These minimalist home rules don’t involve being perfectly organized, perfectly simple or perfect in any way at all. Instead, these home rules are designed to help you live more simply and feel at ease in your home and your life.
I believe that less is more when it comes to home decor and home organization. I don’t want to spend my time organizing stuff when I could spend time enjoying my life. When.you live with less clutter and stuff, your home will naturally look more organized. But also, you probably aren’t going for what looks best but what feels best. These minimalist home rules will help you feel better at home.
Use the home rules that work for you. Creating rules or systems at home shouldn’t feel rigid. They shouldn’t make things more stressful. They should improve your standard of living. You can bring your family on board by sharing the rules or just implement them yourself and be an example of a more peaceful, loving, connected existence.
5 Minimalist Home Rules (that don’t involve being perfect)
Some may think that a minimalist home is stark with nothing out of place and everything feeling a little sterile. While that may exist, the minimalist home I’m describing is minimalist in how much attention and energy it needs from you. With these home rules, you can turn your attention and energy to what really interests you.
1. The first minimalist home rule is to create phone free zones.
Even better, turn these phone free zones into digital free zones. Those zones might be a place like the kitchen table, bathrooms and bedrooms. Or, your digital free zones might be times of day. For instance, go digital free until 10:00 a.m. or between 12:00 pm and 2:00 pm, or after 8:00 pm. It will help to start small at first and turn the attention from “no phones” to an activity or new way to spend your time. This should feel like less of a sacrifice and more of a gift. After some practice, your digital free zones will make the time go by slower and you’ll notice more attention and presence.
2. Keep a clutter-free home (even if you have clutter).
No matter how you look at it, clutter is distracting and keeping your house louder than than it needs to be. It might be stressful to deal with that clutter on a daily basis. Instead, follow this minimalist home rule and keep a clutter-free home. If you are in the process of decluttering, try a stop gap to keep clutter contained until you are actually done decluttering. I recommend a basket in each room where everything that doesn’t have a place can live. When the day is done or you are finished in a room, simply scoop everything up and put it in the basket. It doesn’t have to be well organized, just contained.
While I do believe that if you need more stuff to store your stuff, you probably have too much stuff, I also think there can be a big benefit to sampling simplicity by easily getting clutter out of sight. It’s a low lift and can deliver the clutter-free results you crave. The size of the basket will depend on the size of the room and amount of clutter it contains. This home rule is easy for everyone (even kids) to uphold. It will likely inspire more permanent clutter-free living.
3. Prioritize a minimalist mindset.
Most of living a more minimalist lifestyle is an inside job. Yes, you work on your surroundings but the real magic happens when you start changing the way you think. You don’t have to become a minimalist or forgo all worldly pleasures to shift your thinking from more stuff = more success to more time, presence, energy and better health = a more enjoyable life.
You can prioritize a minimalist mindset like this:
- Pause before saying, “yes” to one more thing and say, “no” with ease.
- Stop buying things you don’t need.
- Care a little less about what other people think.
- Prioritize quiet time and regular resets.
- Feel content.
- These 3 minimalist mindset tips will help too.
4. Remove anything you don’t wear from your closets.
You can remove a significant amount of stress simply by reducing the number of items in your wardrobe. The easiest minimalist home rule for decluttering closets is to remove anything you don’t wear. It’s a strong start considering most people only wear 20% of their clothes 80% of the time. It’s nice to actually give yourself permission to only wear your favorite things. Ask these 7 questions before decluttering your closet. For even more peace and ease, try these 7 simple rules for decluttering clothes.
5. Begin to go paperless.
This last minimalist home rule will end all of your paper pile frustrations. You don’t have to work on your current piles (yet). Start with the incoming paper. Don’t add it to the piles. Handle it. Process your mail immediately (preferably outside). If it feels impossible to handle paper on the spot, schedule a weekly session to work through all paperwork that came in during the current week. Deal with it and shred and/or scan it.
To work on those pesky paper piles and piles of photos, join me on Sunday, October 25th for a special Declutter Hour to help you let go. I’ll share my best paper and photo decluttering tips, simple solutions and habits that will help you prevent future piles of clutter while you harness our collective decluttering energy and accountability and work through your piles of paper and photos. Learn more and join here.
Just a reminder that none of these minimalist home rules involve perfection. Use them to enhance your life, to reduce stress and to create new opportunities for creativity and connection. A minimalist home can include a colorful wardrobe or brightly colored furniture. Even if you still scroll social media, are dealing with clutter and struggle with a minimalist mindset, these home rules will encourage your progress and give you a place to start to simplify.
