The Relationship between Organizing, Minimizing, & You
Organizing is how, when and why we keep items. It is about living an orderly life. It not only relates to where we store our stuff, but how we move through our spaces. In contrast, Minimalism is what we don’t keep. It is living as simply as possible.
In researching this post to see what others had to say about organizing and minimizing, I quickly ran into two articles that hit sore spot for me.
The first one was from Becoming Minimalist by Joshua Becker titled, “Don’t Just Organize, Minimize”. The first line of his post reads, “Minimizing is better than organizing.” He goes on to argue that minimizing, “…forces questions of values and purpose.”
The next one that caught my eye is from a website called The Art of Simple . The post is titled, “The Important Difference between Minimizing and Organizing,” by Tsh Oxenreider. In this artilce, Tsh argues that, “Living with less trumps organizing, because organizing is temporary.”
Most minimalists argue, as both Becker and Oxenreider do, that, essentially, the less you have, the less you have to take care of, the less you stress. This leads to a higher overall quality of life. Additionally, when you have only a few items, you have to be intentional about why you have them.
I see their points, but they miss an important nuance — the relationship between minimizing and organizing.
First, the more you minimize, the less you have to organize.
Second, the more you organize and design systems for what you do have, the less you need to minimize.
Basically, there are times you need more in your life and, thus, you must rely on organizing rather than minimizing. And that is okay.
For example, before child (B.C.), I was much more of a minimalist than I am now. I knew the items I needed. I kept those items, and I gave everything away pretty quickly.
However, as the mother of a toddler who is growing and changing at a rapid pace, I find myself organizing all sorts of things that we will need in the future. For example, a mom in my neighborhood was giving away a bin of Legos. I took those Legos, and I put them in storage for when he is ready for them. (Because…have you priced out Legos?!) I also spend a fair amount of time organizing toys and clothes he has outgrown to post on the neighborhood buy-nothing group. This means that I am organizing much more than I am minimizing.
And there is nothing wrong with that. I am where I am, and this idea that one is better than the other is way too limited.
Rather than focusing on what strategy is best for managing our home, let’s focus on our needs, the seasons of our lives, as well as our skills, and choose the strategy that matches us. In this season of my life, organizing fits me well. B.C. minimalism served me well.
Instead what we need to focus on is what we (the human) brings to the situation. What skills do we have? What resources do we have? What is it about us that makes us unique?
Whether you decide to organize or minimize your home, you first step is to take a real understanding of you — both what you bring to the world and what you need to get from the world right now.
