Minimalism—Twelve Minimizing Mistakes and Solutions—Part 1 of 2

Part 3 in the "Move Abroad Series"

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Minimizing: Let’s Break it Down!

Minimizing is one of the steps you will be embarking on in your living abroad adventure. While I currently have two full modules with over ten lessons dedicated to this in my upcoming class, I wanted to help you move forward right now.

This article ended up being longer than I had anticipated so I’m breaking it up into two articles. I came up with ten common mistakes people often make when they start this process and in this article we’ll cover the first six.

And to avoid your derailment before you even begin we’ll go over each of these mistakes one-by-one as well as the solutions. Some of them will overlap a little as well.

Mistake number one: Starting without a plan. 

Jumping into minimizing without a clear strategy can lead to chaos and overwhelm; such as tackling random areas without any order or priority. 

There are several ways to set up a plan for your minimizing experience and the two main ways/solutions are…

1. Go room by room. 

For example: if you pick the bathroom to tackle first, start by clearing out just one drawer or one shelf at a time. Throw or give away all the items you no longer use and do not want to bring with you to your next home. Be brutal but also know you can come back to this a second time if needed, or even a third. 

Makeup and Samples—Something you may not know is all those make-up and skin-care samples you’ve collected over the years have all gone bad so throw them out! And makeup expires too, especially mascara. So if you’ve been hoarding twenty different eyeshadow pallets for years and have never used them, chances are you never will. Pick just one to keep, or better yet, get a new one after you move.

2. Or you may choose to start item by item.

For example: you may want to tackle your books. If you chose to do this, start shelf by shelf and make piles or—if you will end up with seventeen legal sized boxes, like I did at one point, start sorting them into boxes.

*But don’t fill the boxes so that they’re too heavy to lift.

I used a four box method to sort my books:

1. A storage box (for my storage unit) for first, signed and out of print editions and books I could not purchase again and didn’t want to sell. I kept my childhood version of “Horton Hears a Who” and “Phantom Tollbooth” for example.

2. Donation boxes. I did look up many of the books on Amazon before deciding. If I could purchase a particular book I loved or hadn’t read yet but wanted to on kindle, it went in the give away box.

3. Friend’s give-away box.

4. To Sell box.

I found that I could donate books to a local library and drove over one or two boxes at a time each week over a few months, whenever I was going in that direction. This worked well.

This was also the third time I had purged my books. The first time I did something I do not recommend. I loaded up seventeen boxes and drove them to a used bookstore in San Francisco that buys back books. Out of the seventeen full boxes, which amounted to about three hundred and fifty books, the bookstore chose two. TWO! I had packed all those boxes myself, loaded my car myself and unloaded the car, thankfully with the help of a friend. But after they turned down almost all the books, the thought of reloading them back into my car was overwhelming. Plus I didn’t know where to donate them at that time.

What I did this final time for books I wanted to sell is that I listed and sold them on ebay and there were only a few that I ended up selling.

Mistake number two: Taking on Too Much at Once

• Trying to declutter your entire house in one go can be overwhelming and exhausting; such as emptying multiple rooms at once and creating a huge mess.

Solution: Keep your eye on your plan. 

What feels the least overwhelming to you? Start small and set a timer for as little as fifteen minutes. Maybe you feel motivated to tackle your junk drawer. I used to have one of those, which I thankfully stopped allowing myself to do almost twenty years ago. This is partly because when it came time to clear it, it was too overwhelming and I ended up dumping everything in the trash. So maybe that’s not a great example except to use: just don’t have a junk drawer. 

• Let’s say you’re ready to tackle a clothing drawer instead. You can either work on that one single drawer until you’re finished or set a fifteen to thirty minute timer.

• Don’t pull everything out and throw it in the middle of the floor to sort, unless you have a plan. I admit I used to do this when I was sorting paper. But I made piles like: file, recycle, trash. For the trash pile, I had an open bag and placed items inside. The same for the recycle pile, that went into a paper back. And if I wasn’t finished but my time was up, I put the items that remained into another paper bag and set everything aside in a corner of my living room until the next day.

Mistake number three: Not Sorting Items First

• Trying to organize and declutter simultaneously can lead to confusion and inefficiency. For example, moving items around without determining what to keep or discard.

Solution: Using the Four-Box Method of: Keep, Donate, Sell, Trash to sort items before organizing them.

Mistake number four: Being Overly Sentimental

This one is hard. I know! But there are ways to deal with all of it. This is an emotional issue and while it does require a longer conversation I will say that there’s no reason to keep every piece of childhood memorabilia or old gifts. When is the last time you looked at them? Are they useful or just sitting in a drawer or file cabinet? Are they so worn out, that someone else would trash them? 

Personal example: I had kept my favorite stuffed animal from when I was seven. Skunky. It looked like it had been dragged through a muddy river, run over by a car and a mack truck and then tossed, haphazardly off the roof of a skyscraper. The “fur” was beyond matted, it was just a huge mess. But still, I had lugged that thing from apartment to apartment for over thirty years. And yet, when I moved to Portugal, I realized Skunky would not be coming with me. So I took photos and a video and threw him into the trash. I didn’t have a funeral, I didn’t cry, I did kiss him and then I tossed him. But if you need to have a funeral and cry for your stuffies, please do! Then toss them or if they’re still in good enough condition, give them away. Although, I do grant you permission to bring one, but only one, with you; no matter its condition. However, it must be small enough and not take up too much room in your suitcase.

I’m not saying you have to do any of this but… I encourage you to get rid of as many sentimental items as you can. To make this easier, put the ones you’re not ready to part with yet into one single, small box, no bigger than a shoebox. Tell yourself, “this is all I’m allowed to keep”. And take photos or videos of the rest.

Mistake Number Five: Not Finishing What You Start

Remember the example I gave above about what I used to do when I began decluttering my paper piles?

Well… there were more than a few times when I started and didn’t finish for a week or two. One time, and I’m not exaggerating, it took me five years. During those five long years I ended up throwing paper bags full of half-finished sorting into the back of a closet and closing my eyes. 

Don’t do that. If you’re minimizing in order to move, you can’t do that. Well, you could. You could pack up the unorganized paper into boxes and bring it to your new location, but why? The truth is, you don’t need most of it but you will probably need to determine which to keep and which to shred.

1. Appliance manuals can all be found online.

2. Sentimental paper items such as cards from a loved one can be photographed and tossed.

3. Even patient records/files (which I had) can be scanned and shredded.

So please don’t pull an “old Kimberly” and leave piles of sorted or unsorted items around the house for years.

Solution: set realistic goals for each session and complete one task before moving on to the next. Allocate time to finish sorting and disposing of items properly.

Mistake number six: Buying Storage Solutions Too Early

• Purchasing bins, boxes, and organizers before knowing what you need will lead to one thing, more bins and boxes full of crap. You’ll most likely end up with too many or the wrong type of storage solutions.

Solution: As you’re sorting start by using paper bags or free boxes. And please label them with a sharpie!

—I really hope this list helps you move forward on your adventure. Whether you’re minimizing while staying in your current house or apartment, or moving locally or overseas, these are tips that can be used by everyone.

Being aware of and avoiding these common mistakes will help streamline your process and make it more effective. By planning ahead, breaking tasks into manageable chunks, letting go of sentimental items and using the four-box method, you’re well on your way!

If I could deal with over five hundred books, two huge file cabinets crammed with paper, an enormous walk-in closet filled to the brim with clothes, bags, shoes, sheets, towels and at last fifteen huge plastic bins filled with crap I didn’t know about—you can do this too!

You’ve got this!

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