Minimalist Living: Decluttering for Joy, Health, and Creativity (4 page)

The benefits of minimalist living are, of course, all connected. Reaping financial benefits from downsizing your home can release stress and pressure in a marriage. Having more space in your home to pursue the way you really live your life and the things that you really enjoy can enhance a relationship. Instead of clambering over piles of stuff to get to
and enjoy each other, you can literally or metaphorically dance in the new open space you will create.

Speaking of creating, minimalist living can have an energizing effect on your creativity. Let's find out how in the next chapter.

CHAPTER FOUR

For Creativity

“Creativity is subtraction.”
— Austin Kleon

You know the fantasy. You enter a room, and
a sense of peaceful, creative energy envelops you. It's a calm place, with blank surfaces for writing, painting, or crafting. There's plenty of light. All the tools you need are available, organized, clean, and in places that make sense to you and to anyone else who needs to access them. Perhaps you got this fantasy from a magazine image or from visiting an artist’s studio or friend’s home. Maybe you thought that wasn't possible for you, with the way things get lost and the way supplies and clutter proliferate lustily. But it's achievable for you. You're going to learn the tools – both expected and unexpected – that will help you turn your clutter zones into spaces where your creativity can flourish, whether you need to be creative for work or play or both. If a more creative life is one of your goals, then decluttering your home, schedule, and thoughts is vital. I believe that we are all creators. We create art, relationships, products, and experiences. We even create our own bodies by what food we put in them and how we train and exercise them. We create our emotions and moods by what thoughts we choose to dwell on. Everyone is creative. Whether we think of ourselves as creative or not, we all create. Sometimes we create consciously, such as when writing a book, and sometimes unconsciously, such as when we engage in a bout of negative thinking, creating a bad mood for ourselves.

To consciously create requires room in our home, office or studio. Even more than room, we need time in our schedules. And
, most importantly, we need to let go of the thoughts that do not serve us. We need to declutter our mental space from the thoughts that hold us back from our highest creative potential.

Making Room

             
I took a survey of creative people to find out about their biggest frustrations regarding clutter in their homes, studios and offices. These are some of their responses on the topic of clutter and creativity:

“[I am frustrated by] having new items purchased and brought into the house without making the effort to first dispense with things we don’t need. Knowing that I should dispose of things responsibly, but not having sufficient priorities to the task to research where and how. I hate throwing things into the landfill that could be sent somewhere more usefully. Clutter is often the outcome of creative effort. My desk is always messiest when I have a lot of work on. The workshop too, but sweeping through and setting things right is essential, or I can't find anything, nor accomplish anything.

“[Clutter] distracts me and makes me feel like a worthless individual. I can’t get anything done until I clean it up.”

“[I’m frustrated when] my cleaning lady puts things in the wrong place all the time. My (paper) files aren't in order because we've moved so often and don't have enough file space, and when I need to find something, often I can't. If it's something crucial or time-dependent, I get anxious about it, usually at 2 in the morning or so. Half my books are still in storage and the rest aren't in order, which makes me feel disorganized.

“[I’m frustrated that clutter] makes me look disorganized even when I'm not. [Yet] it’s sometimes difficult to see everything I have when it's put away, which stops me from making connections. Sometimes one type of clutter (junk mail, etc) gets mixed in with another (yarn, painting things) and then it is hard to find things.

“Clutter is visual noise that prevents you from seeing clearly. It is visual agitation, or visual perturbation. It takes subconscious effort to ignore clutter, and this effort builds stress. The work environment itself is no less a work of art than the subject matter. It is the container, the birthplace, the medium through which other things happen. The subconscious sometimes allows clutter to develop so that creativity cannot be attempted, out of fear of failure, or through a lack of genuine interest in being creative. Being free of clutter is probably most important during the phase when decisions over creative objectives are being made.”

“I can't start anything productive without first clearing away the clutter in my work space, living area, and mind.”

“I cannot think clearly when a space is cluttered. I need a blank exterior environment so I can hear my interior world.”

“Clutter, for me, is like creative block because if it’s not tidy
, that sits in the back of my mind as a stressor and hinders my progress. I often find an outside source for creative outlet but would prefer my home.”

“[Clutter makes me feel] irritable and therefore unable to be productive and creative.”

“I have trouble concentrating on my writing when the house is cluttered - I keep thinking, ‘I should be working on this mess...’”

Clearly
, for many, clutter is an obstacle to creativity.

This may not be the case for you, however. When decluttering your space think first about what you want out of an ideal workspace. I interviewed writer-poet Austin Kleon regarding his workspace, clutter, and organization, and he had this to say:

I like a lot of light, which is easy to come by in Texas. I like to have a lot of books around and I like to have walls where I can pin up pieces of inspiration. I've worked in the same environment for over half a decade now — I have a little office at the landing of the stairs in our townhouse. There's no door, so it can sometimes be hard to concentrate and create boundaries between living and working, but then again, since I watch my son part time, there really isn't much boundary between my life and work right now anyways. The minute my son goes down for a nap, I'm back at the desk working.

[…]
 

One thing I talk about in
Steal Like An Artist
is having separate analog and digital desks. The analog desk is a distraction-free zone where you keep pens and paper. The digital desk is where everything electronic goes. I've found this breakdown has really helped me get into different modes with my work — the analog desk is where I get raw ideas and experiment and play, and the digital desk is where I do a lot of the executing of ideas — scanning artwork, Photoshopping, typing, sending emails, etc. The other day my wife sent me the Wikipedia link for "mise en place" which is a French cooking term that roughly translates to "everything in its right place." In professional kitchens, they'll have all the ingredients prepared and ready to go before they do the cooking. As messy as my office is, there are paths cleared to the work space, and everything's ready to go — I keep my drawing desk clear with a healthy supply of newspapers and markers, and I keep my laptop ready and waiting for me to sit down and immediately start writing.

             
In addition to the creative souls who feel stymied, distracted, or irritated by clutter, there are those who find being surrounded by diverse visual stimuli (AKA clutter) creatively inspiring.

             
Survey respondents who felt this way about clutter said things like:

“[Clutter] doesn't bother me very much. I make connections between materials that otherwise would not be available to me when I see a lot of things on my desk.”

“[Clutter makes me feel like] a bit of a cliché, free, chaotic. This is good.”

Kleon says regarding his “messy” work space, “While my work is subtractive, my studio space is additive – when I'm really deep into a project like I am right now, I like to really surround myself with inspiration and piles of junk. I like to have everything out where I can see it while I'm working. There's a great line from Ellen Ullman in Close to the Machine: “The disorder of the desk, the floor; the yellow Post-it notes everywhere; the whiteboards covered with scrawl: all this is the outward manifestation of the messiness of human thought.’ I'm not a bi
g ‘things organized neatly’ guy; I'm more of a "things spread out everywhere" guy.”

You can still be a minimalist if you share Kleon’s attitude towards creativity and clutter. If you prefer to work in an environment that's filled with “the outward manifestation of the messiness of human thought,” then your minimalist focus will be on decluttering your time and your thoughts so you create.

Making Time

When I lived in Los Angeles as an aspiring screenwriter, many of my friends were also writers who had day jobs. During our off hours, we would spend time chipping away at our latest screenplays in the hopes of improving our craft and, eventually, seeing our name under “written by” on the screen in a sold-out movie theater. Any time this group of friends would get together, there would always be a few who couldn’t make it because they were at home writing. “____ is writing tonight” was such a ubiquitous excuse that it became a joke and a euphemism for just about any other excuse someone could have for not showing up at a social event.

Even though once in a while “I have to write tonight,” was an excuse, the idea of clearing time for creativity is a great one. One key to clearing time in your schedule for creativity is to learn to use these two phrases:

1. No thank you.
   
2. Maybe — I’ll think about it.
   

I notice that creative and productive people have a lot of passion about a wide variety of topics and projects. That passion is wonderful, but it can lead to waste and burnout if it’s not focused on three projects or fewer at any given time. If you commit to projects, requests, and ideas willy-nilly, there will be one of two possible outcomes. The first is that you will forget, flake out, or drop the ball on some of these projects. That leads to you letting yourself down, or disappointing others if it was a team project. The second potential outcome, if you carry out all of your projects and commitments while continuing to pile on more, is that you will feel exhausted, drained, too-busy, bored, unfulfilled, trapped, and possibly resentful. So many of us are used to pleasing others at the cost of nurturing our own creativity. We agree to take part in too many activities and projects. That’s why, no matter how excited you are about a new idea, learning to say “no” or “maybe” is pivotal to living a peaceful, joyful, creative life as a minimalist.

Once it becomes easy to say “maybe,” you can make the gradual adjustment
to being a person who agreeably says “no” all the time. Practice aloud when you're alone:

“No thank you. I have to paint.”

“No thank you. I will be practicing the ukulele at that time.”

“No thank you. I will be creating my six-pack abs then.”

Of course, if it’s something you truly want to do, if every cell in your body is screaming, “Yes! You must do this!” then, by all means, say “maybe.” Fit this advice to your personality. If it’s rare for you to feel your entire being telling you that you must do something, then congratulations, you already have a minimalist filter. By all means, say yes if you know you truly want to do something. But if “A million times yes!” is your routine response, learn to say “no,” or “maybe” more frequently so that you can take time to nurture your creative spirit.

Creating Mental Space

A friend shared a beautiful metaphor with me about decluttering your mental space. We talked a little about this in Chapter Two, but I'd like to go into more detail here. Imagine your brain as a beautiful, calm harbor. You are the harbor master, so you can choose what ships can anchor in the harbor. You can’t control which ships sail by, but you can choose not to let certain ships into the harbor.

Just like you choose what goes into your home and what goes into your schedule, you can choose what thoughts you allow to enter your harbor. You may not be able to keep certain thoughts from flitting by, but you can decide not to entertain certain thoughts. By choosing your thoughts and intentions carefully, you create a more peaceful inner life, a life that is more joyful and creative.

So what thoughts are the enemies of creativity and what to do about them? The number one damaging thought I come across as a coach is self doubt. Lack of confidence to move forward with one’s ideas is a creativity killer. Austin Kleon recommends decluttering “that fearful editor in your brain that tells you you're not good enough. Everybody has one. I've found that meditation helps a lot.”

The reason meditation helps with this very personal, internal decluttering process is that it trains you to be mindful, or to keep your thoughts actively present in the now. When you're mindful, you're fully experiencing your life, actions, emotions, and sensations as they are in this moment. Creating mental white space that allows our imagination to blossom isn’t as easy as pitching out what we don’t need. That method works with our space and our time, but it doesn’t work in our minds. That’s because in the very act of trying to get rid of a thought, we can’t help but focus on that thought! That outcome is the opposite of our goal.

Instead of trying
not
to think about something, bring your attention to the moment you're in. If you want to paint a portrait, get into the process of painting as soon as possible. Then keep your attention focused on the act of painting itself. To go back to the harbor metaphor, staying present keeps your harbor full of peaceful ships, so the pirate ships of self-doubt can see that there is no room for them and keep sailing to somewhere else.

Minimalism as a Creativity Booster

Minimalism itself can fuel creativity. Maintaining this lifestyle can boost the imagination by providing limits and structure to the way you design your home and time. Bea Johnson of the
Zero Waste Home
blog has created beautiful and imaginative solutions in her household’s quest to create very little trash each year. She says, “My creativity is fed by finding alternatives for zero waste.” Even if you don’t want to change your lifestyle as radically as the Johnsons did, embracing a more moderate attitude toward consuming will still challenge your thinking and stoke your creativity.