The Only 2 Ways To Minimize Your Stuff

I get asked this a lot –  “how do I even get started with getting the clutter out? Everything is so overwhelming!” Well, there are actually only 2 ways to minimize your stuff. Today, I’m sharing what these 2 methods are and what they’re good for (hint: I do strongly prefer one over the other 😉).

The first is something I like to call “the thunderegg method” and the second is something I call the process of “actual selection” (you can thank Darwin for the wordplay

The Thundereggs Method For Minimization

Maybe you’ve heard this quote before: “Get clear on what matters by letting go of what doesn’t”. This in itself is one of the strategies that you can take toward minimizing. It’s something that a lot of people teach. It’s something that I used to teach and I call it the thundereggs method. Here’s why.

About Thundereggs

Every year, we go camping in central Oregon, and one year we went to a big ranch that allowed for “thundereggs” digging. If you’ve never heard of “thundereggs” (I hadn’t either until we went), they’re essentially muddy rocks that, when you cut open, contain an easter egg of beautiful designs (like geodes). Some of them look like marble with black and white swirls and some might look like crystals. They’re very cool. 

When you check-in at the ranch you get a little pickaxe and a bucket- that’s it. They drive you way out to a big hole in the desert where you begin hacking away at the wall of the hole, like a miner. When we came across a hardened rock we would then chip away at the excess until the thunderegg was revealed. ✨

The Thundereggs Ways To Minimize

This type of minimizing is similar to the thunderegg experience- you’re chipping away at the things that you don’t want in order to find the true value (the good stuff). Ideally, you’re left with something beautiful, unique, and valuable to you. It sounds beautiful!

But here’s what I started noticing: students would typically come in feeling overwhelmed by the prospect of digging through years of belongings. They would become paralyzed by the clutter, feeling intimidated by the sheer quantity. Even worse, focusing on the excess was creating mental turmoil over what to keep. Everything can feel valuable, in the moment, if you think about it long enough.

The Process Of “Actual Selection” To Minimize

The idea of ‘where to even start’ and the overwhelming act of focusing on the clutter itself was a barrier to people achieving those first results. So, I started looking at it differently. I began thinking along the lines of this practice of selection instead of the thundereggs method of continually chipping away and focusing on the clutter.

Where do you start?

This method requires that you first decide exactly what you need in each space. You select the belongings that matter first.

What matters most to you? What are the things that you want to keep? How do you spend your time and what do you enjoy? Consider the categories in this article on the 4 key components of holistic spaces.

Select those things and the rest of the stuff easily falls away.

How do you do it?

You can use this method for everything: a junk drawer- empty it out, pick out the things that you know you’re going to use, scoop up the rest and discard them. This makes the process so much easier and the act of selecting gives YOU more power (instead of the clutter).

Also, this prevents chaos and overwhelm which inhibits the desire to procrastinate.

It’s tapping into that power of choice. You’re choosing what you want to surround yourself with- what you want to allow inside of your space.

Before, people would get tripped up in the clutter itself. They would almost immediately begin overthinking about the clutter.

If you think hard enough, every item can feel very important. You start running through all of those storylines like, “oh, but I got this when I was in such and such place” or “but what if I need this in the future”. All of these different stories give your emotions a chance to get in and, before you know it, you’re exhausted and you quit! 

Is One Always Better Than The Other?

Now to play the devil’s advocate for a second because I think that there is some value in the thundereggs method. There are a lot of people who don’t necessarily have a clear vision of what they want for their space or don’t know which items actually are important. While the process of selecting is way more efficient (selecting to minimize is going to save more time and energy), the thundereggs method is more of a self-exploration process.

Exploring through all of the things is going to take more time. It’s going to pull forth more emotions and more mental drain and the process of figuring all of this out. But it could be a good option for somebody who doesn’t have that clarity. 

Those are really the ONLY 2 ways to minimize- that’s it. It’s like 2 inverted options depending on where you choose to focus. So, let me know in the comments, which method have YOU been using?