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When neither Marie Kondo nor “Swedish Death Cleaning” motivates you to become a minimalist.
4 plus 2 questions to live your life’s purpose with exactly the material things you need.
A couple of weeks ago my 72-year-old mom moved to a smaller elderly-friendly apartment. On the day of her move she fell. She broke one arm and seriously injured the other. My sisters and I took over: We emptied endless boxes. We made space for all her things in the small space. We handled a lot of stuff. Multiples of all items. Most of it unused. It took forever. In the process of going through her clutter, I got super mad at my mother. A couple of weeks before her move, I had told her about the decluttering method “Swedish Death Cleaning”, made popular by Margareta Magnusson. But apparently the idea “to get rid of all the stuff you’ve accumulated so that no one else has to do it for you after you pass” had not resonated with her so far.
I was wondering (not mad anymore): What decluttering methods might be motivating for my mom (and everybody else?) I was asking myself: How to become a minimalist voluntarily and joyfully, especially, if minimalism is just not your thing?
The first step is to define the process of letting go not as a burden, but as a way to find happiness. This shift brings us…