I’m moving to a new place today. I’m bummed to leave Surry Hills, but I won’t be far away. My new spot is just on the other side of Oxford Street, in the lovely suburb of Darlinghurst.
Packing up my things reminded me of my promise for this new year to consumes less. It’s shocking how much I’ve seem to have collected over the last year and a half while living in Sydney. When I moved here I brought four large suitcases (shoes and clothing mostly). I definitely couldn’t fit my belongings now into those same four suitcases. What’s even worse is that I have stuff back in Ohio still. Stuff I haven’t used in 2+ years, collecting dust.
I do think that it’s a physiological challenge to battle “owning” things. I’m not a crazy hoarder or obsessive compulsive shopper by any means, but I don’t think I have the mindset (right now) to own less. I don’t understand what it means to be a minimalist. It’s something I have to work on changing and it’s not as simple as “just getting rid of stuff.”
Do you feel like owning too much “stuff” weighs you down? Any advice you can share?
Hannah DeMilta 
You don’t have that much left in Ohio. #littlesisterclothingstealer
Hi Hannah.
I recently went to a workshop that applied the Kaizen (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaizen) approach to de-cluttering. Was pretty interesting. I’ve certainly found that regular ‘inventories’ of items (of a physical, virtual and psychological nature) is a good starting point – just like diets often begin with diarising the various forms of food intake.
Donnie