May Minimalist Challenge!

Hey friends!

Anyone else in shock that it's somehow May 1st already?! April just flew by, most likely due to the new baby we welcomed April 8 (you can read about her here!). I forgot how exhausting the first few weeks are with a newborn are and how hard it is to accomplish things! I'm learning to set lower expectations when it comes to getting things done, and spreading things out over a few hours, days etc. so that it doesn't feel overwhelming. Before the baby came I tried to get a lot of spring cleaning done because I knew my time would be spread a lot thinner between 3 kiddos! This brings me to this documentary I watched last night and I just had to get my thoughts out regarding it because it was just that great!

I'm going to back up the story a bit before I talk about the documentary, because before I had watched this, we had actually been trying to "downsize" our things and material possessions. It is crazy how many toys, clothes, books, food, appliances and just stuff in general can accumulate and before you know it you have a house full of things you didn't even realize you had! At least that's how I was feeling. Anyone else feel like this? So before baby number 3 came I went through our wardrobes and gave a lot of things away. It felt so freeing to get rid of things that I actually hadn't worn in over a year (or more!). This was just the beginning I knew, and I had an itch to continue the process! The next task I set out to do was the kids toys. I was a bit nervous because I know that kids may have a harder time giving them away, and I didn't want to put the expectation on them to give everything away. I asked Riley (4) to help me go through his things first and was so surprised at his reaction! He was totally on board with giving some toys away that he hadn't played with in a long time, and he even asked if they would go to kids who needed some toys. (He seriously has the biggest heart!) We went through all of the toys and packed a big bag of toys to donate. Everyone is different when it comes to things they deem important and it can change as well. For example, Brynn (2) sleeps with 852 stuffed animals (or so it feels like ha!), so it would be unfair to ask her to give them away. I didn't want to create room for new toys, but room for the kids to see and play with the ones they did have, and also to play with each other. Once baby came, the whole de-cluttering and spring clean came to a halt, but once I saw this documentary I wanted to jump back into it!

The documentary was called Minimalist and you can find it on Netflix. There were so many great points and I thought I'd share a few things I really took away from it.

-We live in a society of discontentment, and this brings us to buy things to feel "happy"

-With less stuff, clutter, and fewer distractions, this brings more growth and more meaningful relationships.

-We have strong attachments to people and relationships, but this has spilled over to things

-Fashion used to have 2-4 seasons to dress for, and now there's 52 seasons. The industry wants us to buy as much clothing as quickly as possible and to throw things away when it's no longer trendy.

-Minimalist fashion challenge Project 333: wear 33 items for 3 months

-Quality items over quantity, it's okay to purchase higher quality items to know you will actually use it. Ex. One high quality sweater you love vs. 10 cheaper ones you don't love or wear regularly

-Which things add value to your life?

-Love people and use things

-Being more minimalistic can allow more community living. When you need something you ask a neighbor or friend, rather then going out and buying it right away.

These are just a few things I took away from it, and some of them seem so common sense, but actually applying it may take some work! I would love to try the minimalist fashion challenge, so I'm setting out to try it in June! If anyone else wants to try it with me let me know! I am curious to know if I could use only 33 items (including accessories and shoes!) for a whole month.

For the month of May, I'm going to try the declutter challenge from Emily Ley (@emilyley on Instagram!) Some of her de-cluttering tips are taking it really slow, like one cabinet at a time. Take EVERYTHING out, and then decide if you are keeping/getting rid of it. Make sure everything has a place! She also has beautiful, and I mean beautiful organizers/day planners that I'm eyeing up! But I'm getting off topic now haha!

Does anyone else love to declutter and organize? Would you like to see me do this or post a bit more about it? I will definitely put a bit about this up on insta stories (@lindsayadellekannwischer on Instagram) so you can follow along in the process and we can cheer each other on in this!!

That's all for now! Happy Tuesday!

xo,

Lindsay

#minimalism #declutter #springclean #project333 #organization #minimalistchallenge