Do I sound as monotone as I look? Minimalism…engaged—starting with your clothes

Simplifying life to make room for more travel and freedom

When I started my whole minimalism “purge,” the first things to go were quite a few mountains of clothing. The result has been a monumentally easier situation, with much less time spent sorting, deciding on outfits, and generally being nagged by at least one annoying chore.

I’ve coined it “the Sin City effect.”

Think about it. Those folks in Sin City have really embraced the minimalism concept. They probably do like one load a week, tops…and never with any sorting! It’s all black! Except that woman in the red dress, of course. She kind of throws a wrench into the whole concept.

I had to at least get started toward more minimalism in my life

So that’s what I did. I essentially purged down all of my clothing, making sure that the vast majority of what I kept were in the dark color range. Mostly down to blacks and blues to be honest, but with dark reds as well. Saucy. 

Now, if you’re heading down this minimalism road and live in an area that gets wicked hot or a lot of sun, you’ll definitely want to keep a handful of lights colored clothing. That will help when you’re in the heat.

That said, I haven’t found it a huge downer, even though I live in the humid south. Also, since my very few pieces of light-colored clothing nearly never make up a full load, it’s usually time to wash the sheets when I gets some whites to wash, so it works out.

I also paired myself down to two minimal belts made out of environmentally friendly and humane nylon webbing and two interchangeable aluminum buckles. With that, I have four belt combinations that pretty much work for everything, and I still look mildly stylin’ and profilin’.

Now I literally only do 1-2 loads of laundry a week, and only when that basket fills enough…with virtually no sorting.

If you’ve made it this far, I bet you may be thinking: 

“Jason, that seems a bit extreme. Have you taken your pill today?”

Well. No. But regardless…

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You may also be asking if I look the same all of the time. I really don’t think that is an issue since I still own plenty of combinations and I doubt anyone even notices. And, this isn’t really about “anyone”, this is about me…and well, you! 

This is about mental and personal freedom which is being increased by a choice to embrace the freedom of minimalism.

Anybody that would naysay probably doesn’t get how positive the effect has been for me personally, so why would I worry about those opinions anyway?

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The whole underlying idea of minimalism and simplification is that things are just…simpler.

Here are some of the snowball effect results of this little minimalism tweak:

• Nearly everything matches, so picking out clothes to wear is easy
• Laundry day is any day the basket gets full
• I’m down to needing only one basket
• My hamper is hella small now (well, it’s really just that one basket I just mentioned…)

Here’s the biggie: The thought of doing laundry never nags on my brain anymore! 

Fewer clothes means less laundry, and it also makes packing for a trip easy peasy. Less furniture (for storing clothes [read: laundry]) means fewer places for dirt and dust to hide, which means a cleaner house.

Fewer vehicles means less maintenance, less insurance, and less “oh sh*t, I left that in the other car.”

Fewer things in the kitchen cabinets mean more space, and more importantly, less chance for dishes to stack up in the sink. Do the math, add it up, and less really is more.

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All of these things equal less chores and more time on my hands for playing, traveling and exploring!

Think about how you could simplify yourself and your home life a little bit. You don’t have to go all deep end like me and get rid of 75% of your clothing in a single weekend—although I think you might thank me later if you do. Just set a small goal and start to simplify a bit. 

Baby steps.

Rip off the Band-Aid; it won’t be easy. But once you do you just might find that you have plans next weekend doing more of the same!

Cheers!
—Jason