How Decluttering Set the Tone for My Year – A Glacial Pace Attempt at Minimalistic Living

Grass Padrique | The Fabulous Scientist

I started this year by doing something I had been postponing for a long time: de-stashing and decluttering our home.

Not in a dramatic, overnight transformation kind of way—but slowly, intentionally, and with a lot of honesty and patience. A glacial pace, if I’m being geologic about. 😉

For years, our storage room and cabinets quietly collected things we no longer used. Art supplies from past interests, gadgets that once felt essential, toys my kids had outgrown without us even noticing. None of them were bad things, they were even treasured and loved once. They just no longer served us.

So I finally began letting go.

To date, I’ve sold around ₱10,000 worth of items and I’ve only started last weekend, I sold preloved essentials including a Bluetooth keyboard, a tablet, Wacom and XP-Pen pens and tablets, watercolor paints and papers, pastels, colored pencils, a lamp, and a few other odds and ends. Each item sold felt like releasing a small weight—both physically and mentally.

What surprised me most wasn’t the money (though that was a welcome bonus), but the clarity that came with it. What also amazed me was how quickly the items got sold, although I had only posted them on my personal Facebook account. I had not realized that what had been sitting in my storage for a while was included in some of my friends’ wish lists (as was mentioned via private messages and comments section).

As I sorted through our things, I realized how much we were holding onto just in case. Supplies for hobbies I no longer practiced such as oil painting set containing traditional paints and medium that sadly give me rhinitis each time I use them. Tools I once needed but had since outgrown such as the Wacom and XP Pen tablets that I used during my graduate school. Items kept not because they were useful, but because they represented a version of myself I thought I might return to someday. Majority of the items, I also realized were my kids’ portfolio, projects made from kindergarten, old books, and toys.

Decluttering became a quiet exercise in self-awareness—and it also made me reflect on how clutter enters our homes in the first place.

Last December, I made a conscious decision to give practical, consumable gifts—things I knew my recipients could actually use. I gave aromatherapeutic bath soaps, lippies, food, and spa vouchers. For friends with more active lifestyles, I chose sports towels instead of decorative items. They weren’t flashy gifts, I admit, but they were thoughtful, usable, and intentional.

That choice was shaped by my own experience at home.

As much as we appreciate every gift our family has received over the years, I realized that part of our clutter came from well-meaning items we simply couldn’t use or consume. They were given with love, received with gratitude—but eventually stored away, waiting for the “right time” that never quite came. I already gave some away the past few weeks but even after that, I still found myself staring at a mountain of clutter in our storage room.

This realization gently shifted how I think about sustainability. Instead of buying new or letting unused items sit indefinitely, selling—and in some cases giving things away—allowed them to continue being useful in someone else’s hands. It felt like a small but meaningful way to reduce waste, extend the life of things, and be more mindful of what we bring into our home and what we pass on to others.

The same awareness extended to my kids’ belongings. Like many children, they accumulated toys faster than they could meaningfully enjoy them. While they still love their car collection and spend more time on online games now, many of their Beyblades, character toys, and Lego sets have been left untouched for months—some for years.

It wasn’t that they didn’t appreciate these toys; they actually did for a few years (note, some of the toys were from their toddler years!). Still, it came to the point that they simply moved on. Case in point, my youngest son bought a stadium for his Beyblades in December 2024 using the money he got as a gift, but it has been sitting unused in our storage room since the summer of last year. When I asked why he hasn’t been playing with it, he said that his “kuya” (older brother) has gotten too busy with school to play with him, so he lost interest. It was a simple reason but one that I missed simply because it took me a while to notice and ask the question.

Letting go of their unused toys felt less like loss and more like acceptance—accepting that interests change, seasons shift, and growth often shows up in the things we quietly leave behind. It also opened conversations with them about reuse, sharing, and why not everything needs to be kept forever. When Ian found out that I’m de-stashing stuff at home, he suggested that I sell his well-loved microscope toy and the prepared slides. In less than five minutes after posting the photo on my Facebook, someone bought it and 5 more people inquired if it was still available. Ian has realized that he’s outgrown it and he was ready to sell it away.

De-stashing hasn’t cleared out our storage room and cabinets just yet (will take weeks to months for sure) but it did change how I think about what we bring into our home moving forward. I’m now more mindful of purchases, more intentional about storage, and more aware of how easily clutter accumulates when we don’t pause to reassess.

In the coming weeks, I plan to continue this process—slowly and without pressure—by sorting through clothes, fountain pens, ballpoint pens, inks, shoes, bags, art materials, books, and gadgets that people in my circle might have better use of. Not everything needs to go, but everything deserves to be reconsidered. If it no longer fits our life, our needs, or our values, then perhaps it’s time for it to find a new home.

Starting the year this way felt grounding.

It reminded me that making space—whether physical, mental, or environmental—is an active choice. And sometimes, the simplest way to move forward is to gently release what no longer serves us.