MINIMALISM is never more appealing than on Monday mornings.
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As you navigate giant Jenga debris to reach the ironing board to press the school dress you recovered from your seven-year-old’s room, you can only dream of a cleaner start to the week.
“Why is every T-shirt you own in a pile in the middle of your bedroom floor?” you may ask.
The matter-of-fact reply: “Because I was looking for one that I liked and I couldn’t find any.”
Her two, approved-for-daily-wear T-shirts were in the laundry basket as were three out of four pairs of her approved black jazz shorts.
Turns out her approach to fashion was Minimalist all along, unlike her more excessive take on L.O.L. dolls, tomato sauce and Lego Friends.
The Minimalist movement – intentionally living with fewer possessions – has been gathering steam worldwide during the past few decades.
US Minimalists Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus first sprung up on my news feed this time last year.
Millburn and Nicodemus simplified their lives using the principles of Minimalism for the first time in 2010.
Millburn pruned his worldly possessions down to just 288 things and going off Nicodemus’ Instagram virtual home tour he couldn’t own much more than that. (I’m assuming the latter’s cat doesn’t count in that tally!)
Their 30-Day Minimalism Game instantly appealed to people who wanted to clear clutter from their lives.
By 2011 and both aged 30, Millburn and Nicodemus left their corporate careers and six-figure salaries to publish their first book about their shared experiences, Minimalism: Live a Meaningful Life and to tour the world.
The friends take the view that Minimalist living is much more than just living life with less.
They believe owning less stuff frees up time and resources to fund better life experiences.
The pair even go so far as to promote the concept of a “packing party” to help get people on right track towards Minimalism.
They suggest setting a time limit to pack up everything you own as if you are moving houses because that's the one time you are forced to confront absolutely everything you own.
“Then over the following 21 days you only unpack boxes to retrieve items you need,” they say.
“If you haven't unpacked it within 21 days, chances are you don't need it or you've forgotten what was in the boxes.”
When I found out that Millburn and Nicodemus were now in the country as part of their latest Australia/New Zealand The Less is Now Tour, I couldn’t help but fixate over the pile of T-shirts on my daughter’s bedroom floor.
I immediately put seven of them in a bag to donate to charity.
That very same day, my daughter came home from school with a gift from her schoolmate – a sweet T-shirt that no longer fitted her.
In terms of Minimalism, it was seven steps forwards, one step backwards.
While I’m not packing up the whole house any time soon, I’m happy to commit to a moderate amount of decluttering, more or less.
The Minimalists are touring Australia until March 20.
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