Before I embraced minimalism, I loved to go camping. In the woods I noticed how quiet my mind was. It wasn’t just bathing in the trees that was calming. I enjoyed not being reminded by my multitude of belongings of the many chores I needed to get done at home. Similarly, when I was in a hotel for a few days, I didn’t have mental conversations with the items in the room. The wallpaper with the lifting seam, the fake floral arrangement that needed dusting, or the floor tiles with the marks were not talking to me. They had someone else to bother. But before minimalism, my stuff at home was not so quiet.
Each time I walked past our silver bowl on our living room bookcase shelf it talked to me. It nagged “You should polish me, I don’t look good tarnished.” and I’d say, “OK, but I’m busy now, maybe next time.” My car would demand “you should wash me” or “change my oil.” My guitar reminded me “You should play me,” or “I will get out of tune and you will lose your callouses that you worked so hard to acquire.” My stamp collection scolded me, “Being packed in this box could damage the stamps.” My canning equipment asked me “When will you can some more jalapeños? Am I just taking up space over here?”
Throughout my house, my stuff was engaging me in “conversations.” Some of them I liked. My favorite book whispered, “you will love the next chapter,” but I told it I’m too busy because I should change the oil in the car, or polish that damn bowl, or play the guitar, or clean the shed, or dust, fix, or organize all of my other things. Most of the conversations I didn’t like. I constantly “should-ed” on myself due to my self-imposed guilt from everything my stuff demanded I do.
Not only did my stuff take up my time and clutter my space, it cluttered my mind with a barrage of “talk.” As I underwent a metamorphosis to become a minimalist and decreased the amount of stuff I owned, I also freed myself from these innumerable mental conversations. It was calming.
By prioritizing what I valued most and letting go of the rest, I found I didn’t need the guitar in my life, or the canning equipment, or the stamp collection, and I certainly didn’t need the silver bowl. They didn’t support my top values of traveling the world, spending more quality time with family and friends, improving my health, learning a language, and following my curiosity. So I let them go and made physical and mental space to focus on the mental conversations I did want to have. I say yes more often to the books I want to read, yes to visiting the Sahara and Angkor Wat, and yes to more quality time with my mom (my dad passed away this year).
By following my top values and letting go of the rest, I found I didn’t need 98% of my belongings (your amount will vary). I spend a lot less time researching, buying, organizing, storing, repairing, cleaning, and disposing of stuff I don’t need. This provides me an enormous amount of time to do what I value. I also have time to do nothing—to let my mind rest. Our brains need downtime to process all of the inputs that we feed it everyday. Having time to meditate, walk in nature, or just be is crucial to our mental well-being. Now I say yes to my health. My house is much quieter now. My mind is much quieter now. I am more content.
My wife and I sold or gave away 98 percent of our belongings. Our dream to be full-time nomadic travelers took flight in July 2023–a goal we never thought possible until we fully embraced minimalism.
In her popular book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing Marie Kondo is adamant that a successful minimalist life only can be achieved if a person does the decluttering all at once and not a little at a time. My experience was the opposite.
My metamorphosis from a self-described “collector of collections” to a minimalist took over three years to achieve through several stages. Small incremental reductions of what I owned, in turn, resulted in small but noticeable increases of freedom and control in my life. In fact, it changed who I was. While a caterpillar physically changes, I evolved internally, honing my values and perspectives.
Lucky Lager puzzle bottle caps from the late ’70s — one of my many collections
Like a caterpillar becoming a butterfly, I progressed through four stages to become a minimalist.
Each stage motivated me to make further (and often bigger) reductions in possessions and commitments resulting in increased white space and contentment in my life. A virtuous cycle.
Egg Stage: Start small, but discard enough to notice (and then notice!).
I started with the low-hanging fruit––I culled my closet, shoes, and some books. I disposed of enough to notice the freed up space. My drawers closed easier, my hangers had elbow room, and my shelves could breathe a little. It felt great and a little freeing to take a car load of boxes and bags to the nearby donation center.
Noticing how great this felt, I was motivated to do more. I went after our basement and attic storage areas––they were full of large plastic bins and boxes neatly stacked on shelves or in rows (reflecting years of storage management efforts). Again, I didn’t do it all at once, but I culled enough so that the empty boxes, bins, and shelf space after each round would continue to motivate me.
Decluttering enough to notice — I had spent decades buying bins and shelves to hold more stuff
In this “egg” stage, I passed over the vast majority of my possessions because they either had sentimental value (awards and keepsakes), emotional value (gifts and family heirlooms), functional value (tools, supplies, clothes), perceived rarity (collectibles), or perceived monetary value. At the end of this stage, my past self would have stopped––some culling and a car load or two of donations, creating some temporary space until the clutter returned. But this time I used the momentum from this stage as the start of true change.
Larvae Stage: Devour knowledge about minimalism and keep iterating.
Before I could tackle the “harder” possessions, I needed to learn more about the benefits of minimalism and gain tried-and-true techniques that worked for me. I read several books and blogs, listened to podcasts, and watched YouTube videos taking in many different perspectives on achieving a better life through minimalism.
There are many different approaches to minimalism. While I gleaned some valuable ideas from most of them, Fumio Sasaki’s book Goodbye, Things: The New Japanese Minimalism resonated most with me. This book provides specific techniques for minimizing every type of possession. While I found he went a bit further than I did in my downsizing, I appreciated his thorough approach to the subject.
Finding the right voices that teach and inspire you is an important step in advancing your minimalism skills. I felt stronger knowing there is a supportive community and that I wasn’t alone in wanting the benefits of owning far fewer possessions than most citizens of developed countries.
As I learned new techniques and challenged my mindset, I iteratively returned to my closets, drawers, shelves, and storage with a fresh perspective and continued to make progress.
Pupa Stage: Ask yourself tough questions and let the answers change you.
As I advanced in my pursuit of a simpler life with fewer things, I needed to ask myself tough questions about who I was, what was important to me, how I let external pressures drive my internal decisions, and what were my expectations of the things I owned.
Asking myself Marie Kondo’s famous question about whether something sparked joy didn’t work for me. I found it too easy to confuse any “joy” I felt for a possession with the fleeting enjoyment of a shiny new object–that proverbial “new car smell.” Sometimes I needed to get rid of something even if I really liked it. On the other hand, important possessions I used everyday didn’t spark joy and they didn’t need to. They just needed to do their jobs.
Instead, I found that I needed to ask myself different questions depending on the item in my hands. The six tough questions below helped me identify what I wanted to change in myself in relation to what I owned.
Do my emotions connected to this item exist only because I possess it?
Do my family and friends really care if I let go of this thing they gave me?
If I let go of these excess clothes, do I care if people see me wear the same clothes on a frequent basis?
Is this possession an investment or an expense?
Can I borrow or rent this item instead of owning it?
How do I handle new items that come to my doorstep?
This photo is all I need to relive the joy of meeting Warren Miller and watching his ski movies as he narrated them
These questions exposed my underlying beliefs, emotions, and societal pressures I attached (often subconsciously) to my possessions and impeded my ability to let them go. The answers to my 6 tough questions helped me change my relationship with the things I owned, freeing myself to make clear-minded decisions whether to keep or let go, and was the start of a newfound freedom.
[I examine these six questions in more detail in an upcoming post]
I encourage someone on this journey to find the questions that work best for you. Asking yourself tough questions about your possessions to identify the underlying internal and external forces behind why you have what you have will help you hone your values and discard items that are not in alignment with those values.
Adult Stage: Ready to fly
I became a minimalist long before I pared down to the amount that I needed to meet my nomadic travel goal. My mindset and values completed their metamorphosis about 8 months before my belongings and commitments reflected that change.
Getting rid of a lifetime of possessions in a responsible way (selling, recycling, re-homing, donating, etc.) takes a lot of time.
The upper side of our major “everything-must-go” yard sale
For example, my wife and I culled, scanned, and then disposed of all physical photos except our small wedding album. It took days of hard work, but we are now enjoying the fruits of this labor by having immediate searchable access to over 7,000 photos. We enjoy and share these old photos far more than we ever did when they were stored in albums and boxes in the basement.
The lower side of our major “everything-must-go” yard sale
It was at this stage where I was able to tackle the hardest downsizing as I had the mental tools and fully understood my values in regards to my possessions. The emotional, sentimental, societal, and other belief barriers were no longer preventing me from taking action.
My wife and I completed our downsizing in July 2023, and now we travel the world full-time with a backpack and a carry-on each. We love our freedom and the calming white space that minimalism has brought to our lives.
Ready for full-time travel with a carry-on and a backpack
