Have you ever wondered how the concept of “less is more” might relate to your life?
I did! As a professional organizer I had helped plenty of people in their 60’s and 70’s downsize to an easier-to-manage lifestyle. I viewed it as a stage of life transition, as opposed to a lifestyle, adoptable at any age.
In 2015, my husband and I hadn’t yet hit 50. We were confident though that having less would allow us to live a life more closely aligned with our values.
I read a lot about simplicity and minimalism while contemplating this shift. I started with the book Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown. This book, which focuses on living a more purposeful, focused and intentional life, struck a chord with me. This is what we were after!
As for minimalism, I learned it isn’t an absolute. Instead, it’s defined by the individual who’s minimizing. Author James Altucher minimized himself down to 15 items (way too minimal for us!) The Minimalists version of minimalism was still too extreme for our comfort level. The concept of minimalism we most closely connected with is rational minimalism as defined by Joshua Becker, author of BecomingMinimalist.com. Rational minimalism, per Becker is about finding a style of minimalism that works for you.
I termed our version of minimalism SlowMinimalism. So many minimalists whose stories I read practiced what seemed like instant minimalism in comparison to our more drawn out process. We wanted to experiment with having less, but we weren’t prepared to release everything all at once or even over the course of a couple of months.
After purchasing a smaller house in the city and with the goal of SlowMinimalism in mind we began releasing. During this process we let go of well over 60% of what we had owned as mid-life suburbanites. In addition, I released numerous board positions and memberships. My husband was able to release his daily hour long commute.
Though our transition ended up being a challenging process, the results were better than we could have hoped for. Minimizing stuff and commitments slowly allowed us to notice and appreciate the incremental improvement in our lives. We also believe minimizing slowly resulted in fewer regrets. We spent many hours over the course of eight years discussing the ongoing benefits of our less is more transition. The impact was profound.
As fate would have it, in 2023 we found ourselves upsizing again for family reasons, but we’ve approached outfitting this suburban home differently than our past home in the suburbs. Instead of filling a space in our home or our calendar because it exists, we allow ourselves room to breathe.
How does this all relate you? Well, let me start by saying that in my almost 20 years as a professional organizer and coach I’ve learned people rarely contact me because there’s just too much stuff in their house. They reach out because they’re overwhelmed. There’s simply too much happening in their world. Too many commitments. Too many interests. Too much everything! All of this can manifest in too much stuff, which just adds to the overwhelm. So, in addition to minimizing the stuff, it’s about minimizing the demands on your time, but in a way that enables you to experience more of the life you really want to lead, instead of being exhausted by the life you’re currently leading.
Virtual Organizing & Coaching
I’ve also learned that organizing and minimizing can be accomplished virtually. Virtual organizing allows me to provide professional organizing services to you in your home without being onsite with you. Instead we connect via Zoom or FaceTime. We work through the same types of organizing projects, but instead of being beside you in the room, I am with you virtually. I can still see the space, provide guidance, answer questions and support you via coaching.
I provided onsite organizing services for many years and I can honestly say the results of virtual organizing tend to be as good, if not better. Because travel time is eliminated I work with clients all over the country. In addition, lack of travel time means sessions can be much shorter, generally 1-2 hours depending on your availability and stamina. I also find that my virtual organizing clients more quickly develop organizing skills and as a result more quickly transition to organizing areas of their home on their own. Finally, virtual organizing is typically easier for my clients to commit to and stick with, and overall it is less expensive.
What would you choose to say hello to if you could say goodbye to overwhelm?
If you know you’ve got too much crammed into your world to truly enjoy what life has to offer, let’s discuss partnering to explore where you’re at now, where you could be and what the path looks like to get there via virtual organizing and coaching.
Click here to contact me by email and request a complimentary conversation. In this conversation you can share what kinds of challenges you’re experiencing and what kind of change you’re seeking. You can also ask me any questions you might have about coaching in general or about us working together. You can expect for this conversation to take about 30 minutes.