating.

Even if I am only getting a few dollars for my items, I’ve found it’s significantly more motivating when I am on the fence about choosing to let go of an item. The pocket change, combined with the knowledge that I am only getting paid when someone has actually purchased my item so I know it’s not going to a landfill feels really great!

2. Sometimes buying newer, quality items actually prevents me from collecting clutter.

This may seem counterintuitive, but a recent case in point is when hubby and I purchased a new (and quality!) bedframe, mattress, and dresser. This allowed me to part with some items that I was using but were older and didn’t coordinate with the décor I was shooting for (read: were items from my 15-year-old teen bedroom). Having the bedroom come together and be an aesthetically pleasant space to live in really boosted my motivation to not add any unnecessary clutter and to donate things that took away from the homey space hubby and I created. Another example to drive this point home is my recent purchase of a pair of jeans that fit really well and were good quality. This allowed me to part with several pairs of jeans I was keeping because I liked the length of one, the color of the other, or the particular fit of the third.

Right now I am beginning with consolidating and simplifying, and a large part of that involves donating things, but I’m hoping that being more intentional in how I think about material things and the whole process of purchasing items—whether food, clothing, or otherwise will begin to change the patterns I have developed as a consumer.

I also think simplifying is important for more than the obvious reason of having a clean, uncluttered space in which to live. The open spaces of our homes often correlate to the amount of open space in our minds. When my mind is uncluttered I am less stressed, less given to frustration, and have space in which to think more deeply, be more creative, and simply appreciate silence. There is also spiritual significance here, I believe, because, after all, God spoke through the whisper not the chaotic and destructive wind, earthquake, and fire (1 Kings 19:11-13).

Stay tuned if you’d like to hear more about my journey to simplify—and let me know what you have found helpful in this