Todays Post is another written by Barb McMahon from HappySimple.com
One of the hardest categories of stuff to get rid of as you work to unclutter your life is the stuff you get from others, especially the stuff you get from others who have died. There’s Great Aunt Ethel’s good china. Grandpa’s banjo. Books and papers and photographs. All of it precious, tied to this person you loved and now have lost.
It seems to wedge its way into your home, surrounded by equal parts memory and guilt. Getting rid of it can seem like getting rid of them. You’re afraid that if you lose the stuff, you might lose the memories, too. You might even fear that they themselves will be lost in a way they haven’t already been in death.
Continue reading →
Stress creeping up in your life? Your free time got eaten up by obligations (such as meetings, work/school assignments, “voluntary” commitments/overtime)? Using the 80/20 analysis, you can identify the certain outside pressures that are robbing your simple life. Want to learn what’s a fundamental secret to reclaiming it?
Continue reading →
Todays Post is another written by Barb McMahon from http://happysimple.com
In my last guest post, I told you how I was able to give up books, which were my biggest stumbling block on the path to minimalism. You may have something else entirely that you’re having trouble giving up, but the process will be similar and step by step, if it’s something you really want to do, you will get there.
It can be a lot easier to give up traditional forms of media these days. There are e-book readers, iPods, laptops… and, ooh! Blackberries and iPads and cellphone cameras and regular digital cameras and…
Each one of these things, by themselves, can make your life easier. They can replace a huge pile of old style media. The problem is that they’re so cool that it’s easy to talk yourself into buying each and every one of them and before you know it, you’ve replaced one form of clutter with another.
At least the print books never needed recharging!
Continue reading →
Today’s post is the next in a series of guest posts from authors in our quest to find some regular authors for The Minimalist Path. Please let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.
Todays is written by Barb McMahon from http://happysimple.com/
In the course of simplifying your life, there are steps that will be really easy to take and steps that will be much more of a challenge.
For me, giving up TV, a dryer and CD’s (back in the day) was so easy as to not require a second thought. The challenges? Magazines. And books. The magazine habit was conquered two years ago, when we moved house twice in two months. Those suckers were heavy! Plus all the information I need and then some is available online and if ever I desire the comfort of flipping pages, I can borrow magazines from my local library.
All the same, of course, can be said of books, but the emotional connection ran a lot deeper.
Continue reading →
