Category: Things

I don’t know a single person who finds it easy to throw away books.

I think that’s probably because I myself love books and used to be a voracious bookworm, so I must have surrounded myself with a lot of like-minded people growing up. I was raised in a household with its own tiny library and I used to buy books, not clothes, as retail therapy.

I actually went on a book-buying spree earlier this year as my credit card provided me with free book gift certificates as rewards for my good payment behavior so I found myself stockpiling a lot of books that seemed interesting. Eventually though, I wasn’t able to read them all due to the precarious act of balancing my hectic work schedule, doing extracurriculars, and resting.

Therefore it was with apprehension that I approached the task of decluttering my books. First, all of them were scattered in various places around the house, making it a lot more tiring to get them together and dump them on a table, unlike my clothes which were all in one box. Second, since my family is big on books, sometimes I could not remember which books were mine or were actually owned by someone else.

It took me a day to round up all my books and then go through them one by one, determining which ones I did not want to keep. I’m not sure if it’s because my ability to “detect joy” is better now that I went through all my clothes, but sorting through my books was faster this time around. Yay!

In the end, I chose to discard roughly fifteen to twenty books. What did I do with these?

I find it wasteful to throw away books because they’re a great channel of knowledge transfer! It seems lame to throw away things that others can still benefit from. Since all of my books are in perfectly usable condition, I posted them all up for sale online at greatly reduced prices. It feels nice to think that other people will be getting these books at cheap rates and will love them and learn from them just the same.

To make sure I didn’t needlessly hang on to these books out of sentimentality or change my mind halfway, I set myself a deadline – August 15 – where I can donate whatever hasn’t been sold yet. To be honest, I’m not sure where you can donate books, but I’m sure there is a place out there that would gladly have them.

For the books I decided to keep, I utilized the bookshelf in my old room and organized everything by height. It looks so neat and tidy! I’m sure it would be a breeze to clean it up.

Coming next: Papers!

I devoured Marie Kondo’s “Spark Joy: An Illustrated Master Class on the Art of Organizing and Tidying Up” over the past 3 days and became gradually more excited about the process of simplifying my belongings and combining my knowledge with what I learned from Fumio Sasaki.

Sasaki is much more of a minimalist than KonMari and his book was more philosophical in a way, discussing his journey and transformation aided by minimalism. KonMari’s book was more instructional, and she listed down practical tips and funny stories on how to spark joy in one’s day-to-day life.

My approach to things is more practical than affectionate, and so I relate more with Sasaki on this, but Spark Joy really helped put a method to the madness and so I started my own tidying festival of sorts and have just completed the first category, which is Clothes.

I already started decluttering clothes last week but I’m glad to say I was able to donate my extra clothes to a Christian charity organization called Caritas. I emailed them and they instructed me to drop off my clothes at their main office. I booked a courier and sent a box and a bag of clothes their way.

For the rest of the clothes I decided to keep, I folded them KonMari style and kept them neatly in drawers or hung them in decreasing length in my wardrobe.

Looking at my clothes makes me feel pleased and not stressed, and I feel like it will be easier to laundry now due to less clothes! Yay!

My next project is to declutter Books, and I will update you soon!

I first realized that I had too much clothes when I moved out of the house to live on my own.

Since I was moving gradually, I only brought enough clothes for me to wear until it was time to send things to the laundry – which was a week’s worth of clothes. After a year, I found out that I could actually live without 70% of my old clothes which I had forgotten at home.

Due to my commitment to find happiness in simplicity, I decided to start my decluttering with clothes. Due to the COVID pandemic, I moved back to my parents’ house and was confronted with my huge pile of pants, shorts, and tops. My clothes could not fit in my drawers and plastic containers; both were full to the brim and literally popping off already.

To start, I first decided that I would list some of my old clothes for sale on a shopping app called Carousell. I received some offers for shirts and bottoms, so I was able to sell them to other people for a fraction of the price.

Afterwards, I decided that I would donate the rest of the items to the people who need them more. I looked around for charities that I can donate to, such as Caritas Manila, where I used to donate my old clothes. However, no one from the Segunda Mana initiative replied to me, probably as they were swamped with their COVID initiative.

After some searching, I learned about Tzu Chi Foundation, which is a Buddhist foundation that is active in relief operations and accepts aid for the less fortunate. I was able to phone them and they informed me I could drop off my donation at any of their branches. Great! A colleague also vouched for them, saying that he knows they work a lot with the social work arm of the government.

This afternoon, I sat down and went through all of my clothes one by one, sorting them into 4 piles of Donate, Discard, Keep, and Unsure.

• Donate – in good condition but I did not want to use or had not worn for over a year
• Discard – in bad condition, e.g. moldy or had huge holes
• Keep – in good condition and worn often, or those that served a specific purpose (e.g. blazer for formal events)
• Unsure – I wanted them but did not wear them in a year

After sorting everything, I went through the Unsure pile over and over until I had arranged them into the other 3 piles. Then I packed all the Donate clothes in a box and sealed it for delivery, threw away all the Discard clothes in the trash, and hung the Keep clothes in my closet.

I have nothing in my plastic container now, and I freed up one whole portion of my drawers. Yay!

I’ll be shipping off my clothes tomorrow to Tzu Chi and I hope other people will be able to use my clothes well.

I had been thinking about minimalism for several weeks already due to the fact that I could not fit all my clothes in a huge plastic container. I realized that I had too much clothes, half of which I had not worn in 2 years.

My room was also similarly messy, with piles of things I took from my apartment shoved beneath the bed. I vowed that I would one day look through them and sort them, but it’s been almost 2 months and nothing’s changed.

I stumbled upon Fumio Sasaki, a Japanese minimalist, from a YouTube video after searching “Japanese minimalism”. He wrote a book called “Goodbye, Things: The New Japanese Minimalism”, which I devoured in 2 days! He shared his transformation from slobby antique-collector to spartan minimalist, and how his relationship with his things also changed his attitude towards life.

I was immensely inspired to embark on the same journey of my own, and I wanted to chronicle my attempts to uncover a happy yet fulfilling life. So here we are, and welcome to Looking for Less.

A short introduction, before I share more about this task: I am a twenty-something year old, working in corporate. My relationship with things is similar to Fumio – I often bought things I wanted but did not need, and am a bit of a slob with my living area. However, one thing that is slightly different is I can be very unsentimental about things. It is easy for me to throw things away if I go on a cleaning spree. The struggle is just getting to the cleaning part.

I’m hoping that this journey will make me a better, happier human being. I’ll share more updates in the coming days! See you then.