How To Find Freedom In Reduction (Reduce Clutter In Your Life)

You know how freedom feels- snow days, walking out the doors to leave a job you hate, sleeping in under the cool sheets with the sun dancing across the bed. Just...ah. That heart-rushing- full-body exhale- giddy feeling. That's the kind of freedom I'm talking about when I say there's freedom in reducing clutter and letting go.

When we remove the heaviness and distraction, it just feels good.

You choose your chains

We all have the ability to choose what we allow to weigh us down. It's not a matter of right and wrong, but it is certainly a trade-off.

There's nothing wrong, per se, with owning a mansion filled with high-end belongings. But if you have to maintain a workaholic lifestyle to pay for it, that's a tradeoff.

If you want to travel, your mortgage doesn’t stop, your lawn still needs to be tended to, and the cat needs to be fed. These ties are choices. Again, I'm not saying to ditch your cat! (I would never part with my pup, Charlie). But you see my point. Worth it or not, the choice is yours. You choose your chains.

Everything you own requires something from you. You have to tend to it, clean it, recharge it, put it away, and share a piece of your personal space. Even free things aren't free. This is a major reason why minimalism has become so appealing to so many people.

So many spend years living in home environments that cause incredible stress and then respond with defeat- like there's no way around it. But, as we've established, you always have a choice.

If laundry management makes your day suck, try reducing your clothes and towels. See how that feels. Tired of having a constant load in the dishwasher? Reduce the dishes in your home.

Reduce the number of things you say "yes" to and ruthlessly prune your schedule. Time and energy are precious resources. The good news is that it's actually not that difficult to adjust to living with less than you are right now.

Don't be a victim of the sunk cost fallacy

The sunk cost fallacy is the reasoning we give ourselves for putting more into something (time, energy, money, etc.) just because we've already invested so much. It's a fallacy because this reasoning doesn't support better results.

Although we perceive something's value as increasing with investment, the value of that thing never actually increases. At the same time, psychology dictates that we do become more emotionally tied to that thing making it more difficult to abandon. Richard H. Thaler, in 1980, said, "the fact that people often demand much more to give up an object than they would be willing to pay to acquire it", is called The Endowment Effect.

This is how we end up holding onto rarely used items we struggle to let go of. What if we didn't hang so tight to these fears and useless worries about perceived value and instead opted to find freedom in reduction?

"Reduce" is a beautiful word | Freedom in reduction

So, think of all of that heavy, overwhelming, mentally taxing stuff. It might be stuff in your home, in your schedule, or in your life as a whole. (I have a whole other article on decluttering your life)! Now, how good would it feel to just let it go? How yummy would it feel to shake it off, create breathing room, reclaim your mental and physical space, and say "no"? That, my friend, is why "reduce" is a beautiful word.

It may feel counterintuitive to let go when you've been so afraid of dropping the ball; it may feel odd that less could be more or that rejecting could have a good meaning...but when you do it right, it's the most freeing sensation. There can be so much freedom in reduction.