Oouosji and the art of Living with Less

Today’s post was inspired by this article I read about Oouosji, the Japanese tradition of cleaning out for the new year. The article got me up out of my chair clearing out the holiday decor and giving the house a little spiffing up!

January is also the official Get Organized month (Go-Month) and Organizers, magazines and media across the nation are promoting getting more organized.  The new year is a perfect time to start fresh and getting organized ranks a top resolution for many people.   I always love getting a little more organization, especially after letting a few things go over the holidays.  Since most of our belongings are in storage I’ve turned my attention towards digital and electronic organizing, including unread emails and blog posts in my RSS reader.  Here are some of the ways I’m simplifying, getting things organized and trying to live with less.

• Whittled the blogs I subscribe to down to those I really enjoy reading and those that didn’t focus on stuff-I love the eye candy but don’t need the additional temptation! (I didn’t keep track of how many I got rid of but this is my second round of clearing out in the past month).
• Evaluated the twitter feeds I follow and reduced them by about 15%.
• Went through my two email accounts (one for personal use the other for newsletters, stores, coupons etc…) to delete and unsubscribe (see Unroll.me) from anything that no longer interests me.  I usually do this a couple times a year at minimum.
• Went through all my digital photo files and deleted unwanted images and duplicates.  At the same time I’m adding tags and ratings in Lightroom and backing it all up to an external drive. (This is an ongoing project since I have Thousands of photo’s)
• Sorted through music to delete unwanted or duplicate songs while creating playlists and rankings.  (This is an ongoing project I will finished at the end of January 2012)

Among all those emails I was clearing out there was this great article over at Becoming Minimalist.

“Owning less is far more beneficial than organizing more.“-Joshua Becker

I got to thinking about how we are currently living with all our stuff is in storage (when I wrote this in 2012-for 8 months!).  I’ve found myself craving a few of my things over the past 6 weeks, which consists mostly of clothes I wish I hadn’t packed, cooking tools and craft supplies.  Everything else I can live with out for now.  I’m sure after living without most of our possessions for months we will be much less attached and more likely to purge when we unpack.  Remind me of this will you when I get to that point?! 2017 update, Purging is a regular (weekly) practice for me but I’m as attached to my stuff as the next person and certainly don’t consider myself a minimalist but I am always looking for ways to embrace living with less!

I came across an article about this guys who only owns 15 items! I wouldn’t consider myself a minimalist but I constantly work to embrace a less is more philosophy and lifestyle. I am glad to say that our Christmas holiday was not “stuff” centered (true for the past 5 years or so!) and I mostly give consumables and donations (love Heiffer Intl).  I took some advice from the Joshua Becker article and grabbed one of the boxes we had gifts shipped in and filled it with stuff to give away…the process of living with less is one we have to continually re-evaluate and participate in.

Now as I take regular walks on the beach, I try keep this in mind and rather than pick up each little beautiful treasure I take a photo of it and release it (most of the time:).

Stuff comes, stuff goes and the less you let come in the less you have to let go of!