The Benefits of Having Less Stuff

Happy New Year to you! I hope it’s started well for you so far.

We’re about to renovate our house, and the other day I started having a mild freak out about how I was going to manage wrangling 3 small kids in the middle of a construction zone. I decided that if I could minimise household clutter, it would be one less area of chaos to deal with.

Anyone who knows me knows that I’m already more than a little obsessed with editing my possessions, and keeping things simple. But heck, stuff grows on trees in this house I swear.

So I went on the offensive.

Some stuff was easy to toss – a few items of clothing I no longer wear, unused toys, expired cosmetics.

But some of the more sentimental things, or things that I thought might come in handy one day, were just plain hard to part with. Getting rid of them felt like a loss.

But I ploughed on, and cleared a car-bootload of stuff from the place without too much trouble.

It wasn’t until the next day that it struck me, that what had felt like a loss, was actually a gain.

I’d gained space; with a couple less pieces of furniture, and a whole lot less general clutter, there was suddenly room to swing a cat in the place.

I’d gained a sense of peace. I felt less anxious about having too much clutter and chaos to deal with. Only keeping what I love and use means I’m less stressed about looking at a whole lot of stuff that doesn’t serve a purpose.

And I gain time that would otherwise have been spent cleaning, reorganising, maintaining and sorting the stuff that’s now gone.

It feels great, and I’m calling that 1-0 in the battle of me versus the stuff for the new year.

But incase you think that I now live in a world of perfection, or that less stuff means no mess, here’s what my kids thought would be a fun afternoon activity:

#keepingitreal #kidswillbekids

Make that 1-0 to the kids!