Why Your Single Years Are the Perfect Time to Embrace Minimalism

Now is the time to get your physical and emotional house in order. 

Imagine for a moment if every item in your house was boxed up or packaged individually in an Amazon warehouse. Would that feel like an overwhelming amount of inventory to manage? 

Did that thought exercise feel silly? I propose that the inventory analogy, the idea that our possessions are so much inventory that we have to constantly manage, is actually more reality than hyperbole. Getting our physical house in order, and evaluating why we make the purchasing or keeping decisions we do, is a valuable exercise for getting our emotional house in order. And that is valuable no matter what state of life we’re in. 

My first encounter with minimalism.

About a year and a half ago, a friend shared this YouTube video with me. The video’s creator is Dawn, a Minnesota mom of four who together with her husband embarked on a “minimalism journey” seven years ago. 

The video’s opening hook hit paydirt in my mind. “Most of us are already wearing a minimalist wardrobe. We just don’t call it that. We’re just surrounded by a bunch of clothes that we don’t actually wear.” That idea intrigued me. And whereas previous videos I’d watched about capsule wardrobes seemed to require purchasing a brand new closetful of clothing, Dawn next claimed that I could create a minimalist wardrobe from my current clothing. Doing so, she promised, would actually cause me to feel that I had more outfit options. She noted that for many people, having lots of clothes doesn’t translate to having lots of options.

Preach, sister. 

I was fascinated when, rather than requiring touching every single piece of clothing I owned to assess which ones sparked joy, she showed me how to simply take out everything from my current closet that I already didn’t wear, whether because the pieces no longer fit, didn’t match anything else, weren’t flattering, etc. I laid all my clothes out on my bed, and then pulled out all the things I actually wore in any given two-week period for several categories: everyday wear, workout gear, church outfits.

I selected my favorites from the piles, and divided everything else into either a donation bag or a ‘time will tell’ box, aka the quarantine box. She proposed that if after three months (roughly the amount of time I would wear clothes for a particular season) I hadn’t pulled an item out of the quarantine box, I could safely donate it without fear that I would later miss it. The gaps that I found after this exercise could guide my future purchasing decisions. 

Boom. 

Magic.

That was the beginning.

I’ve watched many of her videos since then, but each one eventually circles back to her central concept: our earthly possessions are so much inventory that we constantly clean, wash, organize, shuffle, store, and otherwise manage. How much are we willing to manage? Simplifying that inventory down, Dawn argues, frees up emotional “space” and allows us to devote our finite mental energy to other tasks that reflect our actual priorities.

Slowly but surely, I’ve found this principle to be true. Paring down clothing, toys, kitchen gadgetry and dishes, and more to just the things we actually use and/or love has helped me feel more calm and far less overwhelmed even as we’ve added another family member, experienced an influx of Christmas and birthday presents, etc. 

Where is my stuff coming from? Myself? Other people? 

Managing our family inventory on an ongoing basis has pushed me to evaluate where our excess tends to come from. Does it come from my own purchases? Gifts from other people? Or, do I keep things forever and never let things go, even when I receive or buy something new? 

What about you? If you find that you’re the one making purchases that you don’t need, where is the source? Is the Target Dollar Spot too perfectly placed in the store to pass up? Is 1-click ordering on Amazon just so irresistible? 

In my family’s case, we are often the fortunate beneficiaries of another person’s generosity, sometimes through hand-me-downs from someone else’s child, but most often through my kind mom’s HyVee bargain bin scores, fabulous Marshall’s finds, etc. I’m learning to be kindly clear about what we could use (washcloths for the kids’ baths, to replace the ones we got when my five year old was born!) and what we simply don’t have space to store (clothing that’s bigger than 1 year ahead of what the kids are currently wearing).

I’m finding that operating from a place of gratitude for what we are given does not necessitate that I keep things we don’t need or don’t have a place for out of guilt or fear of causing offense to the gift-giver. 

Living with Matthew 6:19 in mind. 

In Matthew 6:19-21 we read, “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and decay destroy, and thieves break in and steal. But store up treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor decay destroys, nor thieves break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there also will your heart be.” 

If you find that you’re regularly purchasing things you don’t actually need or even want, consider where that tendency comes from, the why behind those actions. Sometimes we store up earthly treasures because we feel lonely or out of control or less than. And when bigger goals feel out of reach, we might reach for quick fixes. But possessions cannot fill heart holes. They may distract us temporarily from the pain points we’d rather not address. Ultimately, though, our belongings only serve us well when we are properly relating to them as so many gifts of a good, good Father. 

Abiding by Matthew 6:27.

While I don’t tend to bring in lots of things we don’t need, I struggle with detachment in a different way. When I examine my own heart and why I can get so hung up on parting with things, I see a tendency to operate from a scarcity mindset. Historically, I’ve asked myself “What if five years from now I need this thing that I have never used or don’t use anymore?” 

Reflecting on Matthew 6:27-29 has been very fruitful in shifting my perspective. These verses speak to us not of scarcity and a need to grasp after things, but of God’s abundant generosity and provision. “Can any of you by worrying add a single moment to your life-span? Why are you anxious about clothes? Learn from the way the wildflowers grow. They do not work or spin. But I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was clothed like one of them.” 

Practically speaking, I’m forming a new habit of following Dawn’s common sense guideline of selling, donating, or pitching (as appropriate) anything that I haven’t used in the last six months, am not likely to use in the next year, and that could be replaced for under $20. Holiday decorations, of course, have slightly different parameters! Implementing this habit has brought real emotional freedom. 

Getting our physical houses in order cuts down on tidying time, and there’s benefit in that alone. But the emotional benefits of managing our inventory extend beyond enjoying less cluttered surfaces. When we address the underlying thought patterns that lead us to buy or hold onto things needlessly, we acknowledge that Christ is the ultimate answer to our problems and that His faithful love more than meets our needs.