18 Minimalist Habits You Can Start Today! (Decluttering Motivation)

minimalism seems like it's a trend that's here to stay a lot of us realize that we don't need tons of stuff to make us happy but we often don't know how to get rid of the stuff that we've already accumulated well over the years we've made lots of videos here at clean myspace all about the subject of minimalism and how to get there my approach to minimalism is perhaps a little bit different than what else is out there I try to take an approachable approach to minimalism it's welcoming it's straightforward and the most important thing for me is that it's not overwhelming it doesn't seem drastic and it seems possible and doable because we get so many questions about minimalism and how to start and where to get started and how do I get over this hump I figured that we would pull together some of our favorite tips and methods and ideas on how to practice minimalism or bring it into your life so we put this rather long video together to help you get there I hope you enjoy it if this is your first time watching to clean my space video welcome I encourage you to subscribe by just hitting that button it's always good to have channels that you can trust in your back pocket and we will be there for you if you want to be notified about each and every video of ours that comes out you can always hit that notification bell as well and I always ask people at the beginning of the video to give this one a thumbs up just because it's a nice thing to do for YouTube creator you know give him a thumbs up learning to say no can be oh so hard but it is one of the best skills you can develop and I found that saying no to free samples souvenirs and things from well-meaning people like hand-me-downs can actually help me reduce the amount of clutter in my home I was recently in a store and they gave away gift bags that day and I actually just turned the gift bag down because there was nothing in there that I really wanted now of course if I did want something in there sure I would have taken it but I knew that I didn't need it so I left it there the same thing happened to me when I was in Palm Springs I did this really cool tram ride up to the top of a mountain and they were handing out these keychains and everyone took them but then I said to the lady thanks but no thanks because I'm not going to use it so that was a great way just to not bring that clutter with me and even hand-me-downs or things from well-meaning friends or family members if you don't need it and you're not going to use it you can just politely say no but thank them for the gesture start small so for example if you decide that you want to declutter your closet mazelTov great move but you feel overwhelmed and then you kind of feel down because you're like I don't have nine hours I want to spend my whole day on this cool all you need to do is pick one area that you want to start with so for example let's say you start with your jeans all you need to do is look at your jeans and decide which ones you're going to keep and which ones you're going to part with then once you've decluttered your jeans area of your closet you can decide that you want to move on to something else or you can pick up a day later sometimes chunking it down makes it feel more manageable but if you've done the jeans and you feel really good you kind of have that high you can ride the wave and that positive reinforcement cycle might help carry you through to declutter other things in your closet too you never know until you try just so you guys know we do read as many comments as humanly possible we get hundreds and hundreds a day but one stuck out to us so I wanted to address it here and somebody said well so how can I take decluttering advice from you when you went from living in a small house to moving into a much larger home and it's true we did jump in square footage moving into this home but what Chad and I have tried to do in this space and I think we've done it quite well is we've learned to embrace open empty space now I'm not saying that I want to live sparsely with nothing exciting or beautiful to look at but in our old house we just had a lot of stuff in there that wasn't serving us and then once we managed to declutter and stripped it down and even to the day we moved we were still doing that work you know it didn't make a difference because that space wasn't right for what we were looking for in our lives we wanted a bigger home where we can have friends and family over and you know have kids and make memories like we just wanted the space plus we had the yard and we have the pool it was something that really meant a lot to us so that's why we moved into this house we didn't move into this house because we wanted to fill it with more stuff so in fact no matter what space you're in so long as it suits you in your lifestyle there's a way that you can approach minimalism by simply living in a space that's not clutter so instead of the urgency to find a room and like find things to fill it with and I'm not saying not to decorate but I'm just saying to be mindful about the way you decorate it so don't clutter up a space with extra things that you don't necessarily need be very careful particular and mindful about how you set your space is up so that you're not just filling them out because of course anytime you see a large open space our urge is to want to fill it with stuff but that's when you can sort of Teeter on to the side of being a little too cluttered and not living in that minimalist lifestyle it's a little bit of a mindset change I recommend cleaning out your closet twice a year once when the fall winter hits and once when the spring/summer hits when you do those change outs you're gonna look through all of the clothes from the past season and you'll see the stuff that you haven't worn or that you don't really like anymore and you can sort of put that in a pile and move away from it doing this closet clean out twice a year is super helpful and it helps you get rid of that stuff but if you haven't done that in a while it might be a really good time for you to take a long hard look at the clothes you have in your closet decide anything that you haven't worn in the last 12 months get rid of that put it in a donation pile and move on from it I recently did that in my closet I was doing my biannual closet change over but I was also getting rid of stuff that wasn't gonna fit me anymore not at least I was pregnant and I put that in a box and it freed up so much space in my closet so now when I go in there to get dressed I can actually just pick from things that fit me well and that I like and that is the best part about getting dressed in the morning we've all heard of the five-second rule but there's now the six second rule for minimalist living and that is pick up the item and ask yourself do I need this do I use this do I love this and if you can't really answer yes to any of those questions then you've probably explained to yourself why you don't need that item anymore so I'm just thinking about you know one of those as-seen-on-tv stores you buy an item and you think oh yeah this thing's gonna make my abs tighter or make my bacon crispy or whatever it is and then you buy it you bring it home you might use it one time two times and then you store it and you think yeah maybe I'll use it one day and you kind of never do when you're going through your space always be critical pick up that item give yourself six seconds and really consider whether you need it or not it's easy to say that we'll donate a pile of stuff at some point in the future but when does that actually come and include my space videos we've talked about how Chad and I have what we call a weigh station in our house so for those of you who have seen our videos for many times before you know about the weigh station but for those of you who don't it's a little area that we have where we put things that we think we don't want anymore now at any point while that item is in the weigh station we can go and take it back if we really truly do need it or miss it but most of the time we put stuff in that weigh station we never think about it again and the one thing I will say is that we are not the best and actually taking stuff from that weigh station and donating it it usually piles up quite high and then we kind of look at it and think oh yeah we really gotta get on that so this is a reminder for us but also a reminder for you that if you have things piling up and you know you want to donate them make today that day just put it in your trunk take it and drop it off in a donation center I can assure you that as soon as we're done filling in this video I'm loading up my car and I am doing just that pruning your items on a regular basis shouldn't just be something that you do once a year around spring cleaning to be something that becomes part of your daily habits or your lifestyle and over the past couple of years it's something that Chad and I have really brought into our own home to give you an example of what this actually looks like when I do my laundry and everything's clean before I fold and put it away I'll sort of sort through everything and pick out those garments that I'm not wearing anymore this is just one example of how you can do the same thing so I just got rid of a bunch of old workout clothes that I didn't really love anymore because I'd recently got some new stuff and there was no point of having the old stuff around but you can do this with magazines newspapers items around your home you know just incorporate it into your day and you'll see it's a lot easier to keep your home decluttered when you're ready to cook something you want access to your small appliances that you actually use like my spiralizer which I use all the time and I don't want to have to dig through things that I never touch like a pasta baker or a small little blender like this magic bullet here if you go through your kitchen and you find you have these small appliances that you haven't used in a year because let's be honest some things you're only going to use once here it's time to move on from it there's no need to keep it you're probably not gonna find a use for it any time soon and someone else will probably benefit from it more than you would admittedly I'm not the best at tidying up although I have to say in my years since starting clean my space I am much better than I used to be one of the things that I know makes a huge difference for me and I know has made such a big difference for many of you is to tidy up nightly and to put things back in their home or in their place now this habit when I do it you know Chad and I kind of share duties so sometimes I do it sometimes he does it when I do it it helps me know and kind of take inventory of everything that I have so I have a really good understanding of do I have to add something to my shopping list that I duplicate wait where does this thing go oh gosh I have to file that like there are just inherent tasks that have to happen when I'm doing this tidy up and that is so important because your house or your home is sort of like it's this living breathing thing and the things that flow through it are like blood throwing through flowing through veins you know what always it's moving it's changing its dynamic and we have to be attentive to that so if we're not doing that things get cluttered up and you can't live in this sort of minimal clean space the other thing about minimalism is when you're doing this tidying up it makes you think about each and every item and perhaps you'll notice I don't need this anymore or this piece of paper this happened to be this weekend I saw a pilot paper I said this has been here for too long I'm dealing with it now so when you're doing stuff like that it really encourages you to be very critical of anything in everything in your space and deal with it because one eyesore is really gonna start to drive you crazy and that's coming from me a recovering slob and then there are those items that we have some inherent sentimental attachment to which feel practically impossible to get rid of these could be anything from love letters to tickets from old concerts children's toys clothing that kind of stuff stuff that either you've kept with you for a long time or it's been handed to you generation to generation and these items are typically associated with a lot of guilt so if we get rid of them it's like we're getting rid of that memory or we're seeing it's not important anymore and I know that this is pretty much the hardest category to go through and declutter we've actually done a whole video on how to get rid of sentimental clutter below and I'm not ruthless trust me guys I know what this feels like cuz I got my own piles of stuff that I need to deal with and that I have dealt with so I go through this with you gingerly but it is a really important step because you can't get rid of a lot of things well you're still honoring the item or the memory itself there are lots of ways to do that think about this when it comes to cleaning products rather than purchasing a whole bunch of items that serve specialty cleaning jobs you can look for pantry items that we always talk about here at clean my space like vinegar baking soda dish soap that kind of stuff and make your own cleaning products that way you don't have to store as much and you can use the vinegar and the baking soda in the dish soap for other things as well and of course if you need any cleaning recipes you can always visit cleanmyspace.com or you can watch one of our other videos about making your own cleaning products now this theory extends out into kitchen products and tools and for self care or bathroom products and tools as well there are lots of ways that you can double duty a lot of things in your home to save space but still get the same functionality I'm sure this will resonate with you if you go around your house and take a look you'll probably find shoe boxes or electronics boxes or old jewelry boxes I don't know but stuff that you've bought probably came in a box you might have thought it was a good idea to keep the box now if you're using the box to actually store something in it perfect keep it but if you're not if you think you might use it in the future you probably are not going to so just get rid of it I have an experiment for those of you who want to stick your toe into the pool of minimalism but aren't quite sure how to get there here's what to do all of the surfaces in your home you're going to clear everything from those surfaces you're gonna find a home for wherever those items need to go temporarily now the period of time you're gonna try this experiment for it is up to you you can do a week maybe two weeks but the idea here is you're just going to experience what it feels like to live in a very sparse home very clean clear decluttered space now you might think but you know I need this thing here you'll find a drawer for it trust me you'll you'll manage but the idea here is you come in and you realize how do I feel about living with less how do I feel about having less stuff on my surfaces and then when you're prescribed period of time is over perhaps you only want to put half the things back on your services perhaps you'll really think about what you're going to put on your surfaces you'll be more deliberate about it you see the problem that we encounter so often as humans is we just get used to things we don't really pay attention to things because we have to put so much on autopilot to focus on the things that we really do need to work on so a lot of the clutter just becomes background noise but it does build up over time so shocking your system like this really helps you second-guess everything that you have in your home it's a great experiment to try I love Chad bless his heart but honestly we have a collection of cables that makes me sick he's sitting right over there and he is looking down at his iPad because he doesn't want to make eye contact with me right now and I feel like a lot of you guys are in the same situation you see we have cables like I don't even know what they're for there's like r2d2 cables and plugins and stickum cabling I don't even know what these things are there are all kinds of colors and I typically don't like to enforce things in this house but I've really laid down the law with Chad in this cable collection because it it sort of angers me in case you haven't been able to pick up on that so cables are something that we are working on is it is a work in probe in progress but we are working on decluttering that right now buying something for one specific purpose can end up not only costing you money but making you have to store something that you don't really need and then you'll hang on to it you'll think yeah but maybe one day I'll need that thing and then you never do and then it just clutters up your space so give you a perfect example a couple years ago Chyna and I joined Luke and his wife at a cottage that they had rented up north and we had all these grand plans of going out on the lake so we bought lifejackets now normally when Chad and I go out on the water we go somewhere where we rent the water vessel canoe kayak whatever it is and lifejackets come with that rental but they didn't have any at the cottage so we thought okay we'll just buy some well guess what we've had those like jackets in our garage for two years while we were at the cottage it rained the entire time so we never ended up using them but those life jackets still remain and upon further conversation Chad and I are just getting rid of the life jackets because we don't need them and there's no point of hanging onto them because there's no opportunity in our near future that we're going to use them and if we go somewhere where we need life jackets there's like a 94% chance that we're gonna be able to rent them I don't know about you guys but Chad and I are guilty of this we kind of keep our old pillows just for emergency purposes like if we have a guest come over and they need to sleep over for the night which by the way has never happened in the seven years we've in this house but we still have these darn pillows so here's the deal I'm gonna do this and you can do it to take your pillows drop them off at the closest pet shelter they're pretty much the only place that's gonna take use pillows but they actually really like them and that will do you and your closet of service and of course the little tiny animals that get to sleep on the pillows will love you for it as well a few weeks back we did film a video about how I clean and organize my makeup area here in my office and if you haven't done this already I highly recommend decluttering some of the old makeup and hair products that you have in your home because you know like this mascara for example it is definitely more than three months old and if you know anything about mascara you shouldn't have it around so go through your makeup pick out all the stuff that's old if you need more details we'll put the links to that video for you down below and that will definitely free up some space in your home when you open your door to grab a tea towel which is what we call the new Canada or a dish towel you'll probably find some that are stained or have holes in them or just look beat-up and you don't need those ones anymore so go through that drawer and pull out anything that's not looking so hot or fresh and what we've done is replaced all of ours with our makers cleaning cloths our waffle we've tea towels they're so absorbent they're so amazing and they're actually our best-selling single packs cloths you can find more about this at makers clean calm but aside from that the idea here guys is to go through get rid of all those old dish towels only have the pretty and nice ones that actually work and serve their purpose sometimes we buy medicine because we need it for a particular thing but then that thing never comes back again thank goodness but your medicine is still in the cabinet and it is probably expired so if you want to toss something now actually you got to toss it responsibly go to your medicine cabinet check all of the dates and get rid of anything that is no longer usable now what you need to do with the medicine is put it in two zippered bags and take it to your pharmacist they will help you dispose of it safely and if they can't do it for whatever reason they'll let you know we're gonna take so now you have several ways that you can start incorporating minimalism into your life and that brings me to this comment question which is do you currently practice a minimalist lifestyle and if you don't what do you think your biggest hurdle is I know for me it was the emotional side of things it wasn't necessarily physical it was more mentally being able to part ways with things so I'd love to know what's keeping you out of that minimalist lifestyle in the comments down below if you want to see we're up to during the rest of the week who can follow along on Instagram i'm @melissamaker chad is @thechadreynolds and the two of us are @cleanmyspace if you like our channel and you want to support the work that we do you can simply do so by watching another video right after this one and here are a couple I think you might love if you want to learn about our makers clean microfiber cloths you can click this button right over here there is a button down there that lets me know you care so click it if you liked this video and click this button right here to subscribe and begin your journey to a cleaner life thanks so much for watching and we'll see you next time

Channel: Clean My Space

Views: 1,384,747

Rating: 4.8865242 out of 5

Keywords: minimalist living, minimalist lifestyle, simplify your life, ways to simplify your life, intentional living, how to simplify your life, simple living, minimalist, decluttering, how to become a minimalist, minimalism 2020, Clean My Space, Melissa Maker, Decluttering Motivation, declutter, minimalism tips, minimalist home, minimalism, becoming minimalist

Id: qf7mDf5PGzo

Length: 20min 29sec (1229 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 21 2020