Enough is Enough - The Minimalist Inbox

Wading through Email like a Boss

Minimalism is a way of life for the body, in that we physically choose to remove objects from our lives to live a better, more functional one. But it's also a way of life for the mind.

What I mean is this: the clutter outside the body creates clutter inside the mind. It stresses us out. What we see around us can affect the calm or chaos of the mind. Extra "stuff" can be the decidedly contrasting difference between having an environment of calm and an environment of unrest.

Even clutter of the more invisible kind, like email, can stack up in our mailbox mind, just like a real mailbox full of letters, bills, advertisements, and junk mail.

Are you the kind of person who has an email subscription to everything? Do you get emails every hour, if not every minute, with advertisements? Do you have an inbox filled to overflowing with that little number of how many emails you haven't read, blaring at you? 

I firmly believe there are two types of people in this world: those who go through their email as they get it and those who go through their email when time opens up for them (which doesn't happen) to filter through the wave of electronic salutations. 

I have family who fast-tracks their email like they're taking out an assassin with each one. (I would be a part of this category.) And I have family who let their unread emails in their inbox reach into the thousands. I've heard of other people who have gotten their unopened emails in the tens of thousands or more.

If you're of the latter approach, well, I'm happy to say there's help for you. Now, there's nothing wrong with procrastinating at times. We can't get to all the emails, all the time, as soon as they come in. The more responsibility we have, the more email we get. It's a symbiotic relationship, unfortunately. But there are ways to fix this mess. On the whole, if you can't spend five minutes at a time a couple of times a day to clear out your inbox, something is off. 

That little number outside your mailbox app - into the hundreds or thousands - isn't a badge of honor. It's a tell-tale sign that something is amiss.

Letting your inbox get into the thousands is a little bit like hoarding. You have to take the trash out, make sure the inconsequential is deleted, and get the unnecessary obliterated. To get back to the simple life you once knew, you have to learn to say no to chaos and say yes to peace. If you can get your email in order, I can guarantee this will lead to a more organized, simplified home life. They work together.

Remember, an organized mind equals an organized physical life.

Here's how to deal with email right now to declutter your mind, which will open up time to declutter your home and work life.

1. Unsubscribing is your friend: Seriously. It was all fun and games subscribing to your favorite clothing stores until they started attacking you with daily emails. Forget about the emails to stay on top of trends (as a minimalist, trendy shouldn't be in your vocabulary anyway). Start with a few companies a day, and get super handy at pushing the unsubscribe button! If you do this daily for a couple of weeks, your inbox will be less full. I promise you. I've done this, it works, and it feels so good to have a tidy inbox.

2. Stop subscribing: So you need to unsubscribe from that pet supply store, that hardware giant, as well as your favorite treat shop that creates these ridiculously delicious cookies. But you also need to stop subscribing to these places in the first place. You don't need an account to every restaurant you eat at. You don't need sales updates to your favorite clothing shop. (Just because it's on sale, doesn't mean you need it - that's a phrase you should add to your vocabulary.) Say no to giving your email address when a cashier asks for it. Stop subscribing!

3. Look, decide, follow up: If you've got thousands of emails to weed through, start small. Take 25 emails a day, or a page a day, and begin to delete or unsubscribe, or file each one. Victory in the email race is always gained through the small steps, not the finish line. Only you know what you should keep or delete. Another way to combat the email is to combine all of your email addresses - meaning, put a forward on all your email addresses to only one. When you only have to go to one place to retrieve your email, you've already mentally gained time and emotional energy to filter through your daily mail.

I remember a few years ago, I was working three jobs, and along with my two private emails, I had something like five different email accounts. The flood of emails was insane, and trying to navigate through all of them separately was like herding cats. Impossible. So, I set up the email to go to one box. It made a huge difference. Less is more.

Look at the email, decide if you need to respond or it can be deleted, and then come back around to the saved emails after going through 25 (or a page) at a time. A page of deleted inbox messages a day is 365 pages deleted in a year (assuming you're deleting new ones coming in, too). That's about 9,000 emails a year! Imagine if you did two pages a day.

A clean and orderly inbox says you're organized, in charge of your life, and moving forward with each new email, making a concerted decision on what you want to do with it.

Enough is enough. How about you? Ready to clear some mental piles of trash and garbage in your mind? Start with your inbox and watch your world instantly feel orderly, clean, and simple, all with the click of a button.

Faith Over Fear

Estate sales are not for the faint of heart.

I tell you this as a professional vintage clothing reseller who still sources vintage clothing from estate sales, garage sales, and thrift stores. Even after doing this part-time for the last fifteen years, I am still overwhelmed at the sheer amount of stuff people collect and then attempt to keep their homes functioning. 

The last estate sale I went to was a small house. Probably 1200 square feet. But every closet and every cabinet was filled to overflowing with excess. The garage had racks of shelves of stuff.

The woman who lived here may have been on a fixed income, maybe not. She may have used coupons to get free items because every single cupboard - every one - was filled with duplicates to the max. But maybe not. I didn't know.

What I did know was that the mouthwash, dish soap, and carpet cleaner (and the like) were not only in the cupboards in multiples of ten in the kitchen, but were in multiples of ten in the spare bedroom, the bathroom, the primary bedroom, and the garage.

As I perused the home, all I could think was, So when did her fear overtake her? 

There's nothing wrong with wanting to make every dollar stretch. It's honorable, and I wish more people were better stewards of their finances. It's amazing what one can do when their budget matches their income. But this was beyond making sure her needs were met. With every closet I looked in, it appeared that her fear of not having enough had thoroughly infiltrated her heart and soul. 

She may have gone to a nursing home or an assisted living facility, or perhaps she passed away. I didn't know the particulars, but this is what I noted: She can't use any of what she accumulated where she's at now, whether dead or alive. 

At this estate sale, her hoarded collections of household products had given way to other people looking at her supplies and buying them for pennies on the dollar. Or like me, wondering why she had to have so many of the same items.

I hadn't even met this woman, and I felt horrible for her. And yet, was she so very different from me? It was a reminder that fear can be a strong deterrent in living a faithful life, and it's not difficult to see how this can happen to anyone, including myself. 

Remember the toilet paper run of the recent pandemic? It doesn't take much for people to become afraid and belong to the "scarcity mentality" that panicked most people into overbuying an innocent household staple. 

So, how do we make sure we have what we need, but not to the point of overconsuming? How do we remain minimalists with enough in case of emergencies? These are some basic ground rules I use in my home to ensure I have enough but not too much.

Six months' worth of nonperishables. If I want to stock up on something, like mouthwash, I will buy no more than six months' worth to hold at any time. At the very max. Usually, I buy in bulk, which covers two to three months. And that works well. But if I had the opportunity to buy more, six months' worth is as far as I'll go. Even with a catastrophic event, six months is a long enough time to recover from any issue (including halitosis), and I'm pretty sure the world will be running semi-normally again by that time, no matter how bad things got.

One year's worth of perishables. This sounds like a lot, but it really isn't. If I use a jar of peanut butter every two months, then I'd make sure I have no more than six jars in the pantry at any given time. A year is a long time to get things back in order, and having a little stockpile to secure my emotions until then is a justifiable amount. As it is, I don't even have that much now. At most, it's six months' worth, and probably more like four.

Faith over Fear. I refuse to live in fear. Yes, it's wise to have food and supplies in a small stockpile for future emergencies; it's wise to prepare. But where's the joy in living the rest of our lives? There is zero joy in fear, only more fear to contend with. To live an active life worthy of our calling, we have to prepare, but not to the point of hoarding. When I let that go - the desire to have more than I need - and surrender it, that's when my faith is activated.

As the Boy Scouts say, "Be prepared." But being overprepared does no one any good if you're not there to use that preparation. Faith over fear is a challenge I deal with daily because it's easy to be afraid of everything. One look at the news and my anxiety heightens tenfold (which is why I watch the  news as little as possible.)

But if I live a surrendered life, I'll never live in want and always have more than enough. And with a little planning and a lot of faith, surrendering my fear of not having enough will lead to a life that can be both fully prepared and fully enjoyed.

 A life that is full of having what I need and having enough to bless others.

Effort Over Comfort

Making your dream come true requires work but it also requires quieting the distractions.

The other day, I saw this post on social media that said, "One day, you'll realize that your dream died because you chose comfort over effort."

And I couldn't help but think, "This applies to me 10000%."

Want to know the best way to get to that dream and not let it die? Get rid of everything that distracts you. 

This is essentially the basic tenet of minimalism anyway. If it's non-essential, if it's unused, if it's clogging up your life, and most importantly, if it's keeping you from doing the thing you're supposed to be doing, then you have to get rid of it.

When I chose to embrace minimalism, it kicked me into minimalism in all, and I mean all, areas of my life. From home, and all that encompasses, to my kids' lives, my life, and work.

When I got rid of things that weren't pertinent or essential, focused on what I loved, and intentionally chose the activities to do and the things in my home, my life changed. I was free to pursue my dream. 

When I made minimal everything around me,  the clouds parted giving the sun a chance to shine on the things that truly meant something.

It was like pointing a giant magnifying glass at my dream and saying, "Here! This is what you need to do."

In other words, the comfort factor of obtaining stuff and doing dreamless activities disappeared when I let go of "stuff" (or work and things I didn't need to do) and made my life as authentically me as possible.

I'm working on a middle-grade work of fiction that I began twenty, yes twenty, years ago. I rewrote it twice and shelved it twice. Now, I've written many other things (and a book), including several other books that may or may not ever see the light of day. 

But this one book concept -this dream of an idea makes me wake up every day now and say "I have, have, have to write this before I die!" The dream came back to life.

Why? Because I've omitted the unnecessary parts of my life (the overstuffed house, jobs I didn't love, social media wasting my time) to focus on the necessary parts. I have to write this book.

Comfort over effort (maximalism consumerism and distraction) or effort of comfort (minimalist gratitude and focus)?

It's up to us to choose what we want every day, otherwise this world will decide for us.

What have you put on the back burner because you've insisted on comfort? The dream is still there. As long as you're alive, it's never too late to change and redirect your life to complete that dream.

Window Shopping Is Enough

The remarkable power we obtain when we learn to stop buying

Scrolling through social media recently, I came across a vintage blogger talking about the benefits of buying secondhand. 

Of course, I thoroughly understood everything she was talking about and agreed. As a vintage seller and wearer myself, loving and living in clothing that gets a second life does wonders for myself and the environment.

But she said something that made me stop scrolling. She said,  "The average consumer adds 68 pieces of clothing to their closet every year." When I heard that, I thought impossible. 

And yet, was it true? 

I quickly searched online to see if it was and found an article written for the Roosevelt Institute that corroborated this point. In the 1960s, only 25 pieces a year were added to the closet Now, it's closer to a whopping 68! 

Even at the height of my consumerism - about seven years ago right before I decided to go minimalist - I'm sure I wasn't buying 1.3 items a week.

Or was I?

I thought about my shopping habits. From walking into Target (twice a week or more) to checking my Amazon cart (daily), I made purchases - clothing purchases - all the time. Maybe it was true. Maybe it wasn't quite 68, but I bet it was close to 50. One new item a week? Sure, that sounded right.

I'm so far removed from that way of living and buying now, that it's difficult to understand how I got to that point. Why was I buying so much? Why did I feel the need to have a stuffed closet? 

Simple. Because of what I chose to look at. Namely, advertising and social media. 

It's easy to buy one new item a week when I'm looking at ads, following fashion influencers, and subscribing to fashion catalogs via snail mail.

When I became a minimalist, I realized how in bondage I was to the world of advertising and fast fashion and I wanted nothing to do with it. And once I saw it, I couldn't unsee it. So, I learned how to make window shopping my retail therapy and call it a day. 

Here's how I changed my shopping habits. 

Stop (most) Social Media - I unfollowed all fast fashion influencers. Being told I needed to buy something (with their "click to buy link") was an enormous detriment to being free from mindless buying. I even got off Instagram for a few months which was a wonderful experience. I still have social media, but I am very selective about whom I follow. I only have a few social media apps these days and ultimately got rid of apps I wasn't on. The less I see the better off I am.

Stop "Adding to the Cart" - Of course, we need some things, but the best strategy to stop buying is to stop adding everything you want to the cart! I know, Caption Obvious. Instead, look at the item, like it if you have to, and move on if you don't need it. Do one better, if you dare, and delete the apps that make it too easy to purchase. Buy in person, shop small and local, and watch your fast fashion world slowly shift to a slow fashion world where you can breathe deep and live unfettered by the cares of our modern world.

Stop the Catalogs - Seriously, this one is the worst. I had a couple of catalogs that I loved to look at. Their photos were so beautiful! But, because of them, I bought more than I needed. So, I stopped their subscriptions and now, if I want to see what they offer, I go directly to their website. However nowadays, even that has shifted to the backburner. 

Start Window shopping - Look but don't purchase. I suppose we call it "window shopping" because that's how it was done before the internet. Today, it's scrolling, and adding to cart - it's internet shopping. But this modern-day "window shopping" is where it's at. We get to look, love, admire, imagine ... and walk away. It fulfills that "shopping" action, but doesn't require our checkbook! 

And in person? With actual windows shopping? Today, I walk through Target and admire the new fashion. I run my hand along a sweater and check out the denim in that great new color. But, if I'm looking to be content with less, my next step is to walk away, remember how many sweaters and jeans I already have, and not add them to my cart. And if I'm feeling extra strong, I don't walk through the clothing section at all.

Being a minimalist doesn't mean we never buy anything ever again, nor do we not buy occasionally just for fun. Of course, we do. Rather, it means weighing our options and seeing if the purchase is justified. Does my closet need this? Is this an impulse purchase? Will I actually wear it for longer than one season? 

Remember, a perennial traditional wardrobe will take your dollar the farthest and your style the highest.

By window shopping, we allow ourselves to look at the item and walk away. And the walking away part is where we gain our power. Being able to say we like an item and not purchase it (because it's not needed) is an incredible feeling. You know what that is? That's delayed gratification; that's discipline. And forgoing buying repeatedly will make you stronger every time you do it.

These are the simple things I did to shift from an unhappy consumer to a contented minimalist. And to keep that power of satisfaction at the forefront of my heart and soul, I will never return to my old ways of shopping. 

For me now, less buying - and more window shopping - is my superpower.

Interior Design and Minimalism

Often, I talk about minimalism pertaining to clothing, but so much of our lives take place outside of the wardrobe. We live in our homes, not our closets, and we spend much of it in the family room and kitchen. Those are the areas that need the minimalistic touch as well.

Having a minimalistic home doesn't mean sparsity, or only using two colors. Of course, if that's the look you're going for, then great. If you're looking for a clean simple look, having a couple of colors does the trick. 

But minimalism can also mean bright colors and bold furniture, it just means less of the little stuff we don't love, and more of the pieces we love. My sister, who's an interior designer, has a myriad of clients who love both the busy and minimalistic look. She works for both kinds. So, it's not the "stuff" or lack of stuff necessarily that creates a minimalist lifestyle.

Minimalism can also mean art on the walls and plants in the kitchen. It can also mean lots of things you love around you. What minimalism is truly about is getting rid of the things that aren't you and don't make you happy to make room for what does make you happy.

Here are three questions I asked myself about my home's decor. 

1. Do I love it? 

Like won't cut it. We like a lot of things. I like coffee mugs, but do I really love the 25 I have? (Yes, I have 25 - one of the few items I haven't minimized because I adore vintage coffee mugs. I know I have a few I don't love and those need to go.) But that's what's filling up our homes. Liking something is almost common. You don't want common. You want sincere love. Do you love that recliner? Do you love that work of art? Does that centerpiece make you swoon? If not, let it go and pare down to what you love.

2. Do I need it? 

I know decor is decor is decor. It makes it look like we live in a homey, fun, well-loved place. But, what about only choosing the decor that is needed? I love plants. I had dozens of them in and around my kitchen at one point. But, I found (for myself) that I was becoming overwhelmed with plants. I gave away some, moved some to different parts of the house that needed greenery, and cleaned off the kitchen counter. Turns out I kept a lot of them, but I didn't need all of them. It feels and looks so much better.

3. Is this my style?

This really opened up my eyes. I have a relaxed almost southwestern vibe to my family room, but I didn't know it until I began to take out the things that didn't fit with this style. I got rid of a hand-made wooden whale I thrifted a while ago which was beautiful. But it didn't go with my room's theme. I took it out. Also, I had pillows I thought worked, but they ended up distracting from the room's look. I got rid of them and it looks so much better (and having fewer pillows on the sofa actually allows us to use the sofa!) Find a unifying theme and style for each room and stick with it for a cohesive, minimalistic look.

Just recently, I was honored to be a part of a blog post written by Pablo Alvarez for the Redfin Blog. 

Titled "How to Design a Stylish Minimalist Home: Interior Design Ideas for Simple Living," it takes a complete look at what minimalism for the home can look like. It's a detailed and fun read that outlines ten simple ways to create a simple, minimalistic home that's perfect for you. Read the full article right here.

Remember, pare down to love in everything in your life and watch it become the most enchanted it's ever been. These three questions have made my home a home I love coming back to.