In the summer of 2017 my husband and I watched a documentary on Netflix that rocked my world and introduced me to the idea of embracing practical minimalism. Minimalism: A Documentary examines the many flavors of minimalism by taking the audience inside the lives of minimalists from all walks of life.

I was already drawn to any documentary, blog or show about Tiny Living. Here we are living in this beautiful home and yet my heart was so utterly drawn to the idea of selling it all and moving my family of 6 into a shipping container! I think the idea of Tiny Living captivated me at the same time it did our nation because of the attention it was receiving in the media.

What it boiled down to was the desire to spend more quality time with my family and less time having to clean my house. I have 4 children under 10 and while they each complete age-appropriate chores the vast majority of housework falls to me. I wish I could say that I have it all together and that there is not a pile of laundry right now sitting in my bedroom. Actually, I wish that I could type out that sentence and not feel guilty for lying, because it’s actually a mountain of laundry and it seems to always be there.

I’ve also noticed over the past several years that if my house is in a state of chaos I am more likely to have anxiety induced anger. I didn’t even know that was a thing until I read THIS article and learned that some forms of anxiety manifest as anger and that I was not alone. I wasn’t crazy. I wasn’t a bad mom. I remember crying when I read it. I could immediately recognize that a trigger for anxiety that led to angry outbursts and yelling at my children was a messy house. I think on some level when I feel like the house has gotten out of control… I feel like I’ve lost control. Like most people, I don’t like to relinquish control and that leads to anxiety. I look at the unnecessary mess which is almost always caused by my children and they are the ones I take it out on. I’ve struggled with anxiety in the past that manifested as a deep-rooted fear of the end of the world. While the Lord has walked me through that season, the lesson remains. Anxiety can often time attach itself to something that might not make sense to somebody else. So while the quest for an orderly home might not make sense to you, it has been a crucial part of my journey toward health. You can read about my journey with fear and finding peace here.

Back to this idea of Tiny Living. I think a part of me daydreamed about the idea of eliminating the trigger. I assumed less stuff = less mess. Voila, my solution. I started a Pinterest board of Tiny Houses and enjoyed the little escape of thinking what our life would be if we just went for it and lived in our camper for a year. 

This is the time frame in which we sat down on a Saturday night as we often do and picked a documentary to watch. I loved how Minimalism: A Documentary looked at many different people and how they walked out this path of choosing minimalism for their lives. One of the people they interviewed, Joshua Becker, really had an impression on me. He talked about practical minimalism and what that looked like for his family of 4. It showed his house and while it was uncluttered and modest, it was a regular sized home. A home like ours.

Everything Joshua said really resonated with me so I searched his name and found his Facebook community; Becoming Minimalists, and quickly discovered he had written several books, one of which titled The More of Less. I purchased it and in the summer of 2017 while swinging in a hammock at our seasonal campsite in Northern Michigan; I devoured his book cover to cover. That weekend I learned the very same principles we are still learning to implement in our lives today. I didn’t have to move my family into a tiny house to find contentment, I could find it right where we already were. 

I want to first share this quote with you and then I’m going to share the book I read immediately following The More of Less and reveal how implementing them cured much of the chaos we were experiencing in our lives.

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“Minimalism is the intentional promotion of the things we most value and the removal of anything that distracts us from them… the goal of minimalism is not just to own less stuff. The goal of minimalism is to unburden our lives so we can accomplish more. In the end, your particular practice of minimalism is going to look different from that of everyone else.” Joshua Becker, The More of Less

Two Life-Changing Resources

Immediately after finishing The More of Less I started reading The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo. Marie’s name is gaining in recognition after her new show Tidying Up launched on Netflix! I am absolutely loving all the transformation pictures from my friends Facebook feeds who are being inspired by her show! Last year, I took the principles and advice from The More of Less and used them as I employed the Japanese art of decluttering and organizing from Marie’s book. I want to share a summary of each book, the main takeaways for me after reading them and how I used that knowledge to cure the chaos!



I want to first say that I appreciated how Joshua refers to his Christian faith in The More of Less and related the idea of minimalism to freeing up space in our lives to pursue our passion and find our purpose. It’s not a major theme in the book, but it really resonated with me because of my own faith walk. While there is some controversy in Christian circles with some of the meditation and more universal reference to energy in Marie Kondo’s book, I gained immense value from it. If something doesn’t resonate with you, throw it out. It doesn’t mean there is no value to be had from the source. I feel like this is common sense, but worth stating!

The More of Less

The student in me wants to go back through the book and give you a thorough outline and description of every chapter; however, then there’d be no reason for you to read the book and I’d probably be in violation of copyright law! Instead, I want to share the key points that stand out and a few quotes from Joshua Becker.

Introduction– Joshua starts the book with a story of the day his family found minimalism. It was Memorial Day 2008 and he was spending the day emptying out his two stall garage. How many of us can relate to having a garage we can’t park in? We’ve sure been there! As he’s in the midst of this monstrous chore his son asks if he will play ball with him. Like many of us do to our children when something  ‘has to get done’ he told him “no” and the boy retreated to the back yard alone. Joshua shares how he talked with his neighbor about this guilt and frustration and through that conversation had the realization “What if I don’t have to own all this stuff?!” The rest of the book describes how his family adopted minimalism and ho