00:00Hey guys!
00:00I'm Lucy Fink and this is 5 Days of Minimalism.
00:06Let me get it all out there, I'm a maximalist.
00:09You can tell from the endless knickknacks that are flooding the shelves of my room,
00:13to the clothing that's hanging out of my closet, and trust me when I say you do not
00:18want to see what the inside of my backpack looks like.
00:20I once heard that there is a direct link between the amount of possessions that a person owns
00:24and the amount of stress that they experience.
00:27I believe that.
00:27I'm not going to become a minimalist overnight here, so for the next 5 days I'm going to
00:31take one step per day that's going to bring me just that much closer to leading a minimalistic
00:36lifestyle.
00:37Everyone in the office has been asking me to try 5 days of silence.
00:41So today I'm going to talk less, take a step back, and listen more.
00:45Starting right now.
00:51Yesterday was great.
00:53I felt very introspective.
00:54It was definitely a good first step towards becoming a little bit more minimalistic.
00:58But today I wanted to do something that was actually tangible.
01:01Something that I could look at a before and after and see that I've actually made physical
01:06strides towards minimizing the amount of things in my life.
01:09Refinery has written a lot about this book called The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up.
01:15The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing.
01:19Clearly I haven't read the book, but I do know from reading the article that you can't
01:23declutter everything at once.
01:25Step 1 is to clean up just one part of the mess.
01:28So today I focused on my backpack.
01:31This is the thing that I run to the subway carrying, I throw everything I own inside
01:35of it, and I honestly don't clean it out for months on end.
01:38I wind up standing outside my apartment door digging and digging in this thing until I find
01:43my keys 10 minutes later at the very bottom of the bag.
01:46So today I cleared it out.
01:49What was inside?
01:50Well, let's see.
01:51I found a playbill from a play I saw in December of 2015.
01:55I found a bunch of packs of old gum, two water bottles, a deck of cards.
02:01Hmm.
02:02And I sat there and I thought, let me pare this down.
02:04So I ended up just putting inside the four things that I need.
02:07Cell phone, keys, wallet, and a book.
02:10I just don't know why I had a deck of cards in there.
02:12Happy Tuesday.
02:14Keep on paring down.
02:18So I cleared out my entire bag just to realize that this thing is way crazier, more cluttered,
02:25and way more unorganized than my entire backpack was.
02:28Everywhere I turn there's a red dot and a notification.
02:31Similar to my five days of no social media experiment, a true minimalistic lifestyle for
02:36me would involve way fewer apps and fewer notifications.
02:39This will allow me to do one task at a time and to be fully present wherever I am.
02:44Earlier today my phone was a mess, but I gave it some love.
02:47I deleted the apps I don't need.
02:49I put the apps I do need into the appropriate buckets.
02:52Now I only have two pages of apps and you can see the palm trees.
02:55I did what I needed to do.
02:57Mic drop.
03:03Remember the other week when I did five days in the same outfit and I came to the conclusion
03:07that I have way too many clothes, so I cleared out some items in my closet and donated them?
03:11Well I'm so glad I did that because I helped some people out.
03:15But now I need to help myself and I desperately need to clean out my closet.
03:19Have you ever heard the phrase, a clean room is a clean brain?
03:23Well if not, you've probably heard the phrase, and tonight I'm cleaning out my closet.
03:27I'm gonna.
03:28So today, I cleaned out my closet.
03:30I wanted you guys to be able to see the before and the after.
03:34Ooh, look at all that free space.
03:36I'm really feeling like a minimalist this week.
03:38I have my brain in on it, I got my closet on it, my room, my cell phone.
03:42We are good to go.
03:44We are really, really getting rid of stuff.
03:52Happy Friday.
03:54Let's recap all of the different things that I've done this week to practice minimalism.
03:58On Monday, I minimalized my speech.
03:59Tuesday, I decluttered my backpack.
04:02Wednesday, electronics.
04:03And Thursday, my closet.
04:04And today, well everyone says that the last and hardest step towards becoming more minimalistic
04:10is ensuring that the clutter does not return.
04:13And I, Lucy Fink, am taking that part very seriously.
04:17Today when I get home from work, my coat is going straight into the closet.
04:21My shoes are going straight to the shoe rack.
04:24Hold me to it guys.
04:25Never again will I come home and throw my coat on the couch when the closet is two steps away.
04:29At the beginning of this, I told you that I'm a messy maximalist.
04:33And I really wanted a clean room and I really wanted to be a minimalist.
04:37So I did it this week.
04:38What is that thing that you want?
04:40Comment below letting us know what you want to do.
04:43And now I'm encouraging you to just do it already.
04:46Thanks for watching.
04:47Have a good week.
