Marie Kondo and the minimalism effect: when decluttering goes beyond the household
- From the way we travel to managing a business, it’s not just our homes that could benefit from decluttering
- Here are six people who have reduced the ‘digital and mental clutter’ in their lives to find enrichment
Of all the lifestyle crazes to sweep the globe in recent years, decluttering – the trend of expelling excess belongings from our homes – is proving one of the most contagious. Converts show off their spartan wardrobes and newly streamlined flats on social media, and seeing those clean, clutter-free surfaces, others follow suit.
But while the focus of Kondo’s show is on people’s homes, there are those who take decluttering to another level – taking a minimalist approach to work and travel, or even finding enrichment in a mental decluttering.
The experience of working in consumer-driven cities like Dubai and Singapore convinced teacher Iunia Pasca she needed to cut loose. “I couldn’t understand these consumer-focused cities, peppered with shopping malls,” she says. “I figured all that energy people put into shopping could be put into deriving personal meaning instead.”
Pasca, 33, left her job and spent 18 months travelling South America and India, living out of a backpack. “Having just eight kilos of belongings reinforced my understanding of how I didn’t need anything to make me happy,” Pasca says. “It was clear to me that the happiness I felt had nothing to do with how much or little I owned.”
At the end of her journey, Pasca realised she had changed. “I think I’d fully integrated in my being what it means to be happy and fulfilled in the absence of ‘stuff’. When I got home at the end of my trip I was horrified to see my closets overflowing with things. I immediately gave away 70 per cent of my belongings.”