The Joy of Living with Less E-Book

Mary Lambert

• Herausgeber: Ryland Peters & Small
• Kategorie: Ratgeber
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Seitenzahl: 116

Beschreibung

Follow this unique programme to discover the joy of living with less items and discover how liberating and fulfilling life becomes when you learn to live with less. The premise of this book is simple: if you don't love it, lose it! Many people think that the more they own, the more contented and happy they will be – their lives become defined by their possessions. In fact, the opposite is often true: the more we have, the less happy and contented we are in mind, body and spirit. Decluttering expert Mary Lambert explains how having too much clutter can stop you moving forward in life, and how learning to let go of items we neither love or need is liberating and fulfilling. The challenge starts with an inventory of your personal possessions, then you begin the process of clearing out your items, addressing each area at a time, from clothes, to jewellery, to hobby items. Once you've tackled your personal items, you can get started on the rest of your household goods.

Leseprobe

THEjoy

OF living WITH

less

THE joy

OF living WITH

less

HOW TO DOWNSIZE TO 100 ITEMS AND LIBERATE YOUR LIFE

mary lambert

Published in 2020 by CICO Books

An imprint of Ryland Peters & Small Ltd

20–21 Jockey’s Fields

341 E 116th St

London WC1R 4BW

New York, NY 10029

www.rylandpeters.com

First published in 2013 as Living with Less

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Text © Mary Lambert 2013, 2020

Design and photography © CICO Books 2013, 2020 (except those photos listed on page 111)

The author’s moral rights have been asserted. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

A CIP catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress and the British Library.

eISBN: 978 1 78249 910 7

ISBN: 978 1 78249 822 3

Printed in China

Editor: Marion Paull

In-house editor: Dawn Bates

In-house designer: Eliana Holder

Art director: Sally Powell

Production controller: Mai-Ling Collyer

Publishing manager: Penny Craig

Publisher: Cindy Richards

CONTENTS

introduction

PART 1

getting prepared

PART 2

the 100-item challenge

PART 3

clearing out the home

PART 4

your new minimalist life

index

further reading

picture credits

acknowledgments

introduction

Having spent over 20 years helping clients to declutter their homes, I’ve witnessed close up how truly liberating and fulfilling the process can be. The people I’ve worked with have often become defined and weighed down by their many possessions. Once they are surrounded by fewer items, and have a more pleasurable and ordered living space, they find an inner spiritual contentment that enhances both their physical and emotional wellbeing.

Of course, the benefits of living with less go beyond the individual to the wider world. One of the many joys of buying less is the positive impact it has on the environment. Most goods have to be packaged, transported, and disposed of, and the more we buy, the more we contribute to this. If you choose to buy fewer things, you’re likely to choose quality over throwaway items, leading to a reduced amount of waste. And, of course, once you have less you might even need less space, and that’s good for the environment on so many levels.

I’ve written many books on decluttering, so in this one I wanted to set a new challenge: downsizing your personal possessions to just 100 items. I decided to take on the challenge myself as I wrote the book and you can follow my experiences in my personal journal throughout.

Get ready to feel overjoyed rather than overwhelmed by your possessions. Once you’re living with less, you’ll never look back.

THE 100-ITEM CHALLENGE

The challenge is to pare down your personal belongings to just 100 items (you can group some things together as one) and live with just these for a year.

You can replace items but you can’t add to your list, unless you have managed to keep it to fewer than 100 to begin with. This is a difficult goal to achieve, especially if you love new clothes, but it will change your attitude to buying forever. It will also make you realize how many things you have that you don’t really need.

Clothes make up 70 percent of the 100-item challenge but do you realize that most of us wear only 20 percent of these? The rest just hang in the closet. Selling or giving away the ones that you don’t wear, that don’t fit, or that you don’t like any more will make you much more conscious of the outfits that flatter you. And you will become adept at mixing and matching the clothes you have left.

To help you cope with the challenge, I have separated it into achievable goals that you can work on over a period of a year (or longer if you need it), so that you can find joy in the process rather than feel overburdened by it. The clothes goal is the biggest one, so it has the longest time allocated to it—4½ months. Others deal with fewer items, such as your electrical, electronic, and sports equipment, so these are given just 1½ months each. Releasing these possessions from your life may be hard at first but it will make you feel so free and give you extra energy to try new activities. Another benefit of letting go is that you can sell those things, or if you decide to donate some of your unwanted possessions to charity, instead, you will benefit from the “feel-good” factor of doing this.

ROOM-BY-ROOM DECLUTTERING

Just letting go of some of your personal possessions is not enough if you really want to live with less. You also need to appraise the household paraphernalia that you have accumulated over the years. If you look through each room in your home, you will notice how cluttered some areas have become, especially if you have been living there a while. Some rooms may be so full of furniture or equipment that you just don’t use them any more. With my guidance you can allocate a certain number of hours to decluttering each room. Start on your worst room first, going through the main problem areas, using my solutions to help you restore some order to these over-loaded spaces.

A NEW LIFE

As the energy shifts and changes in your home, your own perspective will change as well. You will start to enjoy the clearer and more functional spaces in all your rooms. By clearing out, you will also allow “space” in your mind for new creativity.

Living with less helps you to find your true self beneath the clutter, and follow your heart’s desires, which you may have neglected for a while. Time with family and friends will never seem so precious. But most of all, you can slow down and appreciate the wonders of your life, dreaming of all those unknown adventures that are yet to come.

PART 1

getting prepared

Getting into the right frame of mind to let go of possessions is hard to do, but once you start releasing them, the feel-good factor will soon set in and you will begin to feel liberated and fulfilled. The atmosphere in a home that is no longer cluttered will feel vibrant, and this will have the wonderful ripple effect of enhancing your overall wellbeing.

THE BENEFITS OF A SIMPLER LIFE

The rewards of living with less are truly amazing. You will find an inner spiritual contentment and joy that you just did not think was possible, and be happy in the knowledge that your actions will impact positively on those close to you and on the wider world.

•   Less time spent caring for possessions. The more goods you have in your home, the more time you spend mending, cleaning, tidying, and maintaining them. This can leave you emotionally and physically drained, especially if you don’t need the items, or even enjoy having them.

•   More kindness. You will have more free time and energy, and extra money from buying less or selling possessions. You may decide to help others less privileged than yourself. Giving time or money to charities, or supporting good causes in the community, is far more satisfying than buying something new.

•   Less environmental impact. Many goods are packaged in plastic, which takes years to degrade. By reducing the amount you buy, you are reducing the quantity of packaging you are responsible for, and also the number of discarded articles that will need recycling.

•   Less envy. Today’s media constantly show us celebrities at play, making us envious of their lavish lifestyles. By deciding to live with less you can reject wanting to live a more upmarket lifestyle.

•   Less need to keep up with modern trends. You will reduce your desire to conform to the latest style, whether it be in fashion, decoration, or design.

•   More contentment. A simpler lifestyle allows you time to follow your dreams. You may take up that hobby that you have never previously found time for, passionately pursue a new sport, or just spend more time with your family and friends.

hoarding TOO MANY possessions

Before you start your 100-item challenge and set off on the road to your minimalist lifestyle, you need to look at why you have acquired so many things in the first place.

I have come across many homes so full of possessions that the family could hardly move around them—and it doesn’t stop there. I am often shown a garage or shed that is equally full, mainly with junk that has been stored and forgotten about. When I question my clients about why they have accumulated so many things, the answer is usually vague, along the lines of “it just sort of happened”, or “I don’t like to waste things.” After some more gentle probing, I often discover that at least one family member can’t stop buying, or one is a complete hoarder.

Hoarders will hold on to things they do not really want or need. They are just obsessed with the need to buy and accumulate. Sometimes these people are information addicts who feel compelled to save newspapers, magazines, or brochures, so that when they have time, they can read all the useful information they believe to be contained in them. And they do not just hoard new items. When a close relative dies, for example, rather than keeping the odd personal memento, they keep the majority of their relative’s possessions, making their own home a mausoleum to someone else’s past.

how hoarding possessions affects your home

As a feng shui consultant, I improve the energy flow in people’s homes. According to the ancient Chinese practice of feng shui, an invisible life force—electro-magnetic meridians of energy called chi—flows through all things. It is important that this life force flows positively through your home to create a good atmosphere, but if your home is full of clutter or is overloaded with possessions, the flow is inhibited, and this creates a very lethargic and stale atmosphere.

Another tenet of feng shui is that we all have an inner/outer reality. So if your home is full of junk and has stale energy, it will have an effect on you both emotionally and spiritually, making you feel down and lacking direction and focus in your life. When you finally let go of unwanted belongings that have been stored in your home for years, it is really liberating and can be like a breath of fresh air or a major spring-clean. This, in turn, will have a huge effect on you, giving you new inspiration and a positive direction for your life.

WHY DO PEOPLE HOARD?

One of the major reasons is the feeling of security that hoarding brings. Some people become emotionally attached to the things around them. Looking at objects or other accessories that they have acquired over the years makes them feel happy and safe. Some even keep mementoes from unhappy events, refusing to remember the pain involved, or hang on to a gift that they dislike for fear of upsetting the person who gave it to them if they passed it on. Giving away or throwing out items they no longer need but to which they have an emotional attachment can be painful, tantamount to rejecting a friend’s generosity.

different types of hoarders

When friends choose gifts, they do so with a loving intention, and these feelings can become bound up in the energy of the objects, which is why it can be so hard to let go of them. Sometimes true hoarders feel that part of their identity is attached to their possessions, and that by giving them away they are losing part of themselves.

Depression or grief can also fuel buying sprees, and when this comes on top of a compulsion to own the latest gadget, despite having many more at home, belongings can start piling up to an overwhelming extent, making it more difficult to shift them.

Creative people often save things to further their art and can easily become hoarders. Often they accumulate so many art supplies that they get in the way of normal life and the art projects never get done.

what do people hoard most?

•   Clothes (often unworn with labels left on)

•   Newspapers and magazines

•   Containers

•   Junk mail

•   Books

•   Craft items

are YOU A hoarder?

This questionnaire will help you work out, ahead of your challenge, if you are hoarding too many possessions or unwanted items in your home. Score 2 points for a “Yes,” 1 for a “Sometimes,” and zero for a “No.”

Yes SometimesNo

1 Can you park your car in your garage, or is it too full of stuff?

2 Are your bookshelves filled with books that you never read?

3 Do you have piles of unread magazines and newspapers everywhere?

4 Do you store unused or broken items under your bed?

5 Are piles of junk mail left by your front door?

6 Is your closet bulging with clothes that you don’t wear?

7 Is your purse, bag, or workbag full of old pens, receipts, candy wrappers, and other worthless trivia?

8 Can you hardly get in your attic because you have so much stuff stored up there?

9 Have you kept all your old school certificates or sports awards?

10 Is your sock or pantyhose drawer so full you can hardly get it open?

11 Do you have lots of framed photographs or art prints that have never been displayed stacked in a closet?

12 Do you still keep shoes or boots even if you don’t like them any more, they are badly worn, or have broken heels?

13 Are you storing sports or fitness equipment that has never been used?

14 Are you keeping photographs (prints or digital versions) of people who are no longer friends?

15 Are unfinished craft projects scattered around your home?

16