Recently I watched the documentary film, “Minimalism: A Film About the Important Things” and was inspired to become a minimalist myself. Minimalism is the art of letting go. It’s about intentionally living with only the things you really need and with the few things that bring a sense of satisfaction.
This post is the start of a minimalism series. My aim is to share my story in hopes of inspiring others to become a minimalist. Each week I will focus on a single room.
There are many good things that come out of living minimally. By doing away with clutter, one can save a lot of time that was spent dusting and cleaning clutter and instead spend valuable time to be with loved ones. Additionally, one can save a lot of money that’s usually spent excessively consuming things that aren’t necessities or things that bring satisfaction and instead, use those finances to pay off debt, relieving oneself of stress and perhaps travel or do things that one loves such as a hobby.
I’m very outdoorsy and I have this overwhelming desire to travel the world, go SCUBA diving, hike, mountain climb, experience new cultures and overall make wonderful memories with my partner and the people we love.
The simpler life becomes, the more money that’s saved, and the more we can enjoy life. Whatever that looks like.
I’d like to place emphasis on the fact that this is a fun journey towards a simpler, and additionally environmentally friendly life. If one so chooses to start a journey; remember, one doesn’t have to get everything done at once. Take your time, be patient and have fun.
Today I am focusing on the living room and my “office” area. I had the most fun with this room and the kitchen, the two rooms people gravitate to the most. As with every room, I decluttered it, cleaned the surfaces and reorganized what was left in a pleasing fashion. All the things that my partner and I let go of, we donated to charity.
I started by cleaning out each of the cabinets below the television. There were a lot of books we’ve already read, games we no longer play, and things we don’t use or need anymore. After going through all of the cabinets I distributed the rest into other spaces. One cabinet has DVDs and a few photo albums, another one has the gaming systems and the few games that we love to play. Another one has a puzzle, a couple board games and few other things spread out on their own shelves and the last one has music binders and other things that are important to us.
After working on the cabinets, my partner and I went through all of the books on the shelves, letting go of all the ones we’ve already read and don’t plan on reading again. We realized when we were done with this part of the living room project, that we now had an open shelf for a couple of our framed photos. So we spread those photos and a few decorations out. Now all the shelves aren’t packed with photos and clutter.
These photos of the living room as a whole show how simple the room is. We don’t keep a lot of things on the shelves or on the coffee table anymore. It’s a lighter atmosphere in this room and we love it. I’m so proud of the progress we’ve made with this room.
This is my little office area. Because it’s such a small portion of the house, I decided to share a little about it today. The only things on my desk are my laptop, a cup for my pens, pencils and ear plugs, and to the right are the few books I need for my internship and my classes. For the most part I’ve gone paperless because I always have a class or two taught by professors who like to give us assignments that require printing or using paper. This allows me to save on college supplies and because I only need my laptop and my earphones when I go to my classes, I’m relieving a lot of weight off my back too.
These days online textbooks are available for purchase and students are allowed to take notes on a laptop rather than in a notebook so everything I need is on my laptop and my mobile phone too as there are apps that allow people to access computer documents on it.
I love this little area of mine. It’s clean, it’s just the right size area to work with and I can turn my chair around and sync YouTube videos to the T.V. I learn well by watching videos with good visuals and outlining my notes, putting everything in simple terms.
I’m very pleased with the work we’ve done on the living room. I don’t think this room can be simplified further. We are very satisfied and I have to share that stress has been lifted. A clean, simplified home is a happy home.
Stay tuned. Next time I’m going to talk about our work on the kitchen. If you have any questions for me, I can be reached at hlfizell@gmail.com.
