Sprinkled throughout my blog posts, I’ve mentioned that I’m a minimalist. When I started Olivia for the Ocean last year, I touched on what plastic-free living, zero waste living, and minimalism had in common. Last month, I talked about the 5 Outfits I Wear to Work.

In many of my posts, I’ve talked about how the the clean lines and aesthetics of minimalism makes me happy. But how does one go about becoming a minimalist and why should you do it?

Great questions. Let’s start with why?

When you start your plastic-free journey it can be overwhelming. It’s like taking the red pill in the Matrix–all of a sudden your eyes are open to the amount of disposable plastic in your life. And when you think about finding replacements for everything, you get overwhelmed and just want to take a nap. Or if you’re a little more type-A, like me, you start crafting an insanely long list and start browsing online. Neither of which is helpful.

The best place to start your plastic-free journey is with minimalism. Minimalism is owning only the items that serve a purpose in your life. This can be a functional purpose like a washer, or an emotional purpose like your photo albums.

If you start looking at the disposable plastic in your life and honestly answer the question “does this serve a purpose?” or “does this add value?” or “would I buy this again?” it will make finding a replacement a lot less daunting.

So, the reason why you want to start with minimalism is that by removing the items that don’t serve a purpose, it shortens the list of plastic-free replacements you need to find. Minimalism makes plastic-free living easier.

Looking at the bigger picture, when you remove all the things (physical and mental) that aren’t serving a purpose or adding value to your life, you create space for things that really matter.

When you have less clutter, stuff, commitments, baggage, you have more time, energy and space for the things you love.

So, now that we’ve covered the why, let’s go through the steps.

• Simplify Your Routine
• Purpose or Spark Joy
• Sell, Giveaway, Donate
• Less Storage and Organizing
• Define Enough
• Conservation of Stuff
• Don’t Settle
• Wait 30 Days
• Adjust to Space

Let’s dive in, shall we?

Simplify Your Routine

If you do nothing else, this is the tip that will pay the biggest dividends. Think about your routine each morning. When you get up, after scrolling through Instagram and your email, you probably walk to the bathroom and brush your teeth and start getting ready for the day. Between toothpaste, hair products, make-up or whatever, you’ve already touched a number of disposable plastic products and you’ve only been awake for 15 minutes!

By simplifying your routines you have:

• less items you need to buy
• less items you need to store
• more time to do other things

Ladies, or gentlemen (no judgement here), do you absolutely need to wear makeup to school or work everyday? If the answer is yes, do you need to put on every item you’re currently putting on. Even reducing one item from your list is time, money, and plastic saved.

What about your shower routine? Does your shower look like one of the shelves at the drugstore? Even after narrowing my routine down to shampoo, conditioner, body butter, and body soap, I realized that while the exfoliating body butter was nice, it wasn’t adding that much value in my showering routine. And it was one more item I had to buy and store. So, after finishing my last bar, I stopped buying it. And I’m happy that all I have in my shower is a shampoo bar, a conditioner bar, and a bar of soap.

Now that your body is clean, what about your house? Do you have a closet full of specialized cleaning products? A glass cleaner, granite cleaner, stainless steel cleaner, toilet cleaner, and on and on? If you wanted to find plastic-free replacements for all of those…it might send you on a wild goose chase. Instead, consider simplifying your cleaning products. I clean my entire house with baking soda, vinegar, and Castile soap–that’s it!

By simplifying your routines you make the mundane parts of your life easier and can get back to doing the things that add joy to your life.

Purpose or Spark Joy

Speaking of joy, I discovered “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up” by Marie Kondo when I was moving across the country for the second time. There’s nothing like packing up everything you own that makes you think “I have way too much stuff”.

In her book, and Netflix show, she talks about only keeping items that “Spark Joy”. When you pick up an item, does it make you happy? In her process, if the answer is no, then it doesn’t belong in your house. Now, I’m not sure my cheese grater makes me happy, but I use it a few times a week and it does serve a purpose.

So, when you’re evaluating your space, everything should either serve a purpose or spark joy. Basically, if it’s not adding any value in your life then it doesn’t belong in your life.

You might think that an item that’s adding no value doesn’t do any harm to stay but maybe the item requires maintenance, or it needs to be cleaned around, or it simply contributes to clutter.

I think part of the reason we love the final HGTV reveals is, in addition to the beautiful updated kitchens and pretty colors, the space is clean and uncluttered. There a minimal amount of photos on the wall or decorations on the book shelf. It’s visually clean which makes us less stressed. By only keeping items that serve a purpose or spark joy you increase the calm and reduce the stress in your house.

Sell, Giveaway, Donate

On Marie Kondo’s show, families go through each room in the house and literally touch every item. If that sounds daunting to you, then just start with one room or one drawer. Go through all the items in the draw and decide if it stays or if it goes.

For all the items that aren’t staying, can you sell it? There are several sites to sell clothing, handbags, shoes, and accessories, such as ThredUp or theRealReal.

Or can you give it away to a friend? In every major city there are “buy nothing” Facebook groups where neighbors can give away, borrow or ask for things. For smaller items, I take them to work and put it in the lunch room with a “Free” sign on it. When I was redoing the pictures of my family on the wall, I purchased Mixtiles to replace the mismatched frames on the wall. I took the three picture frames I was no longer using (and didn’t see myself using in the future) and put them in our office lunch room. They were gone within an hour.

If you can’t find a home for your item, then donate it. I use donation as a last resort before the trash bin because many items given to goodwill, especially clothes, are thrown away.

For worn-out old towels and blankets, bring these to your local animal shelter. They use them for bedding for the animals.

Have an old pair of sneakers that are on it’s last thread? Drop them off at a Nike Store. They recycle old athletic shoes into sports flooring.

For clothes that have reached the end of their life, drop them off for textile recycling at H&M. They’ll give you 15% off your next purchase as a bonus.

Finally, if the items are broken, torn or worn out, throw them out.

Less Storage and Organizing

I use to love looking at organizing hacks on Pinterest. All the pictures of neatly sorted and color coded items made my Type-A heart sing. But after a while, I realized that it still looked clutter…even if it was neatly cluttered. Who needs 10 sheet pans in their kitchen? If you’re a baker, awesome, you might need 10 sheet pans. But I’m assuming the majority of people rarely use two.

So, instead of spending the time and money to continually organize your clutter, spend time minimizing it. Think about all the previous efforts to organize your items. It might have worked for a few weeks but after a while, it was tiring continually putting the 25 items back to where they belong. It would be so much easier to only have to put back 5 items where they belong, right?

Define Enough

The best way to avoid getting to 10 sheet pans in the first place is to define what is enough? For my closet, I decided that I only needed five work outfits for each season and that was enough. The only time I go shopping for clothes is if I need to replace something that can’t be fixed or during each seasonal update if I choose to switch out an outfit.

For my kitchen, I used to have a crock pot, blender, chopper, and I used all of it probably once. So, I gave them away before I moved across the country. Now, the only plug-in kitchen appliances I have is an electric kettle and a toaster. I used to have a garlic press, basting brush, and a number of kitchen gadgets that I never used or I used and they were a pain to clean. So, I got rid of them all. Now these are only kitchen gadgets. Nearly everything fits in one drawer.

When you figure out what is enough, it prevents you from bringing home random items because they were on sale or because it was “cute”. If you have enough, you don’t feel the need to go shopping and that frees you to pick up that hobby you’ve always been interested in or learn that language you love.

Conservation of Stuff

Defining what is enough doesn’t necessarily mean your done shopping for the rest of your life. After I figured out what “enough” looked like in my closet, I set a rule. If something new comes in, then something old has to go out. Just like the laws of physics and the conservation of mass, the total remains the same.

This rule keeps my closet at a manageable size but it also prevents me from buying things I don’t really love. If I know something I love in my closet has to leave when I purchase a new item, it makes me think really hard about the new item I’m considering. Which brings me to my next point.

Don’t Settle

Being type-A, I like to check things off my list. So, every once and a while I’ll be searching for something very specific. Like cheetah print flats. I love cheetah print. But finding the perfect cheetah print flat takes a little effort. For me the spots have to be the right size. Most often they are too small. A few years ago, I found the perfect print on a pair of flats, but the shoe was cheap and not the best quality. So, I settled and after a few months, they were worn out and had to be retired. And I was back to searching for cheetah print flats.

By settling for a second-best option to check off my list, I ended up wasting money and needing to add that item back on my list. Moral of the story–don’t settle.

Wait 30 Days

Kathryn Kellogg introduced a great rule to me. She waits 30 days before purchasing anything new. (Besides groceries and those types of staples). So, if she finds a dress that she thinks is adorable, she puts it back on the rack and ponders it for 30 days. By the end of the 30 days if she still loves it, she buys it.

This is an amazing practice of delayed gratification. Amazon has created this “I have to have it now” culture where people balk at anything less than 2-day shipping and in some cities you can have an item brought to you in 2 hours. It’s insane!

So, going against the “have it now” culture has a lot of benefits. First, it makes you think about tip #1, does it serve a purpose or spark joy? Second, if you purchase the item, it makes the enjoyment better when you’ve waited. Studies have shown that booking a trip several months in advance has the added benefit of increased enjoyment. This is because you spend those several months planning and imagining yourself on this trip. Similarly, in considering this item, you’ll get the added enjoyment of imagining yourself with it, Finally, if you don’t purchase it, you’ve saved yourself from an impulse purchase that would have cluttered up your house. Money saved and space saved!

Adjust to Space

Now that your space is a little more clear, you might feel the need to fill it back up again. Don’t do it! In talking about my five work outfits, I had inspired a coworker to trim down her closet. But she later confessed to me that the empty space bothered her and she ended up buying a bunch of new clothes to fill it back up.

I understand. Our society is all about abundance. The mounds of fruits and vegetables piled at the grocery store, the piles of clothes folded neatly at the mall, the 50 options for laptops at your local big box store. America is all about more. Our eyes have been trained to it. So, letting your eyes adjust to less might take a little time.

Some tips to help your eyes adjust are to create a little bit of space between things. Back to the closet example, if you’ve already cleared a lot out, put a little space between each hanger instead of seeing how much you can cram in each row.

If you have a bookshelf that’s a little clearer, lay some of the books flat and put a decorative item (that sparks joy) on top to fill the space without being too cluttered.

As your eyes adjust to the space you’ll find it to be calming and joyful since now your space is only filled with things that serve a purpose or spark joy.

What do you think? Are you ready to simplify your life? What are some of your tips for reducing clutter?

For related and random posts check out:

• Plastic-Free, Zero Waste, and Minimalism
• A Day in My Plastic-Free Life: Part 1