Minimal Mom Dawn spills the tea!

um so I'm like the Happy helper until I feel martyred like I will help you all day long until I feel like you're taking advantage of me or I'm the only one doing everything and then I am like not fun to live with right so I had to recognize that like I need everyone around me to be helping and pitching in so today we have Don from the minimal mom she helps many many people with decluttering and motivation and I really enjoyed our talk so let's jump in everybody must be very excited I'm happy to introduce Don the minimal mom thanks for being here Don absolutely thanks for having me I know my audience is so excited that you are here and I asked them questions and they gave me a bunch but I just want to dive in right away so you love just like I do you really like to promote minimalism and I'd love for you to tell me a little bit about yourself and then your story that brought you to that point yeah I mean so if we go back in time nine years ago we had four kids ages four and under and I thought life was busy then uh turns out it gets busier as they get older but I just I just so distinctly remember thinking like is is this just what it's going to be is this just what being a mom and managing a house is going to be because it was hard it was messy it was not enjoyable I it just felt really hard and so that year I was just Googling I was on Pinterest and I came across a podcast with Joshua Becker and he said his famous line of did you know that you don't have to have all of this stuff and I think I was just so desperate at the time that that's all he had to say and I questioned everything I was like I don't know do we have to do we need this and I started looking at everything and I mean you know Robin back then there wasn't a lot of information on minimalism and simple living and so I just decided to do an experiment and just see if we got rid of um a bunch of our physical possessions if that would help and uh kind of like The Benchmark I had in mind was like I would like that like every room in our house we could just pick it up in like five minutes like none of this full day things of having to clean and take care of our whole house and I I was surprised how much I had to get rid of to get to a point where each room was really easy to pick up um and so we ended up getting rid of about 80% of our stuff over a year I say we I ended up getting I did not tell my husband what we were doing um and I found so much freedom and now that was nine years ago and I couldn't even imagine now having all that stuff back and trying to do it all with the the season we're in with our kids and activities and all of that um it has made life so much better and so of course now like you I'm just like I just want to tell everyone about it and just give them permission to say good news you don't have to have all of this stuff either yeah it's funny because when whenever I and I know everybody has like different thresholds um as I think it is um Dana says and and but I it I like almost feels like being like really thirsty or like my heart or like my soul is being crushed when I think about what my own house was like before and that's just it like and and I didn't realize it at the time yeah you know like you don't realize it and I mean we and we didn't have the research either right like now we can see studies that directly correlate clutter and stress and I was visiting with some GS in our mentorship group recently and I'm I'm really trying to hard to keep all of our flat surfaces like really clear like they were pretty clear in the past um but like even now I'm realizing my own sensitivity because we're in a busy season to things that are just like sitting out and aren't put away our brain is constantly registering that like oh there's something that needs to be done oh you're not doing that why aren't you doing that that needs to be put away you need to do this we can't really be at rest Even in our own home and so it's like we never get a break from it and so even now I've been like so aware of just making sure things get put away and and keeping it picked up and that was never me in the past I grew up in a messy house I thought I'm creative I'm free spirited I'm kind of messy it's fine like um I'm not that doesn't affect me that's not a big deal and honestly I don't know maybe in the past it didn't affect me as much but now like again just navigating a really busy season just lots of things going on um I just feel so sensitive to that and I feel like when our house is in order it doesn't have to be perfectly clean but when it's just picked up pulled together I just feel like I can just like my my body just like sigh and it's like okay like I can fully relax rest recharge before we take on another day that's just it like we you women I there was a study I read this was actually right around the time when it's Joshua Becker also was what got me going years ago and there was study that said that women are more affected and there are studies that show that that even like the cortisol levels of a man typically are you know they're not as bothered by the clutter in a home and I think it truly is because you know we were like designed to be a certain way and and you know the home is our domain and and we really it doesn't feel like the day is ever done or you can sit down and put your feet up and have a cup of tea yeah if it's if it's messy or cluttered or whatever and I mean I grew up in with relatives who had you know stacks of National Geographics in the hallway and that was like you kept everything yeah yeah yeah so I think it's good that there's a lot more awareness now and um I did an interview with h Brett Frank who's a psychologist and and I was like okay Brett I don't want to just now be piling on everyone's to-do list of like well now you got to get your house decluttered and now there's shame around this if your house isn't and you know the impact it's having on your kids and and she said something that was helpful she's like you don't have to go that far she's like just be aware of it like just start to notice like okay well maybe that's why I'm feeling unsettled in my house is because of this clutter and so over time I want to begin to work on changing this and we know like you can't do it all in a weekend or you know we we glamorize like well I'm going to get a sitter and I'm going to rent a dumpster and for a full weekend I'm going to declare and it's not practical right like it just doesn't work that way but just start to be aware of it like how is this impacting me what would it feel like if I you know if my bedroom wasn't quite so cluttered or there wasn't piles of stuff on the floor what would that feel like and then from there start to make a game plan to be able to tackle it yeah and just bit by bit like even if you think about you know Michaelangelo doing a sculpture right like just chipping away at a big old piece of of marble it can totally happen so how do you think people can start decluttering when they are overwhelmed yeah cuz that's the big thing it's it's lack of time but it's also lack of like mental capacity and bandwidth right it it's um where it's just like uh like decluttering is actually a lot of mental work because we're making a lot of decisions like do I need this am I going to use it in the future what if I get rid of it and then I do need it what if someone else in my family notices it's gone and they need it there's I mean we're just questioning every single thing and so recognizing it's a it's a lot of mental work and so for already feeling kind of drained um we have to use really small chunks of time so five minutes 10 minutes 15 minutes we just set the timer and we pick one small area and I know you're you're a fan of this method too Robin that one small area that I can complete this task like it might yeah I'm not pulling out everything in the linen closet or a full closet worth of stuff but I could tackle this drawer or one shelf in the linen closet and in five minutes I can make a pass I can declutter a few things we don't need I can straighten everything up which just automatically feels better to our brain and I'm going to look back and I'm going to feel like I completed something I felt I feel successful at it and that that those small wins that's what starts to give us the momentum and then that creates motivation then for us to keep tackling other areas too absolutely yes I love any any little small win anytime because the junk drawer for me it just keeps getting messy like it just does that's where like if my husband is like cleaning he throws everything in there and it it's but but once it's done it just feels so good to open it up and be like oh yeah you just want to look at it that's awesome yeah like walk by and I'm like yeah it's great I love it okay um and then what so now there are some people who they don't and and I don't think everybody needs to be minimalist of course but tell me what you like about minimalism yourself yeah I mean honestly again our kids are we have four kids are 9 through 14 now and we keep our schedule like I don't agree to a lot of activities and stuff but our our older two are in plays now and uh so it's not necessarily like week in week out there's not as many activities but the few weeks when it's like Tech week and there's the performance and I'm like we just live in the car and like you know and so there's so many nights where I walk back in our house and I I just look around and I think I don't know how I would do this with how our house used to be in the past I would feel so frazzled um it make you know clutter makes everything harder it's harder to find the things you need it's harder to make dinner at the end of the night um it's harder to get dressed in the morning like just to do all the things and so I I thought I was grateful for our minimalist home when our kids were little because it definitely made that season easier but I think I'm more grateful for it now because I feel like I can be present as a mom and I don't feel frazzled and I don't feel like I'm you know letting my stress leak on to them because I'm I'm just always running around um and so I feel like I'm really able to enjoy this season now with our kids and I don't I I also real like I don't forget things when it's like oh they're suppos they're signed up to bring snacks or it was Corbin's birthday the other day and he wanted to bring treats to his classroom and I'm like I'm on it like I've got it like it it just makes all the pieces kind of fall into place and I don't find myself forgetting things and being behind and and being frantic anymore yeah I think it really does just help with just sort of like the mental clutter overall yes and a lot there are so many people with because I have ADHD and everybody in my house except for one kid doesn't he doesn't have it everybody else does and you know a lot of people they can manage fine in a clutter environment like they're not like you know curled up in the corner like rocking but it's it's once you actually like remove that stuff where you think like oh like I have space to think and and yeah like just being able to make something for your kids or I like you know if if I put leave something on the counter there's nothing else on it so it's like oh there's this thing like I can see it there it's very very clear yes and I don't miss any of the stuff I think that's what continually surprises me you know people often ask but like but what have you have decluttered that you've regretted and I'm like it's so few things I don't miss any of the stuff I just I it's it still surprises me because I'm like we've gotten rid of thousands of items and our house I mean I've gone even further with decluttering our house now because it just like I feel like that's what we need right now in this season and I still I just look around and I'm like it's just so strange to me like I don't miss any of this stuff we're like conditioned to believe like all these products are going to fix our problem and make life easier and isn't it amazing how actually they just make life harder and so I just don't miss any of it yeah it's true it's funny because I there's one thing ever that I decluttered that I repurchased it's not even like and I don't even regret it and it was six big jars to make Kucha but the great thing is for a year I didn't have big jars kicking like big glass jars kicking around the house like I'm okay that I spent you know $20 to repurchase those things so exactly yeah so you have never met you don't you don't regret any of the things you decluttered any sentimental things because you keep some sentimental things like it's okay to keep some things right and I think that's where a lot of people get stuck absolutely and now are sentimental things are actually special and they're curated in a way where we can revisit them and we actually do you know in the past when the you know the kids baby things it was spread out across multiple totes and in different places like I wouldn't have said hey let's go find the outfit you wore home from the hospital that would have been like a crap show right like pulling out bins and then they're digging through everything and it creates a big mess now I can pull out their memory box and I'm like yeah let's here it is let's look through it like it's it's fun to revisit it so when everything's special nothing's special right and so by having like a curated collection of these things it's so fun and I just see that as a gift to give our kids that whenever they leave the house or they want their memory box they can take it with them and then it's already neatly curated and they can look through it with their kids or their spouse or whoever they want to like I I just feel like that's such a gift to give to them yeah it's interesting too because like if I think back to when I was I grew up we're similar age like I grew up in the 80s and the 90s and it was just a time where consumption really started to shoot up and when I moved out of my house I took some boxes with me and then there were a bunch of boxes left behind and garbage bags full of like teddy bears and and things that our parents they kept everything and how nice to not like I honestly feel the stress just thinking about the stuff that was left behind that then had to be dealt with yes exactly and so it's definitely a big shift I love the book um Matt Paxton's book keep the memories lose the stuff we've been going through that recently and um if you're having to deal with sentimental stuff you're helping parents deal with that you've inherited things that book is gold and it is so helpful um in kind of Shifting our minds set around it talking Matt talks a lot about telling the stories around things like the stories are the really special thing about it right um and creating your legacy list so I highly recommend that book for anyone that might be still kind of hung up on on sentimental stuff that's a good one and it's funny because like I I consider myself more minimalist light like I do have a few more well I don't know how many hobbies you have but I have a lot of hobbies and I have things for those Hobbies but if I don't use them then they go but but yeah like I can be sentimental about a lot of things and it's like how do you detach that and and I say that I don't always I'm not always like Yay I'm getting rid of this like I am happy to be making my home cleaner but not always am I you know like there are times where you're like I know this is right choice to make I'm not heartbroken but I'm still like there is that little bit that's like oh you know yeah absolutely and it does get easier over time right we practice and we build more confidence in ourselves um so it's definitely a process we love for it just to be very quick and neat and tidy and you know not get hung up on things but there's just it's just a process I I don't think there is a way that you can shortcut it like you just it takes time to trust what you're doing the decisions you're making that you're not going to miss stuff like I just think for most of us it just takes time to develop that confidence in ourselves yeah and so I've got a couple of questions from some people in my community one of the questions I think you sort of answered it but we can sort of Go a different way it's how is minimalism changing for you as your kids are getting into their low teens I think her oldest is 14 um and it says Independence teen brain friend influences you know like tell me about that well and yes because now our kids have grown up in a minimalist home for 9 years right so then the you know the questions are kind of like well have you scarred them are they going to move out and be hoarders or have they been traumatized in any way what do they think when they go to their friends houses right like all those questions we think of as parents because none of us want to mess up our kids you know like we all joke about oh having therapy budgets for our kids now but honestly like we all want them to have a great childhood and to um not go the opposite way of whatever values we're trying to instill and honestly our like our oldest so she's 14 um we really interesting conversations now when she goes to friends houses and she comes back and I'm sure you've experienced this with your kids too and um when they were younger they were sometimes envious of other kids as like toys or other things but that would happen regardless whether they had a full toy room of Toy so I had to separate that and I'm like no that's just kids nature right to observe what other kids have to think that would be super cool if I had it um so I moved I was able to kind of move past that but now when they go to friends houses um she'll observe like she's like yeah there's kind of a lot of clutter like on like kind of just everywhere you know and she's like it's fine like we talk you know we're always like they're free they can everyone can have their house however they want right but she would observe it and she was like it it doesn't feel good though right she's like I really like coming home to our house and it's just more simplified and there's not piles of stuff like she she especially notices like the piles of things and so um so I think all of our kids appreciate our lifestyle because they helped so much with keeping up our house we talk a lot about like hey it's really easy to pick up because we don't have so much stuff um it's very easy to involve them so so far I don't think any of them are resentful I don't have any fears that they're going to move out and acquire tons of stuff maybe our youngest a little bit he is definitely the one that's more attached but even with him we found ways to just practice it and practice decluttering and he has his treasure boxes he can keep anything in there that he wants but we're not going to let it spill out over you know all of our living spaces and all over his bedroom and as we practiced it he's totally fine with it so it's uh so it's something we just continue to have a conversation about and like any of our values that we hope our kids uh pick up on and want to practice later it's ultimately they're free to do what they want but I think we've taken a pretty balanced approach they've been involved in it and they know that if something is super special to them of course they can keep it um and so I think we've been pretty reasonable about it too yeah I like that and and how do you get your kids in involved with you know chores and periodic decluttering anything like that yeah you know it's so I grew up in a house where like everything it was a team sport like we were just all it was always all hands on deck if the house needed to be picked up if there was chores outside like it was just expected that we all work together and I really appreciate like my our parents did it in such a great way they didn't like power up on us it was just more like hey we all live here we all have the benefits of eating the fridge the food in the fridge and whatnot like so we just all do what needs to be done and so that's very much the approach I've taken with our kids too now is that it's not my responsibility to do everything in the house it's something we all share and we all work together um and so when you're first starting to instill this habit with your kids though doing short amounts of time and then just expecting that you're going to be have to having to oversee it and direct that whole time so you're not going to get anything done but set the timer for five minutes help them direct them to do you know a certain area of picking up and then when the timer goes off we're done so we keep it short we keep it a positive experience we expect push back and expect that we're not going to get anything done but as you practice that I mean I I do so little in our house now when it comes to cleaning and picking up and even cooking now I can share that load with everybody and so it has been really fun to look back now and see how that consistency and sticking with it even when people were grumbling has really paid off and now I don't feel resentful cuz I'm a enag too um so I'm like the Happy helper until I feel martyred like I will help you all day long until I feel like you're taking advantage of me or I'm the only one doing everything and then I am like not fun to live with right so I had to recognize that like I need everyone around me to be helping and pitching in um and I know how good it is for them too and so I don't want to take that away from them either I love that and it's so true there are times where you know you you're realizing like you're giving them a gift anytime there were one of my kids was a really tough young under 10 um and anytime we got to discipline him I was just like this is great because this is helping him right and it it made a big difference like anytime you're doing like having your kids do something it is helping them yeah and I attribute a lot of my self-confidence today to my parents trusting me and involving me there was not a shadow of a doubt in my mind that I was needed like I was a valuable member of our household and that I was contributing I remember like even when my parents would trust me with things you know like we lived on a farm my dad would be like hey Don go go close that gate to the pasture so the cows don't get out you know and I'm like8 years old and I'm like wow he trusts me with that like that's a big deal if the cows get out that's a big deal like that's a lot of extra work right and he trusted I like I still remember to this day feeling like wow he trusts me with that and so it it's hard because often as parents if our if our house is very cluttered and overwhelming and we feel overwhelmed that's hard to involve our kids in um because it just feels like you're making no progress and people are grumbling and it just doesn't even matter but as you work to continue to declutter your house I do think it becomes easier then to continue to incorporate your kids and to like yes give them this gift and these skills too it's funny you say that because so first a lot of people they get very perfectionistic about decluttering and they think like only I can do this yeah and I was looking at my kids putting my husband went to Costco yesterday and my kids always put the stuff away and I thought that's because they know where everything goes and and they know where most of the things in the house go too and I was thinking about how my sister-in-law it's the same with her kids and that one of the benefits of decluttering minimalism is everything and I know people they hate when you know we say this all the time everything has a place but it's true everything should have a place and if everybody knows where it is that's so helpful and it's so good for kids to see that and it's good for them to just be able to be involved in a house like that yeah absolutely okay so another question um they said to ask you about photo organization including digital and how do you keep on top of digital photos and digital things I'm telling you digital stuff is it's getting out of control it is oh yes oh don't even get me started I am not I don't I don't know I am not good at all of this uh Miss Freddy do you follow Miss Freddy on Instagram no but I'm write it down she is a pro at all of this and she has classes and courses I mean just following her on Instagram and Facebook you'll get tons of ideas from her but if you're really serious to get like your Digital Life under control then go to her account look at her website her courses are like $30 and $40 so they're very reasonable but you need a game plan and she breaks it out based on what device you have you know what's your phone what's your computer where are all these digital photos and stuff stored and she has like very clear steps to follow it's kind of a beast like it is kind of a lot to undertake but she breaks it down in a way that is very practical and doable and so I just like to send people her Direction now because that is not my forte at all yeah it is it is a struggle and okay um and one thing I will say that I really like to do on my own phone is just the only tip I can really give is to create albums for things yeah that's good and kids artwork take a picture of it yeah you know throw it in it in that album and I have an album that is so helpful for cards like medical cards driver's licenses my son he needed he was applying for an apartment yesterday and he needed we were co- applying with him and he needed a copy of my driver's license so handy just to be like there you go like I had it I didn't have to like take a picture or anything so that's helpful yes that's awesome okay and now another question is how ask you about meal planning how does one stay consistent yeah do you ever do freezer meals meal prep for the week or cook simple meals daily yeah that's really good um I've had to learn some things about myself so I glamorize freezer cooking I'm like wow if you could make ahead all these meals and whatnot um like that would be so cool well we have one who is like gluten and dairy sensitive um do you know how many freezer meals there are that like are glutenfree and dairy free that also aren't then all vegetables like it's actually very then it's like all veg you know and then they're like nope not eating that either and then and then the veggies are mushy by the time you cook it because it was in the freezer and then you pull it out so I just had to really realize like okay for myself what makes it practical to stick to so it is having a very simple repetitive meal rotation they're all recipes I can cook in my sleep now and they're easy to vary because of like some people do like Dairy and some don't so they're all recipes that it's easy to pull it out for whoever can have that um and I know about myself so I I don't even look at freezer meals anymore or recipes or blog posts or even a YouTube video that pops up I've also learned I don't like cooking with frozen meat so I grew up on a farm right you would buy a full cow or half a cow and you would fill the freezer and then you would eat it all for the next six months or a year right and it just takes extra energy to remember to take it out to figure out different ways to cook it so that it's not tough I don't like cooking roasts and all the other like ground hamburger sure the other meats like I just they would sit at the bottom of the freezer so for this season I've allowed myself to say okay we're going to use fresh meat from the grocery store I'm not going to stock up if something's on clearance and put it in the freezer that doesn't work for me um I have to have a simple rotation I don't try new recipes because new recipes again bandwidth energy I don't have the extra capacity um for that right now and so does my family love and is like so excited about everything I make no like they would probably love it if I tried some new recipes I'm not able to do that right now there might be another season when I can um but just knowing those things about myself and giving myself permission like you can use fresh meat could it be cheaper to get some frozen meat maybe but at the end of the month when I look at my budget going out to McDonald's one time wrecked the difference in frozen meat and fresh meat right so even if I cook at home one or two more times because it's fresh and it's in the fridge and it's ready to go then like that made up for it so my budget is still doing better overall and I I do like to batch cook meat like the actual like hamburger chicken like I will cook big batches of that but other than that I don't like I'm not good at like doubling recipes and and those types of things so I've just really learned myself and what I need to do for this current season and that has been the biggest game Cher for me I love that and just knowing what works for you right like yeah and not trying to take on everyone else's because people that do like big Bach cooking or freezer meals they make it sound like that's the only way to do it you know if you're busy you have to have a freezer stocked with freezer meals right and so it's hard then sometimes to realize like oh wait well that might work for them but that might not be the best solution for me right now it's funny too because I did a lot of freezer meal prep in the summer and I was like I am spending so much money and it was because I was buying like a bunch of extra food but it was a ton of work and it is Handy to have but it so much work yeah yeah and it's funny too because I was I did pull one of the stew in you know in a bag and like threw it in the instant pot and my husband's like what's for dinner and I was like still and he's like ow and I'm like okay well what are you going to make then right like that's what I love is I'm like you guys can't complain unless unless you plan on making something like not not interested yeah yeah I love it well that's really good and so you have a rotation that you go through and is it like laid out like so you don't even have to think about it or do you decide on like a Sunday or yeah you know I don't even I'm not even really great about meal planning because I get the same groceries every week pretty much my my order is pretty standard and from that I know we can all the different like we can cook all the things and so it's kind of like what do we feel like today you know um so but I mean yes because it's so simplified and streamlined that it's it's just very easy to come up with on the fly so I should do more meal planning and and uh planning probably but for now it works yeah I totally you and and really it is just about where you are and what season you're in in life and sometimes it's just a bit less and the thing is because you have those recipes ready you don't have to you know spend a lot of time coming up on top of that um yeah so I will just move on to the next question anyway okay so one more question was I know she has a daughter do a load of laundry each day to keep inventory down um how do you handle bed linens and towels yeah good so towels we have one per person so we have six bath towels in our house um and they just get laundered regularly uh and then Linens we have one set for each bed and then one extra set of Queen and one extra set of twin but those are just for emergencies mostly it's you just pull it off the same day you want to wash it wash it get it through the laundry you have to get it through the laundry that day which I like those types of deadlines and then you just put it back on and then I know people are like but what if a stomach bug comes to your house then we just use an extra throw blanket or a bath towel under someone like you can sleep on a you know something else if your bed sheet is in the is being laundered but it's so rare like it just does not happen all that frequently and often the person's on the couch anyway as if they're not feeling good so um we have a few extra pillowcases but it's one of those things if you've never tried it and you grew up in a house that you had lots of Linens it's like that's absurd that's so weird but I love the accountability of having low clothing and linen inventory that it has to get through the laundry like there are days where someone's like I don't have a bath towel right and you're like okay go run the dryer you know but but we never have piles of laundry around the house we never have we don't even have own laundry baskets so there's no mystery baskets of stuff that needs to be put away or it's half clean half dirty it that keeps our house so much cleaner now too just not all the random clothing and linens that was always floating around oh yeah I know it's funny because my middle son his room is so messy right now and I was like you need to declutter your uh go through a bunch of your clothes because he's you know there's hand-me-downs and they buy new things and they get ammy Downs that they don't want to wear cuz he's 16 right and and it's like okay I said like you wear like four things like you can declutter so much like your life will be easier and that's sort of like handing the Baton of like I'm not gonna I'm not going to do this for you but you need to do it so um yeah in our house now my husband I accidentally washed his keys once and so he decided he was going to do his laundry and I was like perfect because that's what we do and so now I wash my clothes and I wash like the towels and that and that it's so great great yes no I agree e however you can share that load right like we have one person that does it all in our house and eventually will rotate out that job but she doesn't even mind it um because like she would rather do that than dishes you know so it's like it it's we have a pretty good division of labor right now and it just it works really well but yeah we can't do it all like we really have to share it with the other members of our household right I think that's so great to have that that um jurisdiction or whatever that like that that person has it's so nice and then they have that ownership and they they learn that I think that is a really great skill for the kids for sure awesome well Don this has been lovely it's always so nice to talk to you yeah you too Robin um okay so I I don't I know I don't even need to ask this but I'm going to so where can people find you yes I spend most of my time on YouTube so just search the minimal mom in YouTube and then also on Instagram and Facebook too awesome well thank you so much for being here and I will see you soon thanks

Channel: Minimalist Home

Views: 47,254

Keywords: BC, Canada, How to, Friendly, West Coast, minimalism, simplify, adhd

Id: XQvKZ3pOBu4

Length: 34min 7sec (2047 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 25 2024