Realistic Minimalism for Busy Moms: Striving for Simplicity

Whenever I start to feel overwhelmed (which is often as a mom of 2 young kids), I get obsessive about decluttering my home. It has become a form of stress management for me.

It’s a small way to feel a little bit more in control of my own life and less weighed down by all the excess. Plus, a minimalist aesthetic gives me a little boost of happiness in day-to-day life.

Clearing the clutter is also a good exercise in gaining some clarity. Clarity about what is and is not important, on both a physical and mental health level. Additionally, less stuff/less clutter means less time spent managing stuff and cleaning stuff.

As a busy mom of two young rambunctious children, these are all things I can appreciate. 

Let me be clear though, I do not have an Instagram-worthy minimalist home. It’s a work in progress and probably always will be.

I am striving though, to adopt a minimalist approach and make simple living a way of life. I share this because I think many moms and aspiring minimalists can relate!

Intentional Living for Busy Moms

Finding the time to declutter can be difficult when small children are running around the house. It is possible to do it though, just in small chunks at a time. So I try to keep in mind that my deep desire to declutter our entire house in a day is not realistic. 

Decluttering is a slow process as a mom with kids in tow.

As I continue to try and declutter my home, I am also trying to understand on a deeper level why letting go of things that I do not want or like is so difficult. Or why I keep buying things that do not add much to my life or my family’s life. I know that this says something about my mental and emotional life, beyond the physical clutter. 

Addressing Mental Clutter

We do not have to do an emotional deep dive and try to solve all of our problems before decluttering, but we do need to acknowledge that we may have areas of struggle.

We need to take a few moments to do a mental wellness check and look at what is bothering us beyond our physical clutter. Here are some questions I like to ask myself before going on a decluttering binge;

• What am I feeling right now? Stress? Overwhelm? Frustration? Sadness? Anger?
• What specifically is making me feel this way?
• What needs do I have that are not being met?

We do not have to come up with definitive answers and solutions to our problems, we just have to recognize that we may be dealing with more than just a messy home. We are dealing with real-life problems and big human emotions.

Just acknowledging this, can help approach decluttering your physical space with more realistic expectations. 

I also find that when I acknowledge my feelings or a problem I am facing, it becomes less daunting simply with that acknowledgment. Putting words to the problems makes them feel smaller somehow. If they can be contained with words, I am not going to drown in them. 

Social Media and Emotional Clutter

Often social media creates feelings of guilt and dissatisfaction among consumers because they compare themselves to what they’re seeing online.

Usually, the content they are viewing has been heavily curated though, and is not reflective of reality. Or if it is, it’s not a reality that is realistic for many people, due to individual circumstances.

One aspect of social media I am decluttering from my life is watching parenting reels on Facebook and Instagram. Too often I see a reel depicting happy parents with their perfect angel children skipping through a field together. There is accompanying audio and text explaining that parents should not miss out on their kids’ younger years, because they only get one chance. 

Or, parents explaining that other parents need to be on their parenting game and giving their children the time of their lives, whether parents are tired or burnt out.

I simply do not think that these general statements should be shared with other parents who are struggling to keep it all together. It’s simply not helpful and it’s a great example of toxic positivity. 

While the sentiment behind these reels is well-intended, these types of reels lead to some unrealistic expectations about parenting and put me in a horrible mood. I think of them and then feel pangs of guilt and feel like the worst parent ever as I struggle to keep it together as an overstimulated and burnt-out mom.

So, no more watching parenting reels on social media for me. 

Since social media is such a big part of our culture these days, it’s worth asking yourself if any aspects of it are creating mental and emotional clutter for you. Take note of how you feel after consuming social media content, because sometimes we may not fully realize how much it is impacting our mental health.

If there are aspects that are clogging up your busy mom brain, then it’s time to let it go. Remove an app from your phone or unfollow whatever accounts are not helpful for you. 

Practical Steps to Tackle The Physical Clutter

Before diving into storage space and that closet packed full of who knows what, it’s worth taking the time to make a plan. Otherwise, you may end up with a closet full of stuff on your kitchen counter or bedroom closet, without the motivation to complete the declutter process. 

1. Know what questions to ask yourself when decluttering. Write down questions you will ask yourself when deciding whether or not to keep or donate/sell/trash an item. It’s so easy to say, “I should keep this just in case”. If you have some definitive questions on hand though, you can think more clearly about whether or not you want to keep an item around.

   
   Here are the 2 questions I always ask myself when decluttering; When was the last time I used this? And, can I think of a specific instance in the future when I know I will use this?

2. Declutter in baby steps. Most moms do not have a full day to themselves to declutter their homes. 5-10 minutes here or there is more realistic. So when it comes to minimizing as a mom, a bite-sized approach is the way to go.
   
   
3. Carefully consider future purchases. Since becoming a mom of 2, retail therapy has become a thing for me. So, I am now exploring other ways I can feel that hit of dopamine. I have started doing yard work and small doses of exercise in my spare moments.

   
   Not quite as exciting as going on a treasure hunt at the thrift store, but I’m so tired of dealing with stuff in our home that I know some alternate forms of “therapy” are in order. Tidy homes stay tidy because there are fewer things to tidy than houses that are jam-packed full of unused stuff.

4. Create systems. Without systems, everything will quickly return to its former state after cleaning and organizing. A permanent home for all items around the house along with cleaning routines will have the biggest impact long term.  

The Power of Prioritizing

As a stay-at-home mom of a 1-year-old and 4-year-old, I do not have a lot of free time. Life is busy and days with kids are go-go-go. So if there are things I want to get done that are not directly related to my kids, I have to prioritize and make a schedule for when I am going to do those things. 

Prioritizing and accepting limitations are powerful steps toward simple living.  

As I get better at prioritizing, I can see what the important things are more clearly. I’m not distracted by the endless lists of to-dos. I pick the most important things to get done and let the rest go. At least for the moment. 

I try to keep a hierarchy of mom life needs in my mind, and refer to it when I’m feeling scattered and unfocused. Here is my order of priorities, more or less;

• Family members’ safety.
• Sleep.
• Our family’s health (physical and mental).
  This includes prioritizing whole food nutrition, family meal planning, physical activity, and emotional awareness.
• Kids’ activities outside the house.
• Time spent outdoors.
• Playtime with other kids.

Striving for Financial Independence

When you have enough money to live without having to work, you have achieved financial independence. Most people get to this point by saving money and investing. Luckily, saving money usually comes with living a simpler life, and in turn a more peaceful one!

Small ways for families to start saving more;

• Buy secondhand. Buy household furniture, clothes, and anything else you can at thrift stores rather than buying new.
• Utilize your local library for books and audiobooks. Check out the libby app to borrow library books to read from your phone. 
• Buy fewer toys. Your kids probably need fewer toys than you think.
• Remember that the simple life is a sweet life. You do not need a lot of things to luxuriate in the small things that bring joy to life. A delicious homemade cup of coffee, for example, can bring just as much if not more joy than buying a cup of coffee that costs 5 times more. 
• Start Family Meal Planning. Clip those rewards and digital coupons with your local grocery store’s app.
• Look for free kids’ events. Your local library or your local moms’ Facebook group are great resources for this.

Minimalism in Process: Home Tour

Here I will share pictures of my slow decluttering process as a mom. You will not see any instagram-worthy pictures, but rather a real home of a family aspiring towards a more minimalist lifestyle.

Closets

There is room for serious improvement in the closets in our home. This is probably true for many family homes. Most visitors who see our home probably think we are pretty tidy people. They do not see the insides of our closets though, so here’s a sneak peek…

The goal is to have only as much stuff as can comfortably fit into these closets. I have been having a hard time finding things in them, so I know it’s time to declutter. I also know that we do not need or use a lot of what is in them.

Since having a second child, I have noticed the number of clothes in my closet has grown quite a bit. I look back on my post about Minimalist Practices to Help Prevent Parent Burnout from a few years ago and look in awe at a picture of my sparse closet back then. 

Part of my clothing explosion has to do with my changing body and need for different clothes while pregnant and then adjusting to postpartum life again, but mostly it just has to do with shopping a little bit too much.

As for the other closets, I do not even know what is in them. These may take a while to address. 

Stay tuned for a follow-up post with pictures once I have decluttered all these closets!

Kitchen

Our kitchen is another area where there is room for improvement. For one, it’s under a small remodel. So it never looks all that nice at the moment.

Beyond that though, we have a never-ending pile of dirty dishes and random papers flying around. So we need to create some better systems around cleaning and keeping random items at bay. 

Some good organization and decluttering kitchen hacks for us so far though, have been the following;

• Fruit hammock to keep countertops clear
• Lazy Susan to house a few food and coffee items that we use every day or nearly every day
• A small countertop plant for aesthetic joy
• Putting platters and other dishes that are only used when guests are staying with us or for special occasions in a box in the garage.
• Hanging knife and kitchen tools wall

Playrooms

Playrooms can get pretty wild if kids have too many toys. Especially after the holiday season, toys tend to pile up on top of one another. I have started filtering through toys and given some thought to the question, How Many Toys Do Kids Need?

Minimalist Oases

Guiding Principles for My Aspiring Minimalist Home

Minimize visual clutter. Too much stuff on shelves and walls can create visual clutter. So having clear spaces on tables and counters, as well as some white walls showing through can be a good way to minimize visual clutter and create less chaos. 

Make space. Especially with young kids, open space to run, jump, and dance is so important! For families living in a small space, remember that kids can do some serious dance moves with just a couple of square feet of clearance.  

Don’t use it, lose it. Busy families do not have the time to deal with stuff that is not actively contributing to a functional happy life. Nobody does really. A family needs space for things that are functional and that they regularly use.

Sometimes I know I do not use something, but for whatever reason, I cannot let it go. In these cases, I try to think about why I am having difficulty letting it go. There is usually some kind of emotional attachment to the object. Something I haven’t quite worked through. So I will set the item aside in a box, and revisit it another day. 

Automate daily life tasks in the home. What daily processes can be simplified? Just putting something on a more accessible shelf can change the tone of a busy morning as your kids are making a million demands.

For more ideas on ways to take care of yourself as a busy mama, consider a Circadian Clock Reset or implementing some Alone Time.