Minimizing, Organizing, & Cleaning

Minimizing, Organizing, and Cleaning are my triforce of Tidying.
By identifying the uniqueness of each activity,
​we can better understand how to strengthen our tidying skills.

Minimizing = evaluating items you own based on need and emotion and deciding what you need in your life.
​Coded red because it takes the longest and takes the most critical thinking. 

Organizing = categorizing objects, returning objects to their home base.
​Coded orange because it requires some time and thought, but can often skip critical thinking. 

Cleaning = removing dirtiness and wear and tear from surfaces/areas/objects.
​Coded green because its goal is quick, easy, and logical to understand. 

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The Importance of Distinction

What matters is not thinking you're doing one when you're doing the other.
Some actions can be both!

Both Organizing and Minimizing - Going through your closet and donating old stuff.
Both Minimizing and Cleaning - Taking out the trash.
Both Organizing and Cleaning - Drying off and putting the dishes away.

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How I "Tidied" For Years with No Net Change

I tidied my own room as a hobby since childhood, but my criteria for minimizing was too weak and didn't have a goal beyond "remove junk." I organized the same amount of stuff without discarding much, and I bought enough to replenish the things I threw away.
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Think about the AWESOME people that commit on no-waste living. They are breaking the cycle of throwing away as much as they consume. A minimal lifestyle is a similar idea. 

Minimizing works best with:

• strong criteria for the things you keep
• a vision of your ideal home life
• an achievable goal that is easy to maintain

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The Minimalist Step

Similar to my Spring Cleaning post, imagine you're going to tackle a room or area.
​Without some consideration for minimizing, you won't increase the simplicity of your space. 

WITH MINIMIZING

1. Assess
2. Dump out 
3. Organize
4. Minimize
5. Clean
6. Restore
7. Evaluate

MINUS MINIMIZING

1. Dump out
2. Organize
3. Clean
4. Restore

Assess = think about your goals for the area and how to achieve them.
Minimize = reduce clutter and waste to fit your goals.
Evaluate = look at the results to see if you are closer to your goal. 

Without these minimizing steps there is no net change in the simplicity of your life.

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Organizing is NOT Minimizing. 

Throwing things in drawers is not tidying, and it's not cleaning either.
It's hiding the problem. Putting something back to its home base (or any random obscured space) is not reducing its presence in your life. For the things you're happy to own, this is less of a problem. For things that feel heavy in your life, it can be a huge issue. 

Organized junk is still junk. 
Going through your pens, throwing out 2 broken ones to feel good about yourself, but keeping 40 more pens than you need is not minimizing. One person's criteria of junk may be different from the other, but be careful not to assign worth to something just because it has labels, categories, or a "dedicated collection shelf." 

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Minimizing is Critical Thinking

Minimizing ensures your hard work and clean home will live on with long term results. Sometimes you just need to clean, you just need to organize, and that's okay too.

But, if you invest in the concept of minimizing for your needs, I believe you'll feel more content with your belongings and reduce the need to think so often about the things you own.

Yes, I did the expanding brain meme.

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