Jasmine for Miles

 (...and shoes, jewelry, accessories, etc.) I've just covered how to let go of books--one of the most difficult categories when it comes to discarding. Clothes are pretty well tied with books when it comes to the level of difficulty of parting with items. If you suffer from an overwhelmed laundry room, piles of dirty clothes left at the side of the bed or outside of the shower, or a closet packed so tightly that it's a struggle to get anything out of it to wear, this post is for you. Before you commit to discarding anything, be honest with yourself about how you want your wardrobe to reflect you. Whether you want to develop a personal uniform or a timeless capsule wardrobe, it's important to keep those goals and ideals in mind while decluttering your wardrobe. And of course, no matter what your ideals are, they should not have any room for ill-fitting or joyless garments. Let go of any... (#1) Clothes, shoes, and accessories that do not make you feel confident. It's the...

The category of belongings that I have had the most difficulty discarding is books. I know I'm not the only one, either--several of my own friends, as well as one of my favorite minimalist authors (Fumio Sasaki), also struggle, or have struggled to discard books. I have been on my minimalist journey since about 2017. It's now 2022 and I've still struggled (until now) to get rid of the huge shelves of books taking up a lot of space in my home. I'm going to share the realizations I've come to that have helped ease me into getting rid of a lot of books, leaving myself with a manageable stack of only my most beloved tomes and an e-reader. Get ready though, because I'm going to start off with a punch to every book lover's gut (including my own)... Realization #1: Most Books are Useless This is a realization that I struggled for too long to reach, but it's true. Most books are useless. I don't mean that the content is poorly written, or that there's no...

As I promised in another post over a year ago ( read it here ), I'll be using this post to review a couple more books on minimalism and mindfulness. In the past week, I've revisited three and read one new book. I'll review a couple of them now, and hopefully it won't be another fifteen months before I review the others. Review 3: Project 333: The Minimalist Fashion Challenge that Proves Less Really is So Much More ISBN: 978-0525541455 Author: Courtney Carver The most common and often most difficult category to tackle as a budding minimalist is clothing. Shirts, pants, dresses, shoes, jewelry--all of these things are hard to part with at first because we typically use them to show the world who we are. Carver focuses exclusively on creating seasonal capsule wardrobes (33 fashion items used for 3 months at a time) to minimize wastefulness with our fashion choices. The concept is that every 3-month season will have 33 fashion items associated with it (it's important t...

I think a lot about ways to make Minimalism as approachable as possible to everyone, and sometimes inspiration for new things to try comes when I least expect it. I was rereading The Art of Discarding when this particular revelation hit me. In game terms, discarding is to remove a card from your hand--why don't we treat items like cards before we discard them? Deciding to discard in a game means you've analyzed its value and decided you're better off without it in your hand. We can treat any item this way with a little bit of effort and creativity. "Carding" items will not only make you think critically about the effort each item is worth, but it can also help to gamify your efforts to discard and declutter. What is Carding? Carding is the exercise of writing about items, essentially writing down what the items are, what the justification was for buying them or bringing them into the home, and justification (if any) for keeping them. Think of all of the cards you...