What were the hardest things to get rid of, and how did you manage? And what categories of things do you have most of? If you wouldn’t mind sharing, I think this could be highly inspirational

With regard to your closing question, having 5 children is not hypocritical (rather, it’s impressive!) Minimalism is all about removing unneccessary stuff and activities, so that the important stuff can get the attention it deserves. It’s not necessarily about actually having or doing less, although the would be a prerequisite to most, it’s just about proritizing deliberately. So, I suppose that loving 5 children and doing stuff with your family is what YOU really love, and a primary motivation to stay minimal. From that point of view, going minimal and you NOT having 5 kids would be hypocritical, because it would defeat the promise and true purpose of minimalsm

I got you on my feed now, keep it all up

Best regards
Kristian Sørensen
Denmark

Have cut my possessions down to 96 things… including books, cooking utensils and clothes. Its easy for me – Im single.

Cheers

Anand B. from India

Dave
LifeExcursion

“Living with enough” sounds perfect. It’s a great way of describing a lifestyle where you just have only what you need and nothing more.

So true living in a commericalized society where we’re constantly bombarded with ads and images that say “we need this” or “you need that”. It’s a resistance against the “norm”.

cl

Great pics with the office! And the bathroom looks immaculate too.

I agree with you. You’ve got to get the “better-half” involved if this is going to be a success. My suggestion is to do what you can now (as in cleaning and decluttering whatever you can) and I’m sure she’ll come around. She may even applaud you on taking this on by yourself and will be impressed.

I can’t see how anyone could not want less clutter in their life. I’m sure she won’t be hard to convince. The results speak for the themselves.

Chris

Here’s a before and after shot:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/chris-emerson/3900182793/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/chris-emerson/3900962638/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/chris-emerson/3904988943/in/photostream/

Now I’m trying to figure out what room to do next – but mostly I need to figure out how to get the wife into the concept because her “agreement” is pretty much mandatory if I want to do anything in other rooms of the house.

Anyhow – thanks for this article!

His book (the Power of Less) is amazing and has been acting as my “guide” through all of this. I’ve read it twice and constantly refer back to it.

Once you read it, I’m sure you’ll start implementing his strategies immediately.

Chris…

I just had to comment after reading this post. Pretty much all the decluttering you’ve been doing is the same as my wife and I have done the past few months. We’re still learning the habit of keeping stuff clean though, especially the car – with a 5 month old boy it seems we have a whole lot of extra stuff now (baby bag, buggy etc) that we *have* to have anytime we go out.

Cheers,
Elliot