Menu
by Angie Kikstra,
Founder of Cozy Minimalism and Host of The Cozy Minimalism Podcast
Hi, friend, Angie here.
I used to be a fly-by-the-seat kinda gal.
I didn’t have any routines. I always thought routines were boring and not useful for people like me.
I also had some bad habits that kept our home untidy.
Because of these two beliefs, I found I played a lot of catch-up on housekeepingthe weekends.
There was even a point in time when I felt like I was just a messy person and I would’t even try to keep the house clean.
And yet it weighted so heavily on me.
The mess seemed to call to me and make me feel like I was a failure as a mom. Like I couldn’t keep up with it all and I was lazy or a slob.
How you spend your days and hours today will change your tomorrow.
You are either living in the energy of the problem or you are living in the energy of the solution. Focusing on what you can change and focus on allows you to live in the energy of the solution. Focusing on how stressed you are and how much home or your family is frustrating is not helpful and won’t move you toward the solution. If you are living in the energy of the problem but you want to move into the solution, stick around, I have some tips that will greatly impact your home (and life).
Tiny habits will help move you toward what you really want, much more easily than big sweeping changes.
Habits are things you do daily, often without thinking. They can either be good habits that help you out or they can be bad habits that hinder you in some way.
I love using habits because I don’t have to think about some of the more mundane things and if I don’t think about them, I find they don’t feel so overwhelming.
You really don’t have to continue to feel overwhelmed trying to keep your home clean and organized. If you’ve always wanted a simpler lifestyle but didn’t know where to start, this blog post will help you with some ideas for small, simple things you can add to your daily life.
Growing in popularity, minimalism is an approach that enables individuals to strive toward the freedom of owning less and living more.
If you’re looking for ways to simplify your space without getting rid of everything, try implementing these 7 habits into your daily routine. From some major mindshifts to small daily practices, get ready as I reveal how minimalism can restore order back into your life!
This first minimalist tidy habit has to do with putting things away when you’re done with them.
During the first couple of layers of clutter I run through in people’s homes we are looking for homes for their items.
It’s important to have logical and accessible places for the items that you use within your home.
It makes putting away items so much easier.
In fact, if you look around right now at the clutter in your room on the surfaces, I bet that the majority is stuff you or your family use on a regular basis.
Make it your mission to find a home for everything you own.
Another minimalist habit for maintaining a tidy home has to do with your mindset. Minimalism isn’t about striving for a perfect home, it’s about striving for connection and meaning through having less excess.
Focus less on seeking the perfection of an always clean or tidy home, instead focus on how easy it is to tidy in smaller chunks of time.
I teach my clients the 10 Minute Tidy™ and they can easily tidy up their homes in 10 minutes several times a day, rather than spending a whole weekend on housework.
Break down your bigger cleaning into smaller, more regularly done chores.
You won’t have to give up those weekends to try to catch up on your household responsibilities.
Look for moments of downtime when you’re doing something that you could fit a small job into. An example of this that I use in my home is focused around mealtime. Before, I would make a huge mess in the kitchen, use all the bowls and pots and spoons and then lie to myself that I would clean it all up after supper. After sitting down for supper, I would be too drained from the day to get back up.
Now, I take the time while I’m waiting for everything to get up to temp to rinse items that need to go into the dishwasher, or if you don’t have a dishwasher, take this time to quickly wash up those items now. I also try to build meals in as little pots and pans as possible. I tidy up the veggies that need to get composted and then quickly wipe the counters. The only time you know I’m cooking now is because of the pots on the stovetop.
This isn’t so much a minimalist tidy habit, but more of a minimalist mindshift, but I thought this was super important to share anyways.
The amount of stuff in your home has a direct impact on tidiness. There’s an even greater impact if your home is packed beyond capacity.
If we start thinking of our homes like a cup that we want to fill with water. A cup has a finite amount of space that it can be filled to.
And we can see when things are getting close to overfilling and when they are overflowing.
You might end up getting a new cup that’s larger, but if you don’t give yourself a limit to stop filling it, you will also overfill the new larger cup.
When you start thinking of your home as having a maximum space capacity, you will be able to start utilizing your stuff and space in a better way.
A common suggestion out there is to suggest you get rid of an item for a new item coming in. This is commonly referred to as the 1-in-1 out rule.
This is “ok-ish” advice when you’ve been doing this for a while. But what about those of you that are right at the beginning?
You need larger amounts of stuff taken out of your home. The 1-in-1 out rule can feel like a daunting task. Instead of doing 1-in-1 out – try my mass in and mass out strategy.
This works especially well if you are the only minimalist living in the home like I am.
I use Mr. Cozy’s Amazon boxes and remove items by filling those boxes. We all know Amazon notoriously sends bigger boxes than the size of the item, so use that to your minimalist advantage.
Note: When you fill up those boxes you can check out the GiveBackBox program to get your stuff directly into charities that need it the most although this now costs money to use you might find it better to curate boxes on your own and get them right to the local charity of your choice.
Clear surfaces are pure gold when it comes to having a tidy home, it’s a well-kept tidy secret of minimalists.
Why?
There are many reasons but I’m going to give you the top three:
Get your family’s clutter tolerance level more in alignment with your own. When you clear the surface clutter, specifically in the main living areas and your own spaces, it helps to reset your family’s clutter tolerance level. The more extreme the surface clear-off is, the more effective the reset will be with your family.
Another benefit of clear surfaces in your home is that you notice hotspots of clutter popping up and you can create solutions for them. A hotspot shows up AFTER you’ve cleared a surface. Most people erroneously refer to hotspots as surfaces that have not been cleared (they are just cluttered surfaces).
A hotspot of clutter is an opportunity to find a home and a functional organizing solution for the items that pop up on a cleared surface. With each hotspot that pops up, you get a target for organizing. That’s so much more effective than trying to organize your house haphazardly.
Clear surfaces give you breathing space because you likely have a low tolerance for clutter. You are probably here because you feel stressed at home with all of the clutter. Cleared surfaces will give you some breathing space right away, they are the highest impact areas that you can tackle for the greatest benefit at the beginning of your journey.
Minimalist tidy habit number 5 that will help you keep your home tidy is a three-item to-do list.
When I first started doing this in 2012, I was blown away by how much more I seemed to accomplish.
Prior to trying this, I would create a to-do list a mile long and then beat myself up at the end of the day for not accomplishing EVERYTHING on my list. Even though that was an impossible feat, I still felt like a failure.
The first day I tried the three-item to-do list, I got all of the items done.
So I added three more, and I got those done.
I decided to stop after a third time around because I wanted to feel good about what I had accomplished.
This was when I realized that I could do less with more focus and be more productive than I was when I was trying to do all.the.things.
This is a minimalist tidy habit that I started doing early on in my minimalist journey.
I got to a point where I was looking around at my stuff and thinking, “Well, I use all of this.”
When the truth was, I didn’t need to use all of it.
Most of it was excess.
Aside from the very clear duplicates (which were easy for me to let go of early on) I started looking for ways to make my items do double duty.
I find that I look for ways to make one item serve multiple purposes.
I don’t have serving spoons, I use tablespoons.
I use a glass measuring cup for Thanksgiving and Christmas gravy instead of a fancy gravy boat.
I don’t have serving bowls for supper, we just dish up at the stove and then sit at the table.
I have minimal pots and pans, which means a big pot for mom’s potato soup or big chilli batches, and two smaller pots and two frying pans. I also have a steamer that fits into one of my smaller pots. I was able to whittle down this collection that was out of control by simply thinking of what my meals usually look like.
The big pot of chilli for example. Instead of using a frying pan once for ground beef and then pulling out another frying pan for bacon, I will cook one first then put it into the big pot and then cook the second meat after rinsing the frying pan with hot water.
Those excess things not only filled up cupboards and drawers but also washing machines and laundry facilities making it impossible to get done a load in one run.
That meant more time spent on regular cleanings like laundry and dishes.
Most often, there was a sink full or overflowing with dishes which would mean at least two runs of the dishwasher every day.
Some people laugh at me when I tell them that being a minimalist has decreased my chores… and this is why.
The most I have for a load of laundry each day is one. We are not constantly filling up the laundry and I don’t need to do a full day of laundry to catch up at the end of the week.
And if I’m being honest we just lived out of piles on the chair or in hampers back then anyways because I never seemed to be able to actually put the clothes away back then because it was such a daunting chore!
For someone that didn’t like routines, I sure thrive with them now.
Even though a major part of my lifestyle is about being intentional, I find the housework is something I prefer to do on auto-pilot. I don’t want to actually think about it.
I have regular evening routines and morning routines that I have made habits that help keep my minimalist home tidy. Routines don’t have to be firm and rigid. If you attach them to an activity that you do daily, you’ll find that it’s easier to maintain them and keep them going.
You could create routines that are attached to waking up, making coffee or tea in the morning, making lunch, coming home after work, after a shower or bath, after supper, or even before bed.
Let’s take laundry for example:
I start a load in my washing machine at night right before bedtime, we don’t use hampers, so I just have to press start on the machine.
In the morning after coffee, I will transfer that load into the dryer.
After lunch, there is usually a lull of activity, so I will grab the laundry from the dryer and quickly put it away.
(PS – Laundry is easier when there is a small hamper full, not 10 full hampers. See # 6.)
There you have it, friend!
I tried to make the blog post about minimalist tidy habits easy to read but also fun.
I hope you enjoyed it.
Let me know below what you will try to incorporate into your minimalist tidy habits!
Did You Like This Post? Share It on Social Media or Save On Pinterest:
Comments
I had a hard time getting hanging clothes from my kitchen-adjacent laundry area to the closet. I solved this with a towel bar installed over the washer. All my hangers fit there nicely and they are instantly available, making it easy to get everything on hangers and to the closet. It was such a simple solution!
Enjoyed the read. I’ve been trying to clear clutter for sometime now with a little success. Your ideas have been in my head but not executed. I’m going to try your suggestions and work very hard to clear out things. I live alone so it shouldn’t be too hard. It’s hard to let some old things go, but I have many things I haven’t touched in years. Thank you for the blog.
“HABITS things you do daily, often without thinking” Thank you. When we moved into our house 13 years ago it was a perfect fit. It was easy to maintain. My children were young. I had energy. My partner’s collections have creeped into EVERY room in our house. I tried to take over and claim spaces first. These 7 steps are a great reboot for me. I wrote my morning routine down and saw i do 2-10 minute tidy’s! I love S.P.A.C.E.(Sort, Purge, Assign a home, Containerize, Equalize)
If you only do one load of laundry each day with no hamper, do you put everything together—clothes, towels, lights, darks, etc?
Author
Yep! That’s what I do. I do save my whites that need to bleached (not very often) in a tiny basket. But I have low maintenance clothing in our household. 💜
I hope that helps!
Angie
Just what I need.
I use a color grabber/catcher microfiber sheet from Shout, Shein, or Carbona – whichever is on sale so I can mix colors in one load with no bleeding.
Suggestion #8: Don’t have your 4 young grandchildren for sleepovers
Author
I can’t wait to have grandkids! 😂😂😂
i loved this! thank you!
Author
You’re very welcome 💜
When you say you don’t have laundry hampers do you mean you just throw everything in together? No sorting darks and whites!
Author
I don’t need to do whites separately for 90% of my loads. Cold water. Quick cycle.
When I do a load that needs to be bleached, I have a small hamper in there that I will collect the white towels and linens 💜
I hope that clarifies it a bit 💜
Angie
I plan on getting rid of so many pots and pans. I bet this will really help since I have a galley kitchen with very little cabinet space.
Author
It will TOTALLY help! How exciting! I found I only used certain pots and pans, and the rest were just there. 😂
Thanks for your comment! It will definitely encourage someone else too!
Angie 💜
Great read! I will try some of these habits. I use to be a shopper that bought because it was on sale and if it was 3 for a dollar I thought I had to buy 3 . Not anymore. And boy do I have the pantry space. I’m really working on keeping my house tidy and organized.