480 | Bedroom Clutter

For the fourth episode in their five-part Household Clutter series, The Minimalists are joined by Cas Aarssen to talk about the bedroom clutter that gets in the way of peace and intimacy. Discussed in this episode: What can I do to minimize the clutter that keeps building on my nightstand? (2:30) What's your personal definition of bedroom clutter and what's one thing that doesn't belong in the bedroom? (19:11) Listener tip: A healthy way to effectively manage OCD. (39:41) Listen to the full Maximal episode on Patreon: patreon.com/theminimalists http://patreon.com/theminimalists Detailed show notes: minimalists.com/podcast http://minimalists.com/podcast Recorded at Earthing Studios http://earthing.com/simple.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:20Speaker 00

  Every little thing you think that you need. Every little thing you think that you need. Every little thing that's just feeding your greed. Oh, I bet that you'll be fine without it.

• 0:39Speaker 01

  You're listening to the Minimalist Podcast with Joshua Fields Milburn and TK Coleman, recorded live at Earthing Studios in sunny California.

• 0:47Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yes, thank you, Malibu. Hello, everybody. Today for the fourth installment of our five-part Household Clutter Series, we're talking about the most intimate clutter area in our homes: bedroom clutter. Joining us in the studio to help us make our beds is a self-proclaimed recovering super slob turned organizing expert, Cass Arson. Cass is the founder of Clutterbug, and you've probably seen her on HGTV as the host of Hot Mess House. Coming up on this free, public minimal episode, a caller has a question about the clutter that keeps accumulating on her nightstand. And then we've got a question about the things that don't belong in the bedroom.

• 1:31Joshua Fields Millburn?

  That's followed by our Right Here, Right Now segment and a listener tip. You can check out the maximal edition of episode 480. That's the full two-hour episode where we answer three times as many questions on Patreon. The link is in the description. When you subscribe, you can listen to our private podcast episodes on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. Find your favorite podcast app. Plus, you'll gain access to all of our archives, all the way back to episode 001. That's a full decade of podcast archives. By the way, big thanks to our patrons. Your support keeps our podcast 100% 100% advertisement free because sing along at home, y'all. Advertisements suck.

• 2:16Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Let's start with our callers. If you have a question or comment for our show, we'd love to hear from you. Give us a call. Our phone number is 406-219-7839, or you can email a voice recording right from your phone to [email protected]. Our first question today is from Jennifer.

• 2:33Speaker 03

  Hello. Thank you so much, Minimalists, for putting this out to the Patreon community. I just joined your Patreon. I'm excited to follow. As I began this minimalist journey as a mother who works full time and has three little ones and a husband at home. One of the questions I had in the bedroom space, I feel confident about the closet, the bed and the overall view and space. But the nightstand, I am terrified to get into the nightstand. It's a place where I've just been throwing, you know, personal cards, random items, anything kind of from the day gets jammed in the drawers and to the shelves. And I'm just curious, how do you navigate that sort of space and what should really get put in there?

• 3:17Speaker 03

  That would be appropriate for the bedroom and create more of a stress-free, calmer aspect. You know, right now it's the spot that I know kind of catches all things. And I also feel like it's a spot I've been avoiding because I have trouble too with some of those more sentimental items. So things that you want to keep in your own private space, you know, where should that really go and how do you manage all that? Thank you again for putting this out to the community and for sharing your own lived experiences.

• 3:49Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Cass Arson, what a great place to start. I am, I rarely get frustrated or annoyed by other people's clutter. But I am really impressed or at least fascinated by nightstand clutter. I don't get it at all. My nightstand literally has nothing on it. And that's not a judgment of anyone else, but I see other people's nightstands. I see it on a TV show or I go to someone's house and I'm like, wow, this is really a magnet for all of these things to sort of accumulate. What's behind that?

• 4:20Speaker 04

  We love our beds. That's what's behind it. We, we spend time in there, not just sleeping, but we'll watch TV or we'll read or we'll relax. And that's a hotspot. You put things down when you're done with them. What I see over and over again are like, those everyday items tend to add up quick, whether it's your coffee cup, your drink, your water bottle, the glasses, if you're old like me and you need reading glasses and somehow you have seven now on your nightstand table. Or medication that you're taking. And then what happens is it never leaves. Right? We just shove it in the drawer and hide it. And before you know it, it's taken over. So we have to treat the bedside table like every other hotspot in our home, which is

• 5:04Speaker 04

  daily tidy ups. That's the secret. It really is. And then it doesn't become overwhelming. So if you are feeling this and you're like, it's a hot mess in my drawer. I like to start with something called trash bag therapy, which is like therapeutic. You just grab a trash bag and you're just hunting for garbage, old receipts, mail that's expired, all of that type of stuff. You're gonna find it in your bedside table. And that's like the catalyst to go a step further.

• 5:33Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah, you know, I, I have this rule called the no piles rule because flat surfaces, especially like nightstands, but any flat surface, coffee tables, credenzas, sideboards, media consoles, the kitchen island or kitchen counters, they all become these repositories of, I'll just get to it later items. I'll just deal with that later. It's the, the sort of procrastination of the mind. It's much easier for me to complicate my future life and actually make my future life less simple. But if I just set this here now, and a pile starts with just one item and has to start with one item and then it grows from there. So I think the nightstands are ripe for these piles because it's sort of the end of the day

• 6:18Joshua Fields Millburn?

  and I'm in bed and you know, I don't want to get up and do anything with this thing. So I'll just, I'll just set it here and I'll deal with it tomorrow. But then of course tomorrow arrives and I'll deal with it tomorrow. And then tomorrow arrives again and I'll deal with it tomorrow. And it's this perpetual cycle of procrastination. And, and once that happens, One piece of clutter becomes 10 pieces, becomes 100 pieces. And then we're shoving things in drawers. And in fact, my nightstands have three drawers on them. And I use them intentionally. In fact, I got nightstands where I could hide the things that I want to keep in there. I've got some CBD pills or maybe Benadryl during the sneezing season.

• 7:02Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And I have things in there intentionally, but I don't let it become the de facto trash bag or maybe the purgatory for the trash where it'll eventually end up.

• 7:13Speaker 05

  Yeah, I gotta ask you, you said nothing is on your nightstand. Why do you have one?

• 7:18Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Oh, yeah, because of the things I like to keep inside the nightstand.

• 7:23Speaker 05

  Yeah, that makes perfect sense.

• 7:24Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I do have a lamp on the nightstand, so I shouldn't say nothing. And so if I want to read at night, there's the opportunity to do that there. But very rarely do I read in bed even. In fact, I can't even tell you the last time that I read in bed. Another thing that we do at night, and we talked about this on the invisible clutter episode, is in our home, we turn off all electricity, like the EMFs are just turned off altogether. So, and it just helps my wife sleep much, much better. So not having Wi-Fi on, but not even having the electricity in our house on, save for the refrigerator in the kitchen that is on a separate circuit, and our HVAC is on a separate circuit. But all electricity in our home is off as well. So on my nightstand, the lamp is battery powered and rechargeable so that if I do

• 8:08Joshua Fields Millburn?

  absolutely need to get up in the dark, I can just switch on the light in our bedroom. At least I have a light source if I'm going to get up in the middle of the night and use the bathroom.

• 8:18Speaker 05

  Yeah, I use mine in a similar way. I keep my Kindle on my nightstand because I like to read fiction before going to bed. And it's got the, what do you call it? The backlight or something like that where you don't have the eye strain. And so whatever it is I want to read, I can find something on that Kindle. And I generally like to fall asleep while reading. I keep an eye mask because of the arrangement of windows in my bedroom. I don't get that perfect darkness. So I keep an eye mask there. And then I keep a coaster there so that I can sit my water on the coaster. And that's in the drawer. And I pull it out and put it on top of the nightstand every night. I saw an Onion article titled that says, "Man Puts a Glass of Water on His Nightstand in Case He Needs to Make a Big Mess in the Middle of the Night." I am that man.

• 9:01Speaker 05

  I do that. But you know, one thing I'll say is, uh, I really like Kaz's trash bag therapy. And if for any reason, that feels too committed, like, oh, I don't know if I want to commit to putting it in the trash, maybe a softer version of that you can use would be to say, uh, talk about it therapy. You take a little box and you do the same thing with the trash bag therapy, but you look at everything that's not a hell yes, but maybe you're not sure you want to go as far as saying if it's not a hell yes, it's a hell no. But all you gotta do is say it's debatable. So you look at something, you go, mm, it's not a hell yes. So it's debatable. Let's put it in the box. Not a hell yes, it's debatable. Let's put it in the box. And then you can take all the things that are in your box and you can look at it and say, all right, what's something that I can let go? Do I really gotta have

• 9:45Speaker 05

  anything that's here? And if there's a hell yes in there, you put it in its proper place. And anything that you can let go comfortably, then you get rid of them. Another thing about the nightstand, it often represents the place where we put the things we're too tired to think about. At the end of the night, we have this in our hand, and we just don't want to get up and go put it back in the kitchen. We don't want to get up and go put it back in the closet. And so we just dump it on the nightstand because we're too tired. That's actually okay. Life would be really inconvenient if we had to put everything back into its proper place within 10 seconds of using it. Imagine what it'd be like to cook a meal if you pull out the salt and pepper, and you put it on something and you immediately gotta go put that back in the pantry before you can move on to your next thing. Life

• 10:30Speaker 05

  would get really messy. But what you can do to counteract the way things pile up, is you can just build into your day, the 45 seconds it takes to review that nightstand, and to put things into the proper place. All right, last night I was too tired to put the book back or the glass back. That's fine. But every day, just walk over to that nightstand. Make it a habit. You gotta make up your bed anyway. Right after you make up your bed, 45 seconds review, what needs to go back to its proper place. And then you don't have to pile up.

• 10:58Speaker 04

  Kaz, do you have anything to add to that? Yeah, I gotta be real with you guys. You guys have your life together in a way that I do not. Okay. Guess what's in my nightstand? Candy wrappers and, uh, I eat mashed potatoes and gravy in my bed. Like you guys up here with your coaster and your lamp. Okay, cool. Um,

• 11:17Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I don't have a coaster. I'm not a maximalist.

• 11:20Speaker 04

  Uh, yeah, so I'm a hot mess. So my nightstand becomes a hot mess, man. I gotta, I gotta make it a priority. And one mantra I'm just gonna say that I practice and I try to drill into my kids, like, never leave a room empty handed. So that way, in the morning, when I'm going downstairs, I'm like, oh, it's all those Skittles I ate last night. I better grab the wrapper and take it down to the trash.

• 11:45Joshua Fields Millburn?

  That's another thing I do. I, I, if it were up to me, we'd have one trash can in the house and that's it. My family would, I think, have some sort of mutiny if we just had one trash can though. But we have very few, and I don't throw things away in the bathroom trash can. For what, I have to take it out to the kitchen, put it in the kitchen trash can when I am throwing something away. That's probably, there's some OCD we could unpack there. Do you ever use the bathroom trash can? I don't, but my family does. Oh, wow. Yeah, I just don't, I don't like having trash in multiple places throughout the home, but especially not having trash on the nightstand itself. So a few rules come to mind from what TK was talking about. The first one is setting the stage rule. You take five minutes at night. At first, it's usually 10 to 15 minutes for folks.

• 12:28Joshua Fields Millburn?

  So set a 10 minute timer and do what you can within those 10 minutes to reset the stage for the next morning. So you're not waking up to a cluttered home the next day. You're not waking up to chaos. You're setting the stage for a calm morning. The other rules that come to mind, spontaneous combustion rule and the wouldn't repurchase rule. I often conflate these myself whenever I'm talking about them on the podcast. The wouldn't repurchase rule is you could look at any item on your nightstand and say, okay, why is that here? Would I repurchase that if I lost it right now? And if the answer is yes, then of course, keep it. Now, maybe there's a better poem for it at that point. But if the answer is no, of course I wouldn't repurchase this. Well, then why are we still holding on to it?

• 13:11Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And the spontaneous combustion rule, I was just at the gym yesterday, doing, swimming some laps. And the kind woman at the counter there, she's been asking me about decluttering because she saw us on Netflix and, and she was asking about like, she'd just moved and she's trying to get rid of some old stuff, some sentimental items, which is what Jennifer brought up. Sentimental items on the nightstand? Wait a minute. How are we keeping sentimental items on the nightstand? Anyway, this kind woman at the front desk of the gym, she asked me, she goes, okay, so I've got this, this painting from my sister. And it's of one of my cats from years ago. And it's before my sister was a very good artist and she's a really talented artist now,

• 13:53Joshua Fields Millburn?

  but she wasn't back then. But I've got this painting and I just, I don't know what to do with it. And I said, well, spontaneous combustion rule. She said, what's that? I said, well, if it were to spontaneously combust, would you feel a sense of panic? Or would you feel a sense of relief? And she looks at me, full body sigh. Ah, I think I'd feel relief. I said, I think you've got your answer.

• 14:18Speaker 04

  It's time to burn it in the backyard. That's what I'm hearing.

• 14:22Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I was thinking you should have a dating show. Cass, talk to me a bit about sentimental items and how they get misplaced in the bedroom even.

• 14:34Speaker 04

  Yeah, I think sentimental items get misplaced everywhere because people don't have this like critical tool that is so life-changing and it's literally just a memory box or a memory bin. And I like having one for each family member and just putting their name on it. And it does this amazing thing in that it gives a special protected, safe home to your stuff. So that you realize, like it gives you peace of mind because you realize it's protected. When you don't have that and you have sentimental items mixed in with unimportant items, suddenly everything feels important. You are reluctant to go and declutter anything because there could be good stuff in there. There could be good things. There could be really special things. And once you've committed and you're intentional and you create this little,

• 15:19Speaker 04

  kind of like a time capsule for memories, it does, it subconsciously gives you that peace of mind. And you realize like, oh, this isn't as special because I know my most precious things are safe and protected. I feel like if you are starting to get organized or declutter, this is the first tool you need to create, which is a memory bin for every family member.

• 15:41Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And the reason I wanted to do a whole episode on bedroom clutter as part of this series is, we talked with Joshua Becker on the first episode. He recommends starting in the living room and/or the bedroom because these are the places that you can make the most difference in the shortest amount of time. If you really want to cut down the clutter in your attic, you can spend days in your attic if you've got a lot of stuff up there. And it will make a difference, but not a very big difference because this is a lot of clutter you don't see every day. And yes, it's important to deal with that at some point. It's just not a place I would start because you haven't built up that letting go muscle. I love this idea of the sentimental items you're talking about. I love what TK says on top of it is, "There are no sentimental items, only sentimental people."

• 16:24Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And what is true about that is if you were to hand me one of your memory boxes, I would have no memories attached with those things because the memories aren't in the things in that box. They're in you and they're great to trigger those memories. But if we're holding on to everything, then it can't all possibly be precious. If everything is precious, then nothing is precious.

• 16:45Speaker 04

  It's so true. And that's why it's good to make one small box and let the container be the bad guy. Like, that's all you can keep that's special. And don't put it in your attic or your basement. This is something that should be in your living space. So it's not only easy to put something quickly away, like, "Oh, I got this great photo," or "this beautiful letter." You want to be able to put it away, not put it on the counter to put it away later, immediately. But also, you should go through this and you should like, you know, reminisce with your memories. So your memory bin, as I call it, should be somewhere really easily accessible and just part of your, part of your home.

• 17:19Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah, it's not in a storage locker on the edge of town.

• 17:23Speaker 05

  Isn't it interesting that in the horror movies, where is the monster? It's always in the closet, under the bed, in the attic, in the basement, in the places where we store stuff that we don't want to have to look at. So maybe there's a message there. The monsters are haunting us and all they're really doing is asking us to take a look at them so we can let this stuff go. And those, if we don't have the right rules in place, if we don't have the right boundaries in place, those monsters begin to multiply and they start to come out from under the bed and they end up on.

• 17:51Joshua Fields Millburn?

  On the nightstand, or they end up on the dresser. We're going to talk more about some bedroom clutter here in a moment. But Jennifer, we talked about several different rules for simplifying your life. The Minimalists have a free rulebook. You can download it on our website. Just go to theminimalists.com, click Resources at the top. On our Resources page, we have a bunch of free resources you can download. One of those is the Minimalist Rulebook. It's called 16 Rules for Living with Less. We talk about some boundaries you can set up in your home, in your bedroom, or anywhere else in your life that will help you simplify. Theminimalists.com, click on Resources. You can also check out the audiobook version of that rulebook as well. Before we get back to our callers, Malibu, what time is it?

• 18:32Speaker 01

  You know what time it is. It's time for the lightning round where we answer the Patreon community chat's question of the week.

• 18:37Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yes, indeed. Now, Cass, during the lightning round, we attempt to answer questions with a short, shareable, minimal maxim. Our listeners can find this episode's maxims in the show notes at theminimalists.com/podcast and every minimal maxim ever at minimalmaxims.com. We'll also deliver our weekly show notes directly to your inbox, including seven new maxims every Monday for free if you sign up for our email newsletter over at theminimalists.e-mail. We'll never send you spam, or junk, or Super Bowl advertisements. But we will start your week off with a dose of simplicity. What is the question of the week this week?

• 19:13Speaker 01

  What's your personal definition of bedroom clutter? And what's one thing that doesn't belong in the bedroom?

• 19:18Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yes, your personal definition of bedroom clutter. And what's one thing that doesn't belong in the bedroom? Cass, I really want to hear your answer. But first, let's check in with our simpletons here. What does some of our listeners have to say?

• 19:31Speaker 01

  Nancy said bedroom clutter to me is an unmade bed.

• 19:35Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Ah, yes. We're going to talk about this a bit more on the More About Less segment on page three. We're talking about the four most cluttered areas of every home that's hiding in plain sight. So sometimes our clutter is hiding in plain sight. We just see it every day. We don't realize that it is clutter. What do you say about that, though? Is an unmade bed, that feels like clutter to me?

• 19:59Speaker 04

  Yep, I'm not so great at making my bed first thing in the morning, but I heard that you're supposed to let it air, so that's my excuse.

• 20:07Speaker 04

  I heard this, but I do make the bed before bed. And I know this sounds really weird, but I love crawling into a made bed at night. And I feel like it just sets the tone, right, for your sleep. So I don't always do it first thing in the morning. We're rushing out the door, but it gets done and that's all that matters.

• 20:24Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah, and you know what? It's what matters to you, right? And so for me, the first thing I want done in the morning is I want to make the bed. I want to calm the space because that to me is where it feels like the most chaos. Cause I don't have chaos anywhere else in my bedroom. In fact, it's relatively stark and intentionally so. It's more stark than the rest of our house because I don't want a whole bunch of extra activities there. What else you got, Bama?

• 20:48Speaker 01

  Deirdre said, I consider bedroom clutter to be anything that takes away from my sense of peace at the end of the day, and it doesn't necessarily need to be physical.

• 20:57Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Oh yeah, so it can be arguing in the bedroom. That's a type of bedroom clutter. But also, what else, what else is getting in the way of our bedrooms? What are you seeing people and they're, they're struggling to let go of the things that are in their bedroom?

• 21:10Speaker 04

  I think the real issue is that bedrooms are the bottom of the priority list when they should be the top. So people hide stuff in the bedroom because they don't want company to see it. They shove all the crap that they're, you know, oh, my mother-in-law is going to be here and shove everything in the bedroom. And it's like this neglected space that we ignore because it's not seen by other people. But the truth is, it should be the top priority in our home because it's our sanctuary. It's a form of self-love and self-respect, to put it first. And it's the absolute, when you open your eyes, it's the first thing you see in the morning and the last thing you see before you go to bed. So it had better be someplace that you find beautiful and peaceful.

• 21:53Speaker 04

  And it should, if you don't walk in your bedroom and audibly,

• 21:59Speaker 04

  You haven't made it a priority yet.

• 22:01Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Oh, yeah. TK, no one wants to wake up to chaos.

• 22:04Speaker 05

  Yeah. Isn't it interesting, too, that the very act of hiding things in the bathroom reveals what we think of it? Because why don't we say, oh, someone's coming over, throw it in the bathroom. Bedroom, bedroom, bedroom, yeah. Throw it in the bathroom, throw it in the, in the kitchen. Because we know that the bedroom is this sacred space. It's an intimate space and no one's gonna go there and no one's gonna have, have a hard time understanding why that part of the home is closed. And so implicit in that hiding it is a recognition of its value. I really love that, though. The last thing you see and the first thing you see, you want it to make you breathe that sigh of relief, yeah.

• 22:40Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And no one wants to wake up in a storage locker. That is my personal definition of hell. What else we got?

• 22:47Speaker 01

  Meredith said, bedroom clutter is anything that makes your room less peaceful, like the pile of clean clothes that I move from the bed to the floor each night and the clutter that accumulates on top of the dresser.

• 22:56Joshua Fields Millburn?

  This is something else I don't understand, so I'm gonna, I'm gonna tune into Cass here. I, my OCD would never allow me to take a pile of clothes and set it anywhere. And, and so as soon as the clothes come out of the dryer, they must be folded or hung immediately.

• 23:13Speaker 05

  What if you get a phone call? What if you don't have time? What do you do?

• 23:15Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Well, it doesn't, the house could be on fire, TK. And I'm putting the clothes in the drawer.

• 23:20Speaker 05

  That is a movie I want to see.

• 23:24Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I'm not saying it's healthy. I'm just saying this is where my mind goes. In fact, I wrote this essay called The Perfect Closet. We'll put a link to it in the show notes. I'm not gonna read the whole thing. But a couple of weeks ago, we did an episode with Courtney Carver about closet clutter, which is so closely related to bedroom clutter. Because most of our bedrooms have a closet in them, whether it's a full walk-in closet or just a small little closet where our clothes go. But quite often, the clothes don't go in the closet. They go on the bed or on the floor or in a pile somewhere or they're in this hamper or in a laundry basket that is now on the floor or on the bed or on the nightstand. And we have clothes that are accumulating in the bedroom. This is a little quick excerpt from the.

• 24:08Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Perfect Closet. The Perfect Closet exists, but it is not located on the other side of your next purchase. According to the Public Interest Research Group, the average American buys 53 new articles of clothing each year. That's more than one thing per week and four times as much as in the year 2000. Accordingly, garment manufacturers are now producing more than 100 billion pieces every year, and most of them are ending up on our beds, apparently.

• 24:41Joshua Fields Millburn?

  You know, what's crazy about this is I want to blame the fast fashion companies and the corporations because there's a particular kind of corporate greed to get us to buy more and more and more. But we need to be honest with ourselves that these companies are ceaselessly churning out new attire only because we shoppers keep demanding more. So part of the problem, Cass, it seems to me, is the reason we have piles of clothes, either we put off doing laundry for a long time, or we just keep buying more and more and more, and it accumulates in our closets and our bedrooms and our beds.

• 25:17Speaker 04

  Yeah, and there's a third thing, too, and that is that everyone doesn't organize the same way. So the truth is, you have this pile of laundry and you're like, oh, I should fold it and put it in the drawers. Guess what? Drawers don't work for almost half the population. They just, there's like this block because as soon as you put it in the drawer, you can't see it. You forget that you own it. And it's like, it's a friction point. It's more work. So here's what I would say. If you have tons of clothes all over your bed, or you're never actually putting that basket of clean clothes away, why not adapt to a system that kind of catches that clutter and gives it a home? You guys are gonna hate this, but hold on to your hats. I do not fold. Period.

• 26:02Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 26:03Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I don't hate this.

• 26:04Speaker 04

  And that's okay.

• 26:06Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah.

• 26:06Speaker 04

  So I have big baskets, one for pajamas. I just toss it in. It's away. Hey, man, it's away. And that's all that matters. I don't fold underwear. Stop it. I got better things to do. No one's gonna see it. Doesn't matter if it's wrinkled and it's fine. And here's the other thing. If you are a person who lives out of clean clothes baskets, why not in your closet, get shelving to just put that clean basket on a shelf? And that's where your clothes go. This is changing my life right now. Do you know what I'm saying? Why do we gotta fit into these boxes of perfectly lined up folded clothes and dressers and closets all that's it's no, man, adapt your home to the way you naturally touch and put your things away. That's, that's the true definition of organization.

• 26:51Joshua Fields Millburn?

  You're right. I hate it for me, but I love it for you. And Kristin Ziegler, who's gonna be here next week, she's rolling around in her grave right now. I think you just killed her.

• 27:00Speaker 04

  She's not dead.

• 27:01Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Well, she might be after hearing this. Kristin Ziegler, we're doing cabinet clutter with her next week. And I was just at her house out in Richmond, Virginia. We were filming something for our next documentary and she puts me to shame. I feel like a real clutter bug. And when I go home, I'm like, I'm actually, I'm like taking video of her closet. I'm like sending it to my wife like, hey, Bex, this just feels so loving and caring and kind. And man, look how calm Kristin's space is. But I love it for me and I love it for Kristin as well, as long as it's not overwhelming to her. But I also love this idea of, you know what?

• 27:44Joshua Fields Millburn?

  If you want to have bins instead of folding things, you can still make it so the clutter gets out of the way. It's not on your bed. It's still in its appropriate home.

• 27:52Speaker 04

  Yeah, my house is spotless. I know, shocking. It's super clean and tidy and organized, but it's not meticulous. And it doesn't have to be. It has to be a calming, beautiful space where you know where everything is. You can find it quickly and you can put it away quickly and that's all that matters. So if you are not a person who's folding and putting your underwear in a drawer, that's okay. Get a basket, shoot it like a basketball and move on with your life.

• 28:19Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Are people still wearing underwear these days? It's 2025.

• 28:22Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 28:22Speaker 05

  Hey, let me tell you why I love this really quickly. People often assume that minimalism is a uniform. They see the minimalism aesthetic and they say, oh, black, white, it looks this way. And then they go from uniform to uncreative. And what I love about what Kaz is saying is that there's room for personalized, customized, creative expression in minimalism. You can organize in the way that best suits you. I just love that.

• 28:47Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Malibu, let's do one more.

• 28:48Speaker 01

  This was one of my favorites. This one comes from Jeffrey. He said, I know a lot of people are anti television in the bedroom. However, I find that watching documentaries while I'm going to sleep helps distract my brain. It seems counterintuitive, right? I find that trying to just lay there in silence lets all of the little brain gremlins loose and my mind races through any number of things. Definitely not relaxing by any stretch of the imagination.

• 29:13Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah, that's definitely not relaxing to be dealing with the, the brain gremlins at night. I totally get it, right? I, for me, having a screen in the bedroom, whether it is a iPad or a phone or especially a television, does not work for me. It is a distraction for me. But my personal belief around this is a bedroom, or a bed specifically, is meant for two things, neither of which involve a glowing screen. And I don't want a television in my bedroom because, simply because I'll watch it. That is my biggest problem. It's easy for me to get distracted. The same reason I don't want, I don't keep a phone in my bedroom at night. In fact, I don't let my phone follow me throughout the house. We have the entryway rule. As soon as I get home, I plug that phone in

• 29:56Joshua Fields Millburn?

  and it's like a corded home phone from back in the 1900s. And I can go to it and I can still make a phone call or send a text message. But those distractions are not following me into the bedroom. Do you have a philosophy around screens in the bedroom, Kaz?

• 30:11Speaker 04

  Oh, man, I am in the wrong place here. I am watching zombies getting eaten right till the time I close my eyes.

• 30:21Speaker 04

  Yeah, I know. I love the TV in the bedroom. I fought my husband over this. He is definitely more like you than me, but he-

• 30:27Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I was wondering why he had a black eye today. Sorry, Joe.

• 30:29Speaker 04

  It's like, no, I'm like sci-fi, rah, and then it's like, well, good night. It's ridiculous. I realize it's ridiculous. I definitely have to work on this, but one thing for me, it's like, I need boundaries and rules. I want to let my freak flag fly and do all the things I love, but I still have to be a grown up and go to bed at a decent time. So the great thing is like phones nowadays, you can put screen time on, so it shuts off every night at the same time you brick that thing. And so you can't use it even though it's there. And that's a really great way of if you don't have the self-discipline to put your phone in your entrance way, which wow, that you're, you're amazing. I am less amazing. Why not set rules for yourself and then lock that stuff down at a certain time? Technology gives

• 31:14Speaker 04

  us the ability to do that. So we don't really have to change habits, but we can still have the same outcome.

• 31:20Joshua Fields Millburn?

  These boundaries really help me because I'm so un-amazing. And the next thing, I don't have the discipline to not check my phone if it's with me. If it's in my pocket, it becomes that distraction. And I learned this especially because a few weeks ago, when I was flying back from seeing Kristen Ziegler, I lost my phone at the Enterprise Rent-A-Car in the shuttle, and I felt so naked without it. And I realized that that twitch, I'm waiting in the TSA line and everyone is on their phone and I'm not judging them. I just saw myself in them because that's what I wanted to be doing right now is I don't even have any interesting apps on my phone either. So like, what was I gonna do? I was gonna scroll through my text messages maybe, or I was going to check the weather app again?

• 32:04Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I'm not really sure, but I needed some sort of pacification. And that is the problem is we have become terrified of boredom. We've become consumers of entertainment to our own detriment. And that's the reason that I don't want a TV in the bedroom. Not that I think entertainment is bad or immoral or evil in some way. I know that if I don't put a boundary there, before I know it'll be 2:00 AM and I'm just drooling on myself because there's another episode of Mad Men or The Shield or The Sopranos or something. What about you, TK?

• 32:37Speaker 05

  Yeah, you know, it could be hard to know in the heat of the moment if what you're doing is healthy or unhealthy, because sometimes healthy things feel bad in the moment and unhealthy things feel really, feel really good in the moment. But a good heuristic is to say, how do you feel when you're done? How do you feel a day later? Do you look back on that night and say, I watched a documentary as I fell asleep and I'm so glad I did that. I feel so good today and I feel good about what I learned and how I was able to relax, then keep it moving and keep doing what you're doing. If on the other hand, you say, you know, I'm looking at my phone before I go to bed and it's distracting me and it's making me stay up later than I want. Now I'm sleepy and I'm grumpy. Then there might be an opportunity to rethink and reframe how we're doing it. It's not about this one absolute right way.

• 33:19Speaker 05

  Minimalism isn't about moralism. It's about meaning and you get to decide what your bedroom is for and what activities best facilitate that purpose.

• 33:27Joshua Fields Millburn?

  One potential option for Jeffrey, if, because the blue light from the TV may actually disrupt your sleep and you mentioned your sleep mask that you have in my nightstand. That's one of the things I have. I have a sleep mask. I have some earplugs from a company called Earpiece, not a sponsor, but they're just the ones I've found that work best for me. Piece as in P E A C E, earpiece and

• 33:47Speaker 05

  Sounds like you're rapping.

• 33:50Joshua Fields Millburn?

  We'll save that for the private podcast. You know, but I have a few things in my nightstand that sort of block out the outside world and keep the, the blue light out. But I try to limit blue light at night in general. After the sun goes down, I don't want to disrupt my circadian rhythm. And so if you want to still have that distraction because of the, the gremlins that are gobbling up your mind, Jeffrey, maybe you switch to something like a podcast or audiobook, something you can listen to if that blue light begins to trouble you at some point.

• 34:22Speaker 04

  I'm, I'm feeling real inspired right now. This is the thing I got at work on. My husband's always telling me, yeah, but hearing it from your husband say it, you're like, God, yeah, you don't know what you're talking about. I gotta get the phone out of the bedroom. You're right. It's a problem. It's an addiction. And I think a lot of us are, we just don't want to admit it. So I love that you're sharing this and, and helping people. Yeah, I'm feeling it. My God, I'm feeling shamed. I'm going to start charging it somewhere else. I appreciate this.

• 34:50Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Hi, my name is Joshua and I'm a phonaholic. Hi, Joshua. How about you listeners? What's your personal definition of bedroom clutter? And what is one thing that doesn't belong in the bedroom for you? Let us know your thoughts in the Patreon community chat, which by the way, you can join for free, even if you don't subscribe to our private podcast. Okay, give me something pithy, TK. What's your personal definition of bedroom clutter? And what's one thing that doesn't belong in the bedroom?

• 35:17Speaker 05

  All right. A restroom has no room for distractions. I define bedroom clutter as anything that gets in the way of my ROI. That's my rest or intimacy. Those are the two things I've decided my bedroom is for, not yours, but mine. And so, no television for me, because that gets in the way of both of those things. No arguments for me. If something comes up and we really need to argue about it, we'll get out of that bed. We'll exit that bedroom and we'll go take a walk and we'll talk about what we need to talk about until we can come back into that space in a position where we can have rest or intimacy. And so, I think if you think about these things in terms of absolutes, you'll psych yourself out because you're studying what everyone else is doing and you're not exercising

• 36:01Speaker 05

  your autonomy, which is to say, this is my home. This is one of the few spaces I get to call my own. I'm going to decide what this space is for and get rid of everything that gets in the way of what is a distraction to me.

• 36:14Joshua Fields Millburn?

  It's a perfect segue into my pithy answer here is a cluttered bedroom leaves no room for life's most intimate moments. Intimacy, I'm not just talking about sex and you think about the bedroom and we could talk about that. And of course, a glowing screen can get in the way of that type of intimacy as well. And, but being intimate with someone is being present with them and being vulnerable with them and listening to them. And so, any of these distractions get in the way of that sort of intimacy, being here, right here, right now. All right, that's the end of page one. We still have an entire switchboard of callers to talk to, cast.

• 36:56Joshua Fields Millburn?

  But first, real quick for right here, right now, here's one thing that's going on in the life of the minimalists. Do you know our next FAMs call? Our Friday afternoon minimalist Zoom is Friday, March 7th at 3:00 PM Eastern. TK, what is FAMs?

• 37:11Speaker 05

  FAMs is the Friday afternoon minimalist Zoom call and it's an opportunity for us all to get together as a family in a laid back casual conversational setting where we can laugh, we can talk about what's on our mind. Not only can you ask questions and we answer them, but we as a community can all chip in with our own stories and perspectives and we got that exciting little chat box going on where we're sharing links, sharing memes, sharing laughs and stories and recommendations. It's just a different kind of experience than what we can do on the podcast and even at the Sunday Symposium. Really fun time.

• 37:44Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And people from all over the world. We had a big German contingent this last time around. Bama was there. I thought she got hacked. Yuck, no. She was speaking German in the chat and it was wild and I just really enjoy them. It's kind of like one of our live events, but it's open to anyone, anywhere in the world. And if you miss it because you can't be there, you're at work or maybe you're sleeping at that particular time, that's okay. You can go back and listen to the recording. Savvy D records the whole thing and we put it up there so you can go back and listen to it. In fact, go back and listen to that February one. It was me and TK and Nicodemus in Alabama. Savvy D was there. Post-production Peter was there as well. And then a whole bunch of you, hundreds of you were there. We brought some of you up on stage. We had

• 38:27Joshua Fields Millburn?

  these really intimate conversations. People brought their struggles. They brought their stories. They brought their tears. They brought their joy and everything else in between. That's the Friday afternoon minimalist Zoom. It's the first Friday of every month. The next one is March 7th at 3:00 PM Eastern. You can find all the details at theminimalists.com/zoom. And speaking of live events, you just talked about the Sunday Symposium. You can listen to every Sunday Symposium we've ever done. We recorded them. If you are a Patreon true fan, you can find all 12. I think we have 12 out there now and the 13th one is right around the corner. We have recorded those for you. If you want to listen to some of those live events, some of our most meaningful and magical experiences. The one we just

• 39:11Joshua Fields Millburn?

  did in Santa Barbara was amazing. Nicodemus will be at the one in April that we're doing up in Santa Barbara. Again, we do them in LA. We do them in Orange County as well. Attend one of those live events there in every month, the last Sunday in Southern California. Just heading over to sundaysymposium.com to grab your free tickets. Yes, they are free, so the every event always sells out. If you can't make it, or if you, if you don't make it in time to get your ticket in time, don't worry, just put your name on the waitlist and we'll let you know as soon as some tickets open up. Malibu, what else you got for us?

• 39:43Speaker 01

  Here's a minimalist insight from one of our listeners.

• 39:46Speaker 06

  Hi guys, my name is Stephanie and I'm a Patreon subscriber from Germany. You might remember me as the control freak from one of the earlier episodes. I just stumbled across a very interesting blog, which I felt I should share with you. It is called the Healthy Compulsive. So it's basically for everyone who's dealing with obsessive compulsive personality disorder. And it really helped me a lot into understanding my personality and putting it to use, basically. So maybe Gary Trossler is also someone to consider for being on your podcast. Thank you very much for everything you do and Happy New Year, by the way. Bye.

• 40:27Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Stephanie, thank you so much for that helpful comment. I just took a look at this website, thehealthycompulsive.com. We'll put a link to this in the show notes, some great looking articles here. What is the difference between OCD and OCPD? And you know what, I, as someone who is formally diagnosed with OCD, it's also been a superpower for me when it's a healthy compulsion. Now, it can devolve into something that is unhealthy or distracting, or it's a type of clutter. It can get in the way, but it can also be transformed into a superpower. Thank you so much for sharing that. I never heard of thehealthycompulsive.com. Some articles on here, Carl Jung on the compulsive urge to individuate compulsive personality,

• 41:08Joshua Fields Millburn?

  a new and positive perspective, and the Healthy Compulsive Project, Taking the Wheel of the Driven Personalities. A lot of driven people are also a bit OCD. PK is looking at me funny right now.

• 41:24Joshua Fields Millburn?

  For anyone else has a listener tip or insight about this episode or any other episode, send a voice memo to [email protected] right from your phone so we can feature your voice on the show. Up next, page two and page three, but first, let's take a quick pandiculation break. We'll be right back.

• 41:42Joshua Fields Millburn?

  All right, that's the first 34% of episode 480. We'll see you on Patreon for the full maximal edition with Cass Arson, which includes answers to a bunch more questions. Questions like, "What are the four clutter bug decluttering styles? How does ADHD play a role in decluttering? What should I do with the storage bins in my bedroom? How can I live in peace if my work desk is crammed into my bedroom? Why does having so many throw pillows, decorative pillows on my bed, make me happy? Plus a million more questions and simple living segments over on the Minimalist Private Podcast on Patreon. Big thanks to Cass Arson for joining us today. You can

• 42:26Joshua Fields Millburn?

  check her out at clutterbug.com. She has a great quiz over there. Figure out what kind of clutter bug you are. Understand your clutter personality, so you can let go in a way that serves you, and that letting go doesn't actually get in the way. You can also check out her YouTube channel. It's called Clutter Bug. We'll put a link to both of those in the show notes. And that is our minimal episode for today. Big thanks to Earthing Studios for the recording space. On behalf of Ryan Nicodemus, TK Coleman, Malibu, Post-Production Peter, Spire Jeff, Inspire Dave, Savvy D. on the board, and the rest of our team. I'm Joshua Fields Milburn. If you leave here with just one message, let it be this: Love people and use things,

• 43:09Joshua Fields Millburn?

  because the opposite never works. And clear all that clutter off your damn nightstand. Thanks for listening, y'all.

• 43:17Speaker 00

  We'll see you next time.

• 43:18Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Peace.