Book ‘From a Small Dream Home to a Ready-to-Move-In Home’: REDUCING MATERIAL POSSESSIONS (A glimpse into Chapter 9)

“ACTUALLY, WE DON’T HAVE THAT MUCH AT ALL. IT’LL EASILY FIT INTO THE TINY HOUSE”

Find out what you really need and which things you can easily part with using a few simple tricks.

Living in a tiny house means consciously making the most of less. However, the steps involved in moving from the romanticised idea to actually having a minimalist household are certainly challenging. Understanding how and why we end up hoarding so many things in our own homes in the first place has helped us to establish habits that allow us to gradually get rid of them.

The causes and behaviours are, of course, very individual, but the ever-increasing range of products on offer and the increasingly smart ordering and payment options in online shopping tempt almost everyone into thoughtless consumption. Advertising, which is almost omnipresent in our daily lives and tells us everything we need to finally be happy, also contributes to our cupboards being full. And although the things that seem indispensable to us at first glance become irrelevant the next moment, we find it hard to part with them. After all, we might need them at some point, and they were expensive to begin with.

We often fail to realise that all these things offer no real added value to our lives, but merely waste space, time, raw materials and money. When we merged our two separate households, it was a great opportunity to get rid of the dead weight. As we packed our removal boxes, we were literally confronted with all our possessions, some of which were unimportant. We had a rough idea of how many boxes we could take to our new home, and it wasn’t many. So we were forced to really take stock of our belongings.

What do we really need to make our everyday lives comfortable? Which items are so important to us that they should continue to be part of our lives?

Clearing out the basement and the loft – which often serve as archives for emotionally charged items from the past – proved particularly challenging. In every new box lie thousands of memories that you want to reflect on and share with your partner. It takes a lot of discipline to ensure that the clear-out doesn’t turn into a slide show.

Often, however, it’s much more mundane and less emotionally charged. We didn’t part with many of the things we’ve given away or thrown out because they would have taken up too much space in our new home, but simply because we’d been too lazy up until then. Apparently, it would have taken more energy to carry the items to the bin than to store them – for however long. People usually prefer the seemingly simple solutions. The 30-Day Challenge is a brilliant method, particularly for getting rid of such items.

The 30-Day Challenge. A playful method, such as the 30-Day Challenge, can help take away your fear of getting started. If you do the challenge in pairs, it takes on a competitive edge and makes for a rewarding way to begin. But be warned: it sounds easier than it is in practice, and only really takes full effect after several days. Here’s how it works: for 30 days, you get rid of one item every day. Their size and value are irrelevant. On the first day, you get rid of one item; on the second, two; on the third, three; and so on. You’re allowed to sell the items, donate them, give them away, or, if there’s no other option, dispose of them in the household waste or at the recycling centre.

If you stick with it, by the 30th day you’ll have 465 fewer items taking up space and requiring your attention.

You’ll be surprised, but the things you no longer own were most likely so unimportant to you that, even after thinking long and hard, you couldn’t list them all. True to the motto ‘What I don’t have, I can’t miss’, this approach is highly recommended as preparation for life in a tiny house. If you need a further boost of motivation, find someone to take the items that shouldn’t end up in the bin. There may well be a charity shop or similar in your area where you can donate the things you’ve sorted out. Someone else might actually still need them, and you’ll have done something good for the environment and society.

Packing Party. There can be all sorts of reasons why even successfully letting go of the ‘first batch’ still isn’t enough for a relaxed life in a tiny house. It certainly makes sense to print out a scale floor plan of the planned building and position cut-out pieces of the planned furniture on it. But precisely because this seems so logical, it masks the real space-hoggers. To counteract this, it’s worth applying another filter to your belongings, one that ruthlessly shows you what’s truly important and useful to you in your everyday life. Simply skip the moment on moving-in day when you realise that not everything you’ve brought with you will fit into your home, and park your moving boxes in a neutral location some distance away from the tiny house plot. For the time being, only store the items in the house that are absolutely essential and indispensable for your daily routine. Of course, it takes a healthy dose of discipline to define the term ‘essential’ in a way that suits you.

From this point onwards – that is, from the first day you move in – you may then bring one item back into the house from the storage area for each subsequent calendar day. This method is generally known as a ‘packing party’. There are now many different variations, accounts and vlogs from people who have gone through with it. The challenges behind this regular, conscious decision are illustrated not only by the German comedy *100 Things* starring Florian David Fitz, but even more so by the real-life project of the Finn Petri Luukkainen. We’ve also adopted this approach for ourselves. Items we’re certain to use in everyday life were moved into our house as soon as we moved in and were put away straight away. The other – fortunately few – removal boxes were left at Chris’s parents’ house. For the garden tools and our bikes, we’ve reached a written agreement with our neighbour. In his barn, which is right next to our property, we’ve marked out a space of a few square metres where we can store these items for 10 years. In the meantime, however, we’ve already sorted through our things again and had another clear-out.

Caro explains: “During our clear-out, Chris had a bit of a revelation. He became increasingly aware that his much-loved foosball table had, over time, taken on a new role as an excellent dust trap.

The thing wasn’t being used any more and had mutated from the highlight of wild flat-share parties into a space-waster. Nevertheless, it had been moved several times and, in the hope that this time we might really be able to recapture the experiences of the past thanks to the table football table, it was set up in the new flat. In the process of letting go, it then dawned on Chris why he was so attached to this thing, which was obviously useless to him. It wasn’t the table itself that he wanted to keep, but rather the memories of those wonderful moments from the past that he didn’t want to forget. That’s what made the table football table so important to him. But once he’d come to terms with the idea that those experiences would live on in his mind, he was suddenly able to simply let go. To make himself feel better, he decided to give the table football table to a young father. The man had promised him he’d spruce the table up and give it to his son. A win-win, don’t you think?« [...]

9 tips for a life with less:

To help you stay on your chosen path and, with a bit of luck, even get support from those around you, we’ve put together a few guidelines for you in the following tips.

• Make room for what really matters – sort through your belongings regularly and ask yourself about each item: Do I really need this? Does it make my life better? If not, let it go.
• Don’t attach emotions to objects – always ask yourself whether you’re keeping certain items purely for emotional reasons, and if so, what those reasons are. Try to carry memories and experiences in your heart rather than clinging to things. A well-organised cloud-based database of photos and videos is also a great way to refresh your memories and draw on past experiences. A digital photo frame, which can be loaded with content via a USB stick or Wi-Fi, for example, is a great addition and saves you from having to buy new photo frames.
• Time rather than stuff – realise that living in a tiny house isn’t just about reducing your living space, but also about consuming more consciously. Do you want more time for experiences or more things that take up space?
• Communicate your new lifestyle – Tell your friends and relatives why you’ve chosen to live in a tiny house and what mindful consumption means to you. This way, you’ll avoid unnecessary gifts, can prevent misunderstandings at an early stage and might even gain support for your chosen path
• Say what you need – don’t be shy about openly saying what you really need. This helps people find suitable and useful gifts for you – if it does have to be a physical item – that will enrich your life without cluttering up your home. [...]

You’ll find a further four tips on this, along with tricks on how to use things without owning them and how to reconcile your minimalist outlook with the gift-giving culture around you, in Chapter 9 of 10.

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