Need. Want. Excess
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What are the three categories for sorting belongings?
Hello and welcome to the Art of Decluttering podcast. I'm your host, Amy Revell. Welcome. It's so good to be with you. If you haven't yet listened to last week's podcast episode with Dana K. White, I want you to go back in your feed after you've listened to this episode and listen to it. We talked all about her new children's book, Winnie's Pile of Pillows. And even though it's a children's book and we talk a lot about engaging children in decluttering in the episode, I've had multiple adults reach out to me with no children in their lives to say, Amy, that conversation with Dana was so incredible. It changed the way that I see things. It was really transformational. And so I want to take the opportunity to say, if you haven't gone and listened to it, jump back in the feed and make sure you do that.
It's a really great episode and I think it'll be helpful for you. It'd be helpful for the little people in your world if you have them as well. Today's episode is all about want. need and excess. And so what we're going to do is we're going to categorize the stuff in our home. I had the idea, I was listening to, I was reading a blog from the minimalists the other day. And one of the things they did is they categorized and said, everything kind of falls into three categories, kind of your essential things, the things that you want and you use to live a good life. And then you've got the excess and the clutter. And I played around with this idea a little bit in my mind over the last couple of days and thought, yeah, it's really actually helpful for some people to see things within this lens.
Do you see things like what do I actually need? And sometimes we conflate that and we think we need all the things, but actually when you drill it down, what do you actually need? that you're gonna keep what you need. You've got, what do I want? What is it that will help me to live a good life, a life with good wellbeing and a life I enjoy, things I like around me. And you've got this like, this is what I want. This is kind of the desires that I have.
And that's good as well. And then you've got this excess, and that's the things that you actually don't need. You don't need them, that you don't use them. They're adding stress to your life. You don't have space for them. And so by being able to kind of categorize, I hope that this is just one other tool that you can add into your way of thinking about the stuff in your home. So we're going to start off with talking about things that we need. And my challenge, because I can be a little bit of a black and white thinker, as some of you know, is that when I think like what do I need, I can get like really reductive. I need like a toothbrush, a pair of shoes, a sleeping bag, a tent and an outfit and maybe some food.
But actually like that's not the reality of the life that I live in Melbourne, Australia. I'm probably not the life that you live either. The needs that I have help me to live well and safe and So for me, that's like I need a fridge. I need a car so I can get to work and connect in my community. I need a phone so that I can work and stay connected to family and friends. I need stuff like crockery and cutlery. I need a microwave. I need an oven. I need clothes. I need shoes. So I've got all of these things that I need. Now, when we categorise it like that, we think like I need shoes, it can be tempting to think, well, I need all the shoes. But what I want you to think about in the what do I need is like I was thinking about shoes and thought I actually probably only need two pairs of shoes.
For where I live in Melbourne, I need probably a pair of summer shoes, like a pair of sandals or something like that. And I need probably a pair of runners or sneakers that I can wear in the colder months or when I'm exercising or when I just want a closed toe pair of shoes. I probably need two pairs of shoes. When it comes to my crockery, there's four people in my family, so what do I need? I need four bowls, I need four plates, I need four forks and knives and spoons.
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