A few weeks ago, I left home.
The short story is that I suspect where I live might be causing my pervasive health issues, so I’m running an experiment to confirm those suspicions before I make any big moves.
I packed my tee-tiny Prius with daily essentials, work equipment, and a few personal items to keep me company. A nineteen-hour drive later, I was in my new home for the next three months.
I’d rented a bare-bonedly furnished apartment for the simplest transition. I spent that afternoon settling my three square feet of stuff among the minimal stock furniture.
Living in a spare space taught me a few things about clutter and minimalism, just like living in a cluttered space did.
Here’s what I learned so far.
1. Use It Up
Part of the “furnished apartment” experience is that they leave you with hotel-sized portions of everyday items. I brought toiletries and cleaning supplies with me, so these were just extras.
In the past, I would have had a hoarding mentality–save those tiny things for a time where you might possibly need tiny things!
But this time, I simply used them up.
They were the worst possible versions of everything, so saving it wasn’t going to enrich my life. I wouldn’t be excited to use them later. So I used them up first, tossed the containers, and went about my life with fewer things taking up real estate in my space and mind.
I’m a bigger proponent of use it up decluttering than I’ve ever been.
2. Functional Decor
I’m a homebody. This has been a strange experiment for me, being away from my house and my things. So I displayed the few items I brought with me–draped my colorful throw blanket on the couch instead of folding it away.
I propped my books throughout the apartment instead of crunching them up on the bedside table.
Anything that looked kind of cute and homey got a spot in view instead of living in a drawer.
If you have a lot of things, this might look cluttered, but with only a few mementos, it makes the space feel warmer.
Styling with functional items allows them to serve double duty–making the space homey without adding useless clutter.
3. This Spoon
My friend visited me for my birthday last week and gave me this spoon.
I have sensory issues, and I really hate clinking silverware. It makes me nauseated. I saved plastic cutlery from takeout my first day here so that I didn’t have to use the metal utensils that came with the apartment.
Now I have this perfectly sized wooden spoon that makes me think of my dear friend every time I see it.
I exclusively use this spoon and a pair of chopsticks, so the rest of my utensil drawer is officially useless.
It’s better to have one item that serves its purpose perfectly (bonus points if it makes you so happy) than it is to have a drawer full of flops.
4. Alone Time
Something that is reeeeal minimal at the moment is my social calendar. I have a couple of pals nearby, but nothing like back home.
This is a drag on the surface, because I deeply adore my friends, but it’s also been really energizing. I thrive with alone time, even if I fight against it because I want to be with my loved ones all the time. It’s a bit of a contradiction, but that’s on being human.
With my schedule freed up and my living space so easy to care for, life has gotten…easy.
I get up every morning and walk to the gym to do my workouts, effortlessly. My apartment stays spotless. I spend much more time cooking healthy meals.
I’m so ahead on work (I bought a business a few months ago, if you noticed I’ve been quiet) that I finally have the spare time and mental space to write this blog post.
I do plan to add more socializing and activities to my schedule now that I’m settled in–game nights with the back-homies, picking up fight training now that I’ve got the energy again–but having more alone time has been really energizing and productive for me.
5. Clutter Comes Fast
I’ve been here for three weeks, and I can already feel the impending threat of clutter.
Like I said, my birthday just passed so I have new gifts in my apartment, which all make me happy, but DO quickly take up space. I literally have a trampoline next to me as I’m typing this.
I drove here with almost nothing and already have a kitchen cabinet full of plastic containers I saved to store food. The natural flow of items (at least in the US) is into the home. If we don’t create a flow back out, this is where the things will pile up forever.
So I’m back to implementing my regular decluttering practices, using the ten passive decluttering techniques that have been stupid effective. You can really see the impact of those practices when you get ahead of the problem.
So…did it help?
If you’re curious about how the experiment is going–it is helping so far! This is good news, because it’s the first real improvement I’ve seen on my health in years.
But it’s obviously complicated news because…I live over there.
I guess that’s a problem I can work on with all of my new mental space.
That’s all I’ve got for you today. I hope to get back to posting when I can, and we’re still gonna run the Holiday Decluttering Challenge, so I hope you’re excited for that!
We’ll speak soon. 🙂
Mia 💜
