For my entire adult life, I’ve lived in various small apartments in big cities, and for the past three years, I’ve lived in the same 650-square-foot New York City apartment—a one-bedroom oasis that I truly love. I didn’t initially think that I would end up staying in this space for so long, but let’s face it: Moving is difficult and expensive. Plus, since I’ve customized my apartment to truly fit my needs and reflect my style, there’s no need for me to spread my wings and leave my little nest quite yet. One of the major reasons I’ve managed to not outgrow my small apartment? My regular monthly declutter sessions.
5 Tips to Help You Tackle a Monthly Declutter
I’ve always loved organizing—ever since I was a kid, I’ve taken great pleasure in tossing unnecessary items and leaving only the essentials behind. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m by no means a minimalist,—but everything in my apartment has its place and purpose. While I do have stacks of coffee table books and bins of decor that I’m holding onto for a bigger apartment sometime down the line, you’ll never find unnecessary “stuff” in my home. Here’s now I keep my space (and myself) chaos-free.
1. Choose a New Area of the Home to Focus on Each Month
It’s funny because my monthly declutter isn’t something that I schedule on a calendar or note down on a to-do list. Rather, it’s a process that I naturally feel inclined to engage in every few weeks. However, if decluttering doesn’t come as effortlessly to you, that’s more than ok.
Each month, choose an area to focus on specifically, whether that’s your medicine cabinet, makeup drawer, bar cart, junk drawer, etc. Spend time going through the items in this location and determine what you still use and will keep. Then, make a bag of things you can donate or give to friends and make another bag of items to toss or recycle. By focusing on just one drawer or bin each month, you won’t become overwhelmed or make hasty decisions.
2. Don’t Let Donations Linger
Luckily, my apartment is located right near some great thrift stores where I can easily drop off items I’m ready to part with post-monthly declutter. Make sure that you, too, are efficient about discarding unnecessary goods so that your entryway doesn’t become overwhelmed by reusable bags that you’ve been meaning to take to Goodwill.
I love to thrift, so dropping off donations also comes with the promise that I can browse for new-to-me items. Yes, this may seem counterintuitive, but honestly, I find that after a cleanout I’m more judicious about what I choose to bring home, since I’m still riding that clutter-free high.
3. Tackle Cleanouts in Small Increments
There’s no need to completely overturn your schedule to fit in a monthly declutter. Some of my most productive monthly cleanouts have taken place when I’ve had a free 30 minutes during the work day and need a bit of a distraction from looking at my screens.
Don’t assume that you need to devote more than a half hour to an organization task. You’ll feel more productive if you can squeeze a quick drawer cleanout into your regular daily schedule. Of course, an area like your closet will require more availability—save that for a weekend!
4. Ask Yourself If You’d Keep Something If You Moved
For a while earlier this year, I was toying with the idea of moving apartments, and that made me become extra strict with myself during my cleanouts about what I felt was worth holding onto. While I’ve decided to renew my lease for an additional year, I still find myself thinking seriously about whether I’d really want to carry (or pay a mover to carry!) yet another box of coffee table books (which are my biggest vice!) into a future apartment.
Just as you might ask yourself if you really need that final cocktail when you’re out at a bar, make an effort to also ask yourself during your next decluttering spree whether you really need that extra cookbook or vase or tablecloth—whatever—or if it can instead go into the donation bin. After some time, this will become a habit!
5. Host a Mini Sale
Earlier this summer, a fellow collector friend of mine teamed up with me to host a mini yard sale in our other friend’s basement, and it was such a hit! It may sound cheesy, but it brought me so much joy to see other people enthusiastically pick up books I hadn’t touched in years or swoon over accessories that were begging to be displayed in a new home. Additionally, making a little (actually, quite a bit!) of extra cash didn’t hurt. Just be sure that you spend it on something intentional rather than going on a post-sale shopping spree.
Final Thoughts
Need a little more inspo? I’m always motivated to get decluttering after watching some of my favorite creators’ “Sunday reset” videos on TikTok. While these are much larger cleaning sessions, they’re definitely inspiring and will have you realizing how quickly you can tackle that pesky drawer that’s been nagging you for months. Highly recommend!
More articles to help you get that fresh, clean-slate feeling.
Living in a society where perfection is not only the norm but encouraged can be disheartening to say the least. How many times have you taken a blurry photo and overlooked its perceived flaws because it goes against the grain (mind the pun)? It’s true that historically we have tended to lean toward the shiny and new versus the old and worn, but those tides are turning as more of us embrace authenticity over accuracy. True beauty lies in the cracks, the rough edges, the imperfect glazes, and even the deliberate flaws.
It’s why the Japanese philosophy, wabi sabi has captured our imagination and our hearts—it’s quite literally the antidote to perfectionism. Photographer, creative director, and author, Julie Pointer Adams was so drawn to the wabi way of life that she wrote an entire book dedicated to it, titled Wabi-Sabi Welcome: Learning to Embrace the Imperfect and Entertain with Thoughtfulness and Ease. As Adams explains, wabi sabi means “living in a way that pays attention and appreciates the beauty of the mundane, minute details of everyday life—things that often go unseen, unnoticed or unvalued.”
Why Wabi Sabi Could Change the Way You See the World
She adds: “For me, living with that kind of careful consciousness is the way I strive to live all the time, and always have, even before I was aware of the concept. By writing a book, I wanted to make the concept perceivable and attainable in many different settings to many different people… I wanted to show how the philosophy can be adopted into anyone’s life experience through the simple rituals and routines of everyday life.”
As far as shifting her whole mindset to embrace wabi sabi in daily life and work? Well, let’s just say it’s an ongoing, everyday learning process. “I joke that I never should have written a book about wabi sabi until I had a toddler in my house!” she laughs. “It’s comical but also true that since having a child, I have come to have a whole new understanding of what it means to embrace the perfectly imperfect and to try to be fully present in every moment, even when things are not going as hoped or planned.
“To see it show up in my own life is to try to accept the fact that all things are impermanent, imperfect, and incomplete (for everyone, no matter how much social media might make us believe otherwise!), and that even in the midst of challenging moments or work experiences that feel like failures, each hour, each experience, each day is a perfect gift. It’s about living wholly in each fleeting moment, while also being aware of the whole arc of time, where nothing stays constant forever.”
We couldn’t agree more. Keep reading to learn more about what is wabi sabi, the meaning behind the movement, and how to incorporate the philosophy into your home, life, and work.
But first, what is wabi sabi?
Wabi sabi is a many-layered concept so it’s difficult to define in a few words. Most simply put, it’s a way of seeing (as coined by the Japanese) that frees us to find beauty in what is impermanent, imperfect, and incomplete.
Wabi refers to living simply and in tune with nature, to paring down to the essentials so we can appreciate each moment and object in its fullness; Sabi refers to transience and the passage of time.
Together, the two words describe a type of beauty and a way of life that embraces imperfection and simple living, clinging to what is humble, mysterious, and unassuming. To me, it’s a way of living that wholly appreciates the perfectly imperfect—something we can strive for every day in each one of our homes, our lives, and in the natural world around us. I believe wabi sabi can open our eyes and our minds to a broader, more accepting, and more joyous way of being in the world.
Can you outline the wabi sabi philosophy and why you connected with it so much?
The wabi sabi philosophy emerged around the 14th century when various artistic and Buddhist principles taken from Chinese traditions came to form a distinctly Japanese concept. At the time, the idea was very tied to the tea ceremony, and is still deeply rooted in that time-honored tradition which holds up simplicity, humility, and rustic elegance as essential ideals. It has now come to embody a particular Japanese aesthetic that celebrates a kind of flawed beauty, and is understood to be the “wisdom in natural simplicity.” While many Japanese people may find the concept difficult to describe or translate, they all inherently understand it as a hard-to-pinpoint aesthetic and a distinct way of being in the world.
This philosophy is a sharp departure from our deeply-ingrained Western ideal of what’s new, shiny, fancy, expensive, modern, and flashy. Instead, it upholds that which is aged, has a patina, is humble, modest, impermanent and isn’t attached to status. It invites us to reframe for ourselves what has value in our own lives, apart from what modern or popular culture might say.
Why do you think wabi sabi style has resonated in the West and become so popular?
It’s sort of ironic that wabi sabi has recently become a bit of a catchphrase because by nature, it goes against the grain of what’s popular or trendy. However, I think what people are attracted to by the idea of wabi sabi is that it upends the idea of the convenient, big-box consumerism that so many of us grew up with, and instead, encourages a more thoughtful approach to what we fill our lives with, and what we value.
In the midst of a deeply perfection-seeking era, especially fueled by the rise of social media, many people are also desperate to find a mode of seeing/being/thinking that frees them from this kind of perfectionistic ideal.
What does a wabi sabi home look like?
Wabi sabi can be applied to interior design in the same way it can be applied to all other parts of life—by paring down your surroundings to a simple, unfussy elegance inspired by nature, natural materials, and the beauty of imperfection. It is found in creating calm, warm, zen-like environments that are designed for intimacy versus impressing others. Wabi sabi items and spaces are full of inviting, earthy materials and tones (wood, clay, stone, etc.) that celebrate nature as she is—perfectly imperfect—and have a quiet, subdued quality to them. Even if wabi sabi spaces are decorated sparsely or have textured roughness to them (like plastered walls, live-edge wood, raw stone, nubby wool), they are full of life and warmth, versus having a kind of perfect showroom sterility to them.
How can we incorporate wabi sabi in our homes?
I believe the first way to think about incorporating wabi sabi into your home is to take stock of what you have and determine what you may no longer need. Your home may very well simply have too much stuff in it to really feel calm, peaceful, and life-giving.
Achieving a sense of wabi sabi is rarely about going out and buying a whole bunch of new stuff, but rather about simplifying, re-evaluating, and thinking carefully about every new purchase.
When you do need to purchase something new or new-to-you, as often as you can, select timeless items made from natural materials and fibers that will age well (versus cheap and/or trendy) and can be repaired or re-used for years to come.
Kintsugi—the art of beautiful repairs—is also popular now in the U.S. as a result of the rise in wabi sabi. Can you tell us more about this concept?
Kintsugi is the Japanese art of repairing pottery by mending it with gold-infused glue, so that once the object is repaired, rather than hiding the fracture lines, the gold highlights the seams, adding a new kind of beauty and grace to the piece. I think this method works beautifully as a metaphor for how if we steadily work on getting the broken parts of lives healed, rather than hiding, ignoring, or glossing over them, they can actually become a visible and lovely part of our strength. It’s yet another perfect example, like wabi sabi leads us to, of the beauty that can be found in imperfection if we have the eyes to see it.
5 Practical Ways Wabi Sabi Can Be Incorporated at Home:
1. Make do with what you have
Embracing wabi sabi is all about recognizing the beauty in humble and imperfect things, rather than always needing or desiring more. The moment you find yourself thinking your space or your objects are “not enough” is the moment you’ve lost your way with a wabi sabi mindset. Invite wabi sabi in through the simplest of ways like clipping some branches from your backyard and putting in a vase to refresh your space with a bit of nature.
2. Collect sentiment over things
Learn to collect special things that have meaning and significance, but then be willing to curate your spaces so that simplicity and comfort reign above all.
3. Practical is pretty, too
Invite beauty into your home through practical means with lovely dishware, storage, and even housecleaning items (like a lovely wooden brush and glass dispenser for the sink). Pare down to only what you need, but let some things be beautiful just for beauty’s sake—not everything needs to be useful, too.
4. Make it personal
Make your home personal by incorporating items that likely only have value to you: special family photographs, mementos collected on trips, art made by your children, and so on.
5. Bring Mother Nature in
Bring the outdoors and some earthiness inside whether through a nature-inspired color palette, wildflowers plucked from the roadside, a collection of potted plants, or your favorite beach-walk pebbles.
Last week, Isabelle and I went on a 7 a.m. walk by the lake for what has become a regular tradition. It was the first chilly fall morning, and between catching up on the daily happenings and our obsession with Taylor Swift’s first outfit of the football season (important), I was debriefing her on the next recipe I was developing. Think: a bolognese pasta but made vegan with crumbled mushrooms and tofu. Of course, I was also intent on packing it with a ton of ingredients that give you that ultimate cozy but umami flavor for the most satisfaction. Her reaction? You’re really on a mission to make tofu sexy again, aren’t you?
Now look, I understand that for non-vegetarians and vegans, tofu is probably not on your regular grocery list. But I’m here to tell you that you’re missing out. Long gone are the days of boring and bland tofu recipes. We’re in the era of endless and flavorsome possibilities when it comes to tofu, plus the benefit of extra protein. And this recipe does all of that and more. I try not to play favorites when it comes to recipes I’ve developed, but this one might just be the best I’ve come up with yet. This tofu and mushroom bolognese is here to welcome fall with open arms. Let’s get cooking.
Ingredients for Vegan Mushroom Bolognese
Onion or shallot.
Mushrooms. I use both shiitake and baby bella, but use what you have on hand.
Extra-firm tofu.
Tomato paste.
Sun-dried tomatoes. Plus the oil from the jar for even more flavor.
Garlic.
Oregano.
Diced tomatoes.
Tomato sauce.
Pasta. For extra protein, you could swap a protein pasta.
Basil.
Parmesan. Optional to keep this vegan, or you can use a vegan parmesan!
How to Make Mushroom Bolognese
The goal here is to really emulate the texture of a bolognese sauce with the bits and pieces of the mushroom and tofu for a thick and textural sauce that clings to the noodles.
To do that, you’ll blitz the mushrooms in a food processor until crumbly, and then do the same with the tofu. Be careful not to over-pulse, as the mixture will develop a paste-like texture. Just a few blitzes is perfect. Then, you’ll just add the mushrooms and tofu to the pan with the onions to cook them down and caramelize a bit before adding the rest of the ingredients. The mushrooms add a really nice earthy flavor and texture, and the tofu adds a healthy dose of hidden protein that make this a truly satisfying vegan dinner recipe.
Tips for Boosting Flavor
Vegan recipes are notorious for lacking flavor. However, the key is to think about which ingredients add that extra pop of flavor.
In this recipe, you’ll develop and layer flavor with caramelized onions and tomato paste, along with umami-rich sun-dried tomatoes. They all come together for a recipe with a ton of depth and richness that would make anyone question if it was vegan. Lastly, properly salting any recipe makes a huge difference. Be sure to salt your pasta water and taste and adjust the sauce’s salt levels as you go.
Tips for Serving and Storing Leftovers
I love spaghetti or tagliatelle noodles for a sauce like this, but a shorter option like a penne with the nooks and crannies for the sauce to nestle into is also a great option. You could even use this as the sauce in a lasagna for an extra dose of protein and vegetables.
This sauce also stores very well. I’ll even make a batch early in the week and store in the fridge if I’m planning to make pasta later in the week. But you can also freeze and thaw the sauce if you make it ahead of time. Just heat on the stove and adjust the flavors as needed.
An easy weeknight sauce packed with protein and flavor.
2–3 tablespoons oil from sun-dried tomato jar (or sub olive oil)
1/2 yellow onion, diced
4-ounce box shiitake mushrooms
4-ounce box baby bella mushrooms
7ounces extra firm tofu (1/2 block)
2 tablespoons tomato paste
pinch of red pepper flakes
1 teaspoon dried oregano
2 tablespoons sun-dried tomatoes, finely chopped
2 large cloves garlic, chopped
14-ounce can diced tomatoes
15-ounce can tomato sauce
salt and pepper to taste
In a large stovetop pot, add the sun-dried tomato oil and heat to medium. Add the onion and a pinch of salt. Cook for a few minutes until the onions begin to caramelize.
In a food processor, add the mushrooms and blitz until crumbly. Add to the onions in the pot. Then, add the tofu to the food processor, and blitz until crumbly. Add to the pot as well, stirring to combine. Cook for a few minutes.
Add the tomato paste, red pepper flakes, oregano, salt and pepper, and stir to combine. Cook until the tomato paste slightly darkens in color.
Add the diced tomatoes and tomato sauce to the pot and stir to combine. Cover and cook on medium for 10-15 minutes until thick. Taste the sauce and adjust the salt as needed. I sometimes like to add a pinch of sugar to help round out the flavors as well.
To serve, prepare your pasta of choice then add drained pasta to the sauce. Coat in sauce and serve warm with parmesan and basil. Enjoy!
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Everywhere you turn, there’s proof that social media is the ultimate highlight reel. Pregnancies, promotions, and relationship launches—”soft” and “hard.” But as a young millennial myself, there’s one that seems to populate my feeds most of all: the post announcing a new home. Whether it be an apartment or the purchase of a new house, after a few years that saw many of my friends (myself included) moving back home, we deserve to claim and curate our own little havens. And there’s no way I like to celebrate that milestone more than with my favorite housewarming gifts.
Yes, I said celebrate. While social media can make us feel bitter and cynical at times, it can also inspire greater kindness and support. Personally, I’ve stepped into this year with the perspective that I’m going to *actually* engage with content that I find exciting and uplifting. I’m going to cheer on my friends and spread positivity instead of simply being a bystander.
15 Housewarming Gifts to Welcome Your Loved Ones Home
So go ahead and like the post that celebrates what’s arguably the biggest purchase of most of our lives. Let the friend from college know that you’re proud of them for taking the leap and leasing an apartment across the country. Cheer on your cousin who, after years of dating, is moving in with their S.O. And if you feel so inclined, give a heart to the creator whose minimalist home aesthetic has inspired your own.
Once you’ve shown your digital support, it’s time to shower them IRL. Keep reading for the best housewarming gifts. From creative ceramics to candles you’ll stock up on, this list has it all.
