Minimalism Made Easy: Our Family's Guide to Year-End Cleaning
By Jeannie Kim
Every December, we have a monotonous but important tradition—spring cleaning the whole apartment. This tradition started off, surprisingly, with my husband. He has been a diligent and brutal spring cleaner since he was a teenager, and he loves minimalism—to the point where we lived with no television and no couch for a year because we didn’t need them. It can be very frustrating but it’s a quality that I admire in my husband, as it shows he doesn’t need much in his life to be satisfied and he’s an extremely tidy man.
My husband, Ken, is ruthless when it comes to cleaning out what he believes are unnecessary items in the house. He thinks that clearing out junk will not only make the apartment cleaner but also make us feel happier whenever we open typically messy areas, like closets and drawers. His philosophy probably sounds familiar, and so it should, because it’s very similar to “Spark Joy” by KonMari, except his clearing out principles are based on practicality and functionality. So, in this article, I will share my husband’s cleaning and clearing routine that he has followed for 20 years.
Three categories
Ken’s rule of thumb for spring cleaning is: if you haven’t touched it for six months then it’s time to chuck it out. Every year, he categorizes items into three piles:
- still using;
- haven’t seen anyone touch it for six months;
- looks like it has never been used.
Items that are still in use get cleaned, while items that haven’t been touched in six months are packed in boxes and stored in a closet. If, after another six months, they haven’t been touched, they are thrown away. There’s no rummaging around in the box to see what we might need; instead, we ruthlessly trash the lot. Meanwhile, items that have never been used are immediately disposed of.
Whenever my husband sees an item that he doesn’t recognize, he asks me: “What is this for?” If my answers are along the lines of “I have no idea”, the item goes straight to the trash. His logic is that if we don’t know what the item is for and it has been untouched for six months, then it’s taking up some of our precious space. Because my husband has been doing this for 20 years, the “untouched for six months” pile isn’t very big, and this is a godsend since we live in an apartment with limited storage space.
Ken’s spring cleaning routine is so ingrained in our lives that it has become second nature. Until we had our son anyway!
Decluttering when you have kids
Spring cleaning with a two-year-old is somewhat trickier since there are more treasured mementos to keep. Unfortunately, for my husband, his methods are still brutal, so we have moments when we keep moving items like gifted clothes and toys for Kai between the “still using” and “haven’t touched for six months” piles. Eventually, my husband gave in to my pleas to keep these treasured items, and they’ve been stored in a permanent keepsake box.
Other items of Kai’s, such as clothes and shoes, get sorted into three piles: keep, throw out, or donate. We obviously throw out heavily stained clothing or broken toys. But clothing or toys that are still in good condition, we either pass on to our friends, or to our nanny, who then gives them to her friends’ children.
A systematic approach
If you’re feeling inspired and want to follow my husband’s systematic approach to end-of-year cleaning, here it is:
1. Work room by room, taking out all the items.
2. Kitchen: throw out all expired products and keep note of how empty the packaging is. If it’s relatively empty but expired, then throw out the expired item and put that product on your shopping list. Take note of regularly used items and put them on a monthly “stocktake list”. This stocktake list is something to check every month, which is particularly handy for monthly sales, such as on Lazada.
3. Living room: take out all items and place them in three piles: “still using”, “haven’t touched in six months”, or “throw out”. Any items that look extremely worn or broken go in the throw-out pile. Any items that are frequently used, such as tissues, are placed on the monthly “stocktake list”.
4. Bedroom: take all clothes out of the closet. Clothes immediately go into the “throw out” pile if they are too torn, or if you haven’t worn them at all for the past year. If you haven’t worn them for the past year, but you feel like you may wear them again over the next year, put them in a “six-to-twelve-month box”. If you don’t wear them in the next twelve months, then it’s a sign they should be donated, sold, or thrown out. If you still wear the clothes on an occasional or everyday basis, then fold them neatly and put them back in the closet.
5. Bathroom: take all items out of the vanity and drawers. Again, discard all items that are expired or smell “off”. My husband also throws out all unused hotel amenities that I have hoarded over the past year—which makes sense because I end up never using them and they always look out of place in my bathroom drawers.
6. Kids’ toys: throw out all broken toys. Donate toys that your kids haven’t touched for the past year. Keep toys that they still play with.
7. Kids’ bedroom(s): throw out all clothes that are too small and well-worn. Donate all good quality clothes that your kids have outgrown. Keep clothes that they still wear.
I hope your newly decluttered home brings you a sense of calm and cleanliness.
About the Author
Jeannie is currently pursuing an honors degree in psychology with a focus on clinical applications. Prior to this, she was an acupuncturist specializing in fertility, stress management, and pain relief in Sydney for 12 years. With her unique blend of Eastern and Western therapeutic approaches and maternal perspective, as feature writer, Jeannie promises a valuable contribution to BAMBI Magazine.