How to Handle Holiday Clutter
How to Handle Holiday Clutter: An interview with Joshua Becker.
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Interviews are always best in audio. Listen here!
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Joshua Becker lives with his wife + two children in Arizona. After a conversation with their neighbor on Memorial Day 2008, they decided to intentionally live with fewer possessions.
Joshua’s blog, Becoming Minimalist,offers a rational approach to minimalism including the joys, struggles + lessons learned.
The CBS Evening News, NPR, the Boston Globe, the Wall Street Journal + countless media interviews around the world have covered the family’s journey. Their books have sold tens of thousands of copies.
Purchase Joshua’s new book, The Minimalist Home, here.
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Holiday clutter comes in many forms. Joshua Becker gives us his best tips for handling the two biggest culprits: decorations + gifts.
Holiday Decorations:
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Have yourself a merry little … well, physical boundary.
If you have 4 boxes of Christmas decorations, consider paring down to just a single box. One box becomes your physical boundary + you’re therefore forced to keep only your most favorite decorations.
Keeping a physical boundary also forces questions of importance: What’s important to me? What’s actually worth keeping? What do I actually enjoy putting out, year after year?
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Remember that everything has a clutter cost: There’s a benefit to everything we keep; there are burdens to keeping things, too, including financial burdens, time burdens + space burdens.
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“I believe gift-giving is a love language. It’s something we do to express love to others. I don’t want to take that opportunity away from my parents who want to show love to my children.
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3. Gifts
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For your own children
Consider the Want/Need/Read/Share gifting blueprint that many minimalists swear by.
Redirect gift-giving habits into something that’s beneficial to the family unit. A family vacation or experience may have benefits that last longer than the new ‘It’ trinket.
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For extended family
Give lists to extended family members early in the holiday season.
When creating lists, consider the following:
– Needs over wants
– Quality over quantity
– Experiences over possessions
– Consumables over non-consumables
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One final tip:
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Create breathing room in your home: Declutter BEFORE the holidays arrive. The result? Holiday clutter won’t seem quite so overwhelming. Here are 5 spaces to declutter before the holidays.
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