In the previous article " Why I can't clean my house? Part 1: Minimalist with less than 50 possessions teaches the ultimate method", I have written how to reduce things and organise your house simultaneously.
In this article, I would like to share my shopping idea to prevent extra waste.
If you read through this article, you'll know what kind of things you need to pay attention to when you go shopping not to buy a new one.
Let's jump into it.
Table of Content
- What's the reason you go shopping?
- What is the "One Two rule"?
- How to apply it to your life?
What's the reason you go shopping?
The question I would like to ask you is the reason why you go shopping?
When you go shopping, do you have specific things that you want to buy?
Maybe sometimes you feel you want to go downtown because you get bored or want to kill some time before the schedule.
From the perspective of a minimalist, doing random shopping isn't a good idea, but some of you may not be able to quit random shopping for a long time.
In my case, I've never purchased things randomly because I have a strict "One Two rule" that I'm going to show you later on.
So if you feel that you want to go shopping but you don't have the specific things to buy, please try my "One Two rule" so that you can prevent the extra expense and also you can save the environment.
What is the "One Two rule"?
This is actually the original method that I have created and have been doing for ages without any failure.
One Two rule is the rule which means if you buy one thing, you need to throw away two things within the same genre that you have just bought.
The purpose of this rule is to reduce the number of things so that you can organise your house.
Having fewer things in your house will definitely help you to clean your house so knowing the One Two rule is very effective and helpful for you to start cleaning your house.
To explain more in detail, I will use an example here.
The dish you have been using was broken today.
Now before going to buy a new dish, what you have to do is to decide on another dish that you are going to say goodbye to today.
You have broken one dish unfortunately, this dish is counted as one, so to follow the rule you have to choose another one.
If you don't feel like throwing away, you can bring the dish to the secondhand shop or donate it to the organization.
As written in my other articles, you can always donate to the organization instead of throwing it away.
If you feel guilty about throwing away things that you have bought before, donating is always good because people in need will be able to use them for their lives.
Let's get back to the mainstream.
This method is based on simple mathematics.
+1 purchase -2 release = -1release
You release 2 things and also you have bought one new thing, what happened to you is that you have successfully released one object at the end of the day.
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This approach is very minimalistic because I, as one of the minimalists, think in this way all the time so for more than five years, the number of things that I have has decreased or at least has been the same because I'm always stick to this One Two rule.
In other words, if you cannot come up with two things that you can throw away, you cannot go shopping.
I know you are reading this article because you want to clean your house so the possibility of you being a shopping lover is now eliminated because if you are a big shopping lover, it is almost impossible to clean your house.
To add my personal perspective, I never push this way of thinking to the person who loves shopping because for me, being a minimalist satisfies me a lot but maybe for that person, doing the shopping can satisfy a lot.
For example, when I bought the coffee cup called Ecoffee Cup, detail is written in the article "Minimalist item for home: bamboo reusable "ecoffee cup" is for all coffee lovers", that was a time when two of my mug cups looked really old and wanted to change them to a new one.
So my shopping is almost like a "replacement" in some way.
How to apply it to your life?
The method itself is surprisingly simple but it is surprisingly difficult to conduct.
To apply this simple method to your life, I have one recommendation; write down this method on the paper and put it on the wall that you see quite often in your life.
The point here is that you want to see it every day until you can conduct this rule unconsciously.
These days smartphone is so convenient that even I always take a note on a smartphone memo app like Google Keep.
Of course, taking notes on a smartphone memo app is clever because I can remember she was the amount of information right?
My question here is do you remember everything that you have taken note on your smartphone?
Unless you are trying to remember consciously what you have written down to a note app, I think most of you forget what you have written after writing it down.
Writing down doesn't mean you have remembered it.
Another tip to keep conducting this rule is "think the opposite".
Many people go shopping without thinking and after they have purchased extra things and when they go back home, they finally realize that they have "another" too many things.
I suggest you think oppositely.
YOU GOTTA THINK ABOUT "TWO RELEASE" BEFORE GOING SHOPPING
To sum up, please remember this simple phrase not to increase the things you have.
You can clean your house if you start this simple rule.
"One purchase Two release"