The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo
The Minimalist Home by Joshua Becker
The Joy of Less: A Minimalist Guide to Declutter, Organize, and Simplify by Francine Jay
Minimalism for Families by Zoe Kim
More than Enough by Miranda Anderson
Simple Happy Parenting by Denaye Barahona
Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg Mckeown
Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport
Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport
I love everything about minimalism and simple living and have been really drawn to that lifestyle. I've never been one who accumulated lots of clutter and I have always been a bit of a clean freak. But all of these books and minimalist podcasts I've listened to over the past few years have contributed enormously to shifting my mindset. It shifted my mindset about money, wealth, and goals for the future. It emphasized the value of experiences over things. It changed the way I shop, the way I go about gift giving, and helped me become more conscious and intentional about everything we bring into our home. It even influenced me to choose more sustainable living options in a few areas. I kon-mari'd our whole house and went through everything we owned. I don't feel like we had that much stuff, definitely less than the average american family of 4 I think, but we still got rid of quite a bit! We minimized our kitchen, clothing, bathroom, toys, and even books (gasp, I know!). The end result has been lovely. I thoroughly enjoy the feeling of lightness and the breathing room a minimalist home leaves. We've been able to do a lot of fun experiences with our kids this past year as we've shifted our values to emphasizing experiences together. We also have a few trips planned for this year that we are really looking forward to!
All of this is to say we are getting to a good place in our minimalist/simple living lifestyle. I am in a class this semester for library school called: Information Retrieval System Design. It's all about the different ways of organizing, storing, and retrieving information. We had to post on a discussion board an organization system we had created so I shared my kids' closets and thought I'd go ahead and share my post here too.
I recently reorganized my children's closets after deciding to get rid of their dressers. Both my children had fairly large, heavy, wooden dressers in their closets. They don't have very many clothes so their dresser drawers were only half or even a quarter of the way filled. I felt like the dressers really weren't necessary and just taking up extra closet space. I got rid of the dressers and created a new organizational system in their closets. I put 4 baskets in each closet to store on the top shelf. One basket for tops, one for bottoms, one for socks and underclothing, and one for miscellaneous or off-season items. Dressers , dress shirts, bulky sweaters, and jackets hang in their closets . They also each have a hanging shelf with 6 cubbies. On Sunday nights I pull the baskets down from the top shelf and have my kids pick an outfit (shirt, bottom, socks, underclothing) and place an outfit in 5 of the cubbies on the hanging shelf. These are their outfits for the 5 days of school during the week. The bottom cubby in the hanging shelf is for pajamas. The items needed are easily found in their assigned baskets for refilling and the baskets are stored in a specific order on the shelf: from left to right; tops, bottoms, socks and underclothing, miscellaneous and off-season items. I organized their closets this way with a few goals and purposes in mind. The current system limits the number of items it can store, which means it helps control the amount of clothing I purchase or can have on hand at one time for each child. Another goal was to make access to outfits in the mornings as easy as possible for the user (my children). Each of my children have an outfit ready to select so they can dress for the day independently, and pajamas within reach in the bottom cubby so they can also change into those independently at the end of the day. We store shoes, coats, and backpacks on hangers in the entryway so I did not have to fit those into this system. So far, the system is working really well and I feel has been worth the effort. Having to only choose from 5 cubbies for an outfit rather than a whole closet has made the process of deciding what to wear and getting dressed much easier for my children. The only minor problem in the system is not having 7 outfits available for the whole week. Also if they happen to wear more than one outfit on some days from getting dirty they would run out of outfits by Friday. This isn't too big of an issue for me as it doesn't take much time to take down the baskets and restock two outfits but it is something my children (the users) can't currently do themselves.
I recently reorganized my children's closets after deciding to get rid of their dressers. Both my children had fairly large, heavy, wooden dressers in their closets. They don't have very many clothes so their dresser drawers were only half or even a quarter of the way filled. I felt like the dressers really weren't necessary and just taking up extra closet space. I got rid of the dressers and created a new organizational system in their closets. I put 4 baskets in each closet to store on the top shelf. One basket for tops, one for bottoms, one for socks and underclothing, and one for miscellaneous or off-season items. Dressers , dress shirts, bulky sweaters, and jackets hang in their closets . They also each have a hanging shelf with 6 cubbies. On Sunday nights I pull the baskets down from the top shelf and have my kids pick an outfit (shirt, bottom, socks, underclothing) and place an outfit in 5 of the cubbies on the hanging shelf. These are their outfits for the 5 days of school during the week. The bottom cubby in the hanging shelf is for pajamas. The items needed are easily found in their assigned baskets for refilling and the baskets are stored in a specific order on the shelf: from left to right; tops, bottoms, socks and underclothing, miscellaneous and off-season items. I organized their closets this way with a few goals and purposes in mind. The current system limits the number of items it can store, which means it helps control the amount of clothing I purchase or can have on hand at one time for each child. Another goal was to make access to outfits in the mornings as easy as possible for the user (my children). Each of my children have an outfit ready to select so they can dress for the day independently, and pajamas within reach in the bottom cubby so they can also change into those independently at the end of the day. We store shoes, coats, and backpacks on hangers in the entryway so I did not have to fit those into this system. So far, the system is working really well and I feel has been worth the effort. Having to only choose from 5 cubbies for an outfit rather than a whole closet has made the process of deciding what to wear and getting dressed much easier for my children. The only minor problem in the system is not having 7 outfits available for the whole week. Also if they happen to wear more than one outfit on some days from getting dirty they would run out of outfits by Friday. This isn't too big of an issue for me as it doesn't take much time to take down the baskets and restock two outfits but it is something my children (the users) can't currently do themselves.
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