Minimalist projects that help you reduce your unused belongings are intimidating if all you’ve ever seen are the extremists who can live out of a backpack. Maybe that’s your goal one day, but it’s impossible to pare down a household full of belongings into one backpack overnight. Unless you are absolutely ruthless with yourself and secretly hate everything you own, I suppose. For most of us that isn’t the case, and it takes multiple times sorting through the same areas of our homes to really minimize what we own. These are some of the first projects I tackled to get my feet wet, and as a former maximalist, I promise these are 5 easy minimalist projects to get you started.
I had at least one drawer and at least one cabinet in my kitchen that I dreaded opening. But this weird thing would happen where as soon as I’d retrieved what I needed and closed it up again, I went back to forgetting about what a headache it was until the next time.
When Tidying Up with Marie Kondo dropped on Netflix back in 2019, I was an early adopter. I dragged my husband room by room and we sorted our belongings, got rid of what we didn’t need, and yes, thanked and released what no longer sparked joy. This included lots of items we’d been hanging onto because we’d been given them, but never really used them, and still felt guilty about donating.
That was my first round of creating a minimalist kitchen. After culling one or two more times, I can honestly say that nothing in my kitchen causes me any aggravation. Except for the lack of a pantry, but I digress.
Even if you don’t buy into the whole “sparking joy” thing, one of Ms. Kondo’s best tips is to pull everything out of the space you’re organizing. You don’t need to empty every blessed cabinet and drawer in your kitchen at once if you don’t want to. (We didn’t.) We sorted by which category we wanted to minimize, and then set aside what was being kept until all spaces were cleared and we knew where we wanted to put it.
Kitchens are prone to accumulating the remnants of of broken sets, buried behind shiny new complete ones. If you break a glass or two out of a set of eight, you probably go out and buy a new set, but keep the old ones. (Wine glasses, anyone?) Likewise incomplete, hodge-podge sets of plates, flatware, and Tupperware.
Once you pare down to complete sets only, institute a firm one in, one out rule. Glasses and plates from incomplete sets are easily donated, so if you like to purchase sets, donate the remaining unbroken pieces when you buy your new one. But another option is to stop buying glasses and mugs in boxed sets altogether. We purchased individual glasses and coffee mugs from Target for $1 each. (I actually broke the first one just yesterday, and I will go back and replace just that one for another dollar.) Nothing to donate, no incomplete set in my cabinet. One in, one out.
When you’re minimizing your kitchen and you realize you have 17 dinner plates for a family of 4 that only eats two meals per day together, you’re in luck; you can donate over half of what you’ve got.
There’s no strict rule about this, but the strategy I used went something like this:
Taking these things into consideration, I ended up with enough water glasses and coffee mugs to host family, two complete sets of flatware (where one set includes four each of teaspoons, tablespoons, forks, and knives), and four complete tableware sets (where one set includes a dinner plate, salad plate, and bowl).
Everything else we kept was the result of careful curation, items that are used regularly and still don’t clutter up the cabinets.
Here are some categories to sort through one at a time to pare down your collections:
I heard you cringe just there, I did. Believe me, I know this one seems monstrous. When I set out to tackle this, I had a 9-cube shelf, 3 drawers, and an under-sink cabinet filled to bursting with bath and beauty projects (not even including makeup!). And I did it. You can, too.
Believe it or not, this one is easier than minimizing your kitchen. Because even though you might be hanging onto tons of products, the truth is that you know which ones you like and don’t like, which ones work like they’re supposed to, and which ones don’t.
The tricky bit is this:
When have you actually defaulted to a product that you know doesn’t work when you’re out of the product that you love, instead of running up the street to Ulta to pick up what you need? And even if you have done that, don’t you agree that if you prioritized only the products that work for you, you would always make sure you had it in stock? Hmm. . .
Once you move past the “just in case” fear, there are still a few things you might bump into. For instance, maybe you still have half-full pots of night creams that you use occasionally for different things. Maybe you have fourteen half-used or unopened face masks because your subscription box keeps sending them to you faster than you can use them. And it’s not that you don’t want to use them, or that you don’t like them, it just takes you longer to get through them.
That’s perfectly fine.
Set all of these aside and organize them into your in-home beauty shop. I used a tower of craft drawers and organized each drawer by category. Moisturizers, exfoliants, toners, face masks, and hair masks. I included the million-and-a-half sample size products I’d accumulated with dozens of online beauty orders, too, as long as it was something I wanted to try.
Then I instituted another rule for myself.
If something stayed in my shop, but a month went by without me reaching for it, it got thrown out. If it was unopened, it got gifted to a friend.
The thing about these products is that they expire. So if something is sitting there unused month after month, chances are good that by the time you do reach for it, it won’t do anything anyway. Or, worse, it will do the opposite of what you want, i.e. cause a breakout or even an infection.
You will feel so liberated, and you’ll realize that it will be months before you need to set foot in a Sephora again.
In an odd way, household cleaners work like bath and beauty products when it comes to minimizing your collection.
You know which ones you like and don’t like, which ones work like they’re supposed to, and which ones don’t.
And much like cosmetics, there are ones out there that you don’t need much of to work effectively, and others that might as well be bottled water.
How many of each type do you have on that shelf in your garage? Basement? Under-sink Narnia?
First and foremost, ditch the ones that don’t work that you’re just hanging onto because you feel bad about the wasted money. Read labels to see what the best disposal method is.
When you look at what’s left, get organized in a way that ensures you will use what you already have. I had so many multiples that I purchased cleaning product caddies like this one for each bathroom, and one that I keep in a kitchen cabinet for general cleaning. When I was finished, each caddy had a toilet bowl cleaner, glass cleaner, furniture polish, an all-purpose cleaner, wipes. . .you get the idea. Overflow got organized onto a shelf in the basement by purpose (bath cleaners, kitchen cleaners, all-purpose cleaners, car cleaners, etc.). Much like the beauty products, every time I run out of something or need a specialized cleaner, I go shopping on that shelf, first.
My favorite thing about this process has been that I’ve homed in on my favorite cleansers that I know I will just refill from here on out instead of getting sidetracked by shiny advertising for other products that just won’t do what I need them to.
I shared an Instgram post about this one recently. This was probably my favorite minimalist project because it stays the tidiest by far; I know exactly what is in my linen closet. I have everything that I need, no more and no less, and I’m happy to reach for anything that’s in there.
By that I mean I no longer experience any of the following:
I started by getting rid of everything I mentioned in the bulleted list above. If items had useful life left, I donated them. If they didn’t, (i.e. fitted sheets whose elastic is entirely worn out, towels that smelled dingy, anything with tears, etc.) I found fabric recycling locations to drop them off. Another great option for old towels and blankets is pet shelters. Call around; many of them are happy to receive your donation.
With that done, I narrowed down what was left based on what I wanted to have available.
This system works great for my two-person household. That’s why I said it’s what I wanted to have available. If you have small children and you’re changing sheets daily, obviously your linen closet will look different than mine. The idea is to determine what you need for your living situation, pare down to that, and hold the line. I haven’t added or removed anything from my linen closet in a little over six months, and I never find myself wanting.
*Pro Tip: Learn to fold fitted sheets! The visual cue of organization and newness will help you stay on track.
Minimizing your outerwear collection is a nice step in the direction of minimizing your wardrobe, which is a slower project done over time. But getting used to the idea of identifying something that you wear not only because you love it, but because it’s 100% functional for its purpose as well, is a good place to start.
And with outerwear, it’s relatively simple.
We’re going to use the same general pattern here that we’ve been using throughout this post: Go for the low-hanging fruit, first. What’s torn, what doesn’t fit, what do you absolutely never wear because it chafes/gets stuck on your purse strap/makes you look like the Michelin man? Pull them out to dispose of or donate. One Warm Coat runs coat drives year-round, nationwide.
Next, get real with yourself about what you need.
What are the seasons like where you live? How about your lifestyle activities? Do you find yourself needing a dress coat more than an athletic down jacket? Maybe it’s both!
Pare down your collection to minimalist status by keeping THE item that fits the bill for each need you have. Don’t keep two mediocre dress coats if you don’t love either of them and neither fits you well. Donate them both, and go find yourself the coat you’ll be pleased to reach for over and over again.
See, that’s the real secret to stylish minimalism. And it just so happens it’s also the secret to loving what you already have. Your goal doesn’t have to be to own as little as possible and cull your closet until you’ve only got one coat. Unless you want to, and that works for your lifestyle. For me, it doesn’t. (For the record, I ended up keeping 5 coats and 2 jackets).
Go easy on yourself. It’s a process.
I hope this inspires you to tackle an area in your life that’s causing you invisible stress. Whether it’s that little flare of irritation when you open a kitchen cabinet, or the micro-guilt you experience when you look at your gluttony of shower gels, eliminating it will create the breathing space you so desperately crave.
Reading Time: 7 minutes This post contains affiliate links. If you use the links to make a purchase, I may receive a small commission, at no additional cost to
Reading Time: 7 minutes This post contains affiliate links. If you use the links to make a purchase, I may receive a small commission, at no additional cost to
Reading Time: 7 minutes I learned a big lesson in chronic stress and slowing down last week. I talked in my last post about acknowledging my chronic stress as
