I have a confession to make . . . I HATE CLEANING! I absolutely despise it. I avoid it at all costs. I decided I wanted a bigger house so cleaning up would be easier. I rationalized that it would be easier if everything had a place. Sounds logical right!? HA! No such luck. With a bigger house came more stuff and more stuff meant more cleaning. I cleaned and cleaned and cleaned my life away with my big house that was supposed to make my life easier.
One of the driving forces for me to become a minimalist was it promised I wouldn't have to do nearly as much cleaning as before! WOW! What an amazing promise! Guess what?! Minimalism delivered! After I got rid of nearly 70% of my stuff, cleaning my house was a breeze! One of my favourite minimalist quotes is "Minimalism doesn't mean always clean. It means easily tidied." It's been 100% true for me. While I spend most of my day cleaning prior to minimizing, afterwards, I found I had all of this time on my hands! I was able to play games on the floor with my kids (also the less furniture meant more floor space for toy motorcycle races!).
Then something really weird happened. I remember texting my friend how excited I was to mop my floors. I think she just laughed at me but it was such a pivotal moment for me. I still would rather draw than clean but I tell you, that time it took to minimize was worth the thousands of hours it saved me from cleaning.
WHY SIMPLIFY? MUCH MUCH less cleaning