The pie that never existed, if not for the magic of minimalism
What best-ever thing are you missing out on because you’re bogged down by your crap or by work you don’t like?
I just made my best-ever strawberry rhubarb pie. Perfectly sweet, with just the right flakiness in the crust.
But the pie wouldn’t have happened if not for minimalism. And my husband would have gone without his one request for his 36th birthday.
I’ve barely cooked during Covid (thus, our SAD diet), let alone baked for enjoyment. Our house has felt like a landfill for the past 6 months, with the kitchen as the epicenter — dishes typically pile up in the sink until someone decides to deal with them and make dinner. Hence, we’ve eaten a lot of pizza.
I was sick as F of living that way. So in August, I purged and purged. And made simpler systems. And purged more.
The game-changer was the most radical: I kept ONE cup, ONE mug, ONE bowl, and ONE plate per person. If you don’t clean your dish after the meal, you don’t have a dish for the next meal.
Voilà, no more sink full of dishes!
I uncovered physical space to roll out a pie crust and mental space to remember that baking isn't a chore.
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Do you ever feel like this with your hobbies? Like it’s too hard to dig out the golf clubs from the garage because they’re buried under a badminton set, some rusty tools, and the tennis racquets you meant to have restrung 5 years ago? So you simply don’t ever get around to golfing, even though you could make the time and could use the exercise.
We keep those silly things just because we’ve always had them.
Fascinatingly, our stuff often actively hinders us from doing the things we love.
It’s a shocking revelation if you take the time to think about it. I’ll say it again: We have so much stuff (most of which we don’t give two toddler-poops about) that we can’t use our stuff for the things we enjoy.
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Worse, we do the same in our small businesses. How often do we do something just because we’ve always done it?
For me, website design isn’t my jam — writing and coaching are. But I’ve always done it, so when a client asked, I said yes. Now, when I sit down to work on the website, I’m uninspired and hankering to work with my writing clients.
And when I had an urban flower farm, I sold at a farmer’s market, even though I hated it. I kept at it because that’s how most flower farmers started out. If I had given up the farmer’s market sooner, I would have enjoyed my farm more and been more motivated to create a sustainable business.
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We all have our things we do because we’ve always done them.
We all have our possessions we keep because we’ve always had them.
F it. Be done. Burn it down. Clear out your crap that keeps you from your hobbies, and weed out the burdens that keep you from loving your small business.
My best-ever strawberry rhubarb pie wouldn’t exist if not for minimalism. (And that wasn’t even one of my goals!! 🙂) What best-ever thing are you missing out on because you’re bogged down by stuff or by work you don’t like?