Beauty in Simplicity
Clearing mindfully for simplicity as well as for beauty can be very calming and harmonizing and fun, especially when we follow our heart.
Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.
—William Morris
When you think about it, our efforts to organize our possessions or clear them are mostly about improving functionality and lightening our load. Beauty is usually an afterthought.
What if each of us spent a week clearing an area of our home with the sole purpose of making it not only functional, but beautiful as well? Like art. What would be the effect of adopting beauty as an operating principle in every clearing task you take on?
There’s a useful tool that I presented in my first book, Your Spacious Self, that can help with this. I call it the “stay, go, throw, don’t know” pile method. It is a simple way of sorting and clearing your possessions on the fly while helping to clarify what stays, what goes, what matters, what doesn’t. It’s also useful as a memory aid whenever you feel overwhelmed or distracted.
While this process was originally designed to help you move through your stuff quickly and efficiently, like a card dealer at a casino, I might suggest a different, slower, approach: notice what happens when you attend to your piles and spaces more mindfully and reverently and beautifully.
Clearing mindfully for simplicity as well as for beauty can be very calming and harmonizing and fun, especially when we follow our heart.
Think of it as heart work, not hard work.1
Ahhh 🏡
Simplifying Challenge
What you’ve just read comes from “Clear for Beauty,” Chapter 13 of A Year for You — the book we are using to cultivate spaciousness by simplifying.
It’s not too late to join us in this ongoing journey.
The clearing for beauty using the “Four Pile” method outlined below — with weekly nudges from me and access to this clearing community — is being made available to all paid subscribers.
Learn more about the “Spacious Way to a Lighter You” clearing series HERE.
Clear for Beauty
