A friend of mine once posted about a book that quickly interests me: “Goodbye things” by Fumio Sasaki. Minimalism has been a way of living that is quite popular in Japan. What is interesting is that in this materialistic era, we often forgot that we have bought so many things and kept it for years in our homes. There are many benefits that he mentioned in the book for being a minimalist and to declutter your place, with one of them being able to focus on experiences like travel.

This 2019, Netflix created a show with Marie Kondo that quickly became a worldwide hit: “Tidying Up with Marie Kondo”. By watching this show, I have been reflecting on my own life, thinking about how my room can be so cluttered. Kondo has been helping families to throw away stuff that do not bring joy into their lives.

She has her own method in folding clothes:

Strangely, in 2014, I have been creating a draft blog post with links to articles about people wearing the same thing every day. It is clear that I have been interested in this topic for a long time. An interesting article was written by John Haltiwanger titled “The Science of Simplicity: Why Successful People Wear The Same Thing Every Day” which told us the benefits of not having to decide what to wear for each day.

Here’s a quote from Barack Obama on this:

“You’ll see I wear only gray or blue suits. I’m trying to pare down decisions. I don’t want to make decisions about what I’m eating or wearing. Because I have too many other decisions to make.”

See full story here: The Science Of Simplicity: Why Successful People Wear The Same Thing Every Day

However, of course as a woman I know this is not easy to implement. A woman will be criticised for wearing the same things every day and will be labeled as lazy. A friend of a female TV show host tried to wore a same suit for a year and no one noticed.

Meanwhile, the female TV show host Lisa Wilkinson said,

“today’s media landscape, particularly for women, is one now so focused on the glossy and the glamorous it often eclipses and undermines everything else. And it is everywhere. I kid you not – even in preparing for tonight’s lecture, the most common question I was asked was not “What are you going to say?”, but “What are you going to wear?” And when you’re a woman doing breakfast TV, you quickly learn the sad truth, that what you wear can sometimes generate a bigger reaction than even any political interview you ever do.”

You can see Karl Stefanovic tell his stories here: Karl Stefanovic wore the same suit for a year on TV and no one noticed

Although minimalism will be harder for women, I really want to do my best to be able to implement this in my daily life. Hopefully, by knowing this way of life early on, I have a chance to create a more minimalistic wardrobe, room and home in the future.