1. I tried to convince my kids to keep things!
Unless your kids are throwing out priceless family heirlooms let them get rid of their stuff. You can always look through it before you donate it and keep clothes and items that a younger sibling may want when they are older.
Just limit yourself to one plastic box and keep only the things that you are 99% sure that your younger children will want.
Younger siblings tend to have too many toys and overflowing closets of clothes because they inherit hand-me-downs and receive new clothes and toys on special occasions.
This does not help them in the long run if they are never allowed to get rid of things they don’t like or need.
If your middle child wants to get rid of things that your smallest child may want box it up and put it in the garage.
Don’t let your younger children live in overstuffed rooms this teaches them behavior that they will carry with them into adulthood.
2. I didn’t drive the ‘Donation Boxes’ to the secondhand store immediately.
I realized that you can’t just decrease the amount of stuff in your house and leave it in your storage room or garage.
Before I could even finish minimizing our house stuff started to creep back in from the storage rooms.
My younger kids followed their brother’s example and found some things they could get rid of, but I made the mistake of leaving them in the storage room.
Several months later it was back in their rooms! They saw it in the storage room one day and wanted it back.
They hadn’t asked about it or wanted to play with it for months, and if I had gotten rid of it right away as they asked me to this wouldn’t have been a problem.
It wasn’t just the kids’ rooms that had this problem. Things crept back into all areas of the house. Now it’s time to press the restart button!
3. I saved way too many hand-me-down clothes for my youngest child.
The whole storage room was full of boxes of children’s clothes. They were all labeled and sorted in different sizes, but it was way more clothes than my youngest child could possibly wear before she grew out of them.
Even after my third child was born (A girl) and we were not planning to have any more kids I was holding on to boys’ clothes from when my youngest was little.
When a couple of friends were expecting I finally got inspired to go through all the excess clothes and give them away.
Sometimes it’s much easier to give when you know where it’s going and who will be using it.
My youngest was three and a half when I started the process of giving things away. She is really particular so I let her help decide what to keep. Just by asking her what she liked cut the piles in half.
It’s good so save clothes for younger siblings just make sure it’s not more than you can reasonably use.
4. I held on to expensive baby items way longer than necessary.
I finally realized I was keeping things in case we accidentally got pregnant. These were expensive items to buy like the crib, stroller, and baby carrier backpacks.
I didn’t want to buy them again. Yes, it’s expensive to buy baby stuff, but there are lots of used items out there at a fraction of the original cost.
It’s possible to borrow things from family and friends or try buying things together with friends who need the items at a different time than you do.
High-quality winter clothing can be shared by up to 3 families as long as the children need it in different years.
5. I kept kitchen gadgets I knew I would never use again.
If like me you wish you hadn’t spent your money on the latest onion chopper gadget, the grapefruit peeler, and the cherry pitter you are not alone.
Often the reason we hold on to items is because we spent good money on them. We think that this warrants keeping them even if we know we will never use them again.
Often items that do more than one thing are best. Like a knife that can peel a grapefruit and pit a cherry. Items that ‘specialize’ in one thing often promise more than they can deliver and leave us disappointed.
Not to mention the space all these single-use items take up in our drawers!
6. I used the phrase ‘Just in case’
‘Just in case’ is often what we tell ourselves before we keep something we have no use for.
Save your self the trouble of delayed decisions.
Just in case just means that next time you clean your storage room you’ll have to stop and think and make a decision about that item all over again.
Save yourself some time and quit using the phrase ‘Just in case.
If the item is not adding to your happiness, if it’s not so beautiful you can’t live without it, if you have no use for it, if you do not see yourself using it in the next year, Let it go!
7. I threw out things that were not mine.
In my minimizing enthusiasm, I threw out an electric desk fan that belonged to my son.
I didn’t know my husband gave it to him and I hadn’t seen anyone use it for a long time, so I took it to the secondhand store.
When in the middle of a hot summer my son started asking where his fan was i realized my mistake.
Fortunately, it was only a 10 dollar mistake. I bought him a new fan and everything was hunky-dory again.
8. I assumed I was keeping most of my pictures
We saved all the pictures we ever printed, even the bad pictures and their duplicates.
It was finally time to go through them and only save the good pictures we wanted to put in an album.
The problem was that I assumed I was going to keep most of the pictures. I went through them and decided which ones I would throughout. This was a huge mistake and cost me lots of time.
I had to go through all the pictures again!
The second time I assumed I was throwing out all the pictures and only keeping the best. This helped me tremendously. I was able to pick the one picture I really liked and get rid of all the duplicates and similar pictures.
Most of us take 10 or even 20 pictures of the same thing now that everything is digital.
Change your mindset and you’ll get through your photos in no time.
9. I never set a date to finish by.
It was like walking uphill. I never actually finished decluttering the first time around, because I decluttered a little at a time and stuff came into the house at about the same rate it went out!
Take some time to do a fast declutter and get through all your stuff. This should take you about six months at the most one year.
Then you can sit back and enjoy your newly cleaned space!
10. I took way too long to make decisions about trivial items.
When I finally had time to declutter I would stand there and hold an item and weigh the pros and cons of keeping vs. letting go!
This took forever!!! Save yourself some time and get rid of whole categories.
If you can decide you no longer do a certain kind of craft project,or never use the workout equipment you bought, or your kids never play with their wooden train set.
Get rid of the whole category.
Good Luck!
If you need help minimizing with kids ckeck out my other blog posts. Click below.
Minimalism and ADHD with Kids
Decluttering kids toys and other monsters in their rooms.
A Monochrome bedroom decreased my daughters stress and ADHD
The page ‘The inspiration for my blog’ is about how our minimalism journey started.
The inspiration for my blog
If you have any questions or comments you can send them to annie@theadhdminimalist.com.
