what’s up, everybody? welcome to duet justus! for those of you who don’t know us already,i’m michael and i’m jenny. and we’re a couple of traveling full timersin an rv we renovated from start to finish. if you guys want to check that renovationout, check it out right here, watch our progress, it’s pretty amazing. so, we’re going to talk to you guys aboutdownsizing. that was the first step in our adventure. alright, so we have all this clutter.
more clutter. all my drawers filled with stuff that i don’treally wear and doesn’t bring me joy. so we’re going to change that today. so when it came to moving into this smallspace, you can imagine just how important downsizing would be. no matter what lifestyle you have, whetheryou live in mansion or a tiny home on wheels like we do, downsizing can be beneficial forjust about anyone. it can destress your life, help you earn alittle extra cash, and even completely change the way you think about buying “things.â€
you’re probably wondering, where do i evenstart? if you feel lost and don’t know where tostart, we were in the same exact boat. so one day i was at work and i was talkingwith a co-worker of mine about moving into the rv and he had recommended this book thathe heard of called, “the life changing magic of tidying up.†this book has really changed the way we thinkabout life and it really has made a huge difference in our transition into the rv life. so we bought the book and read it, and weresuper intrigued because the book basically asks one question when deciding whether tokeep something or not, it was: “does it
spark joy?†and we were thinking, "ok, yeah, we’re definitelyskeptical on that." so the whole concept behind the book is youstart downsizing from easiest to get rid of to the hardest to get rid of. as you’re working through a certain category,you gather everything that fits in that category into one location. then you start going through it piece at atime. here’s the thing, you have to hold everypiece by hand and as you’re holding it, you ask yourself, “does this spark joy?â€
if it does, you keep it. and if it doesn’t, you let it go. the ultimate goal is to surround yourselfonly with things that spark joy for you and make you feel happy. awesome. that’s the general premise of the book. so now we’re going to show you what ourprocess was like. and let’s go ahead and start with clothes. if you’re like me and you don’t get attachedto physical items very much, this will be
relatively easy. you should be able to hone your skill on figuringout what brings you joy and what doesn’t relatively easily. no joy. done? done. clothing was definitely the easiest to getrid of. if you all are like me, there were thingshanging in my closet that i just never wore or didn’t really look very flattering onmy body.
and when i held those things up, sometimesi felt a little sad, sometimes i felt just nothing at all. and that’s when you know if you don’tfeel a spark of joy, if you feel anything but joy, it’s time to let that item go. this does not bring me joy. thank you short dress that doesn’t fit mevery well. i appreciate your time with me. and at first, i thought i was just going tobe going through them ruthlessly, like i already knew that i had tons of clothes i didn’tlike and i knew i was going to get rid of
them. nope. cute in theory, terrible. good. thank you ugly striped shirt, i will not missyou. but there were certain articles of clothingthat, just for some reason, i had a very strong emotional reaction to when it came to decidingwhether or not to let them go. it’s, it’s not the clothes themselves,it’s like the memories those clothes… it’s the memories that those clothes bringback.
the first category was definitely the mostmentally exhausting of all of them because we were just starting out and really tryingto hone that intuition but once we got it down, it was incredibly freeing. we couldn’t believe how much stuff we actuallygot rid of. and it really helped with us going forwardonto the next categories. this is all that’s left in his closet. ok. i am absolutely amazed. this is my "keep" pile.
i can’t believe how small it is. this is my “no†pile. wow. i’m absolutely shocked. look how huge that is. and two of these are jackets as well. baby, that’s amazing. i’m so proud of you. thank you.
that’s going to make moving into the rvso much easier. what do you think? it’s … i can’t believe it. we repeated that same process for the nexttwo categories: books and paperwork. the books were really easy to go through butwhen we got to the papers we could not believe how many papers we actually had. when you think about a piece of paper, youthink of it as something so small and insignificant but with this method and putting everythingall in one spot, it really opens your eyes to just how much stuff you have.
by this point in the process, we were prettymuch pros at downsizing. for the next step in the next category: themiscellaneous items, we basically decided to just throw everything all into one room,organize it by category, like kitchen ware, bath ware, and if you’re into hobbies oranything like that, this is where those categories will come in. so if you have that special star wars figurinecollection, that’s where this goes. we are hoarders.that's what we are. i had no idea we had so much stuff. once we got through the majority of our stuff,we were so motivated because we got rid of
a ridiculous amount of stuff. [laughing] [clapping] we were so ready to tackle the next, and thelast, and the hardest category: the memories… or so we thought. [pretend crying] we’re going through sentimental items, thisis probably one of the hardest steps in the process. [crying] i forgot that my sister gave me thismirror. yeah, that gives you a really good idea ofhow difficult this process can be.
you’re going to want to keep your tissueshandy because you’re going to have to dig real deep to get this process done. but, it is so worth it. and for the record, i kept that gift frommy sister. love you, jess! ok, so once we got through everything, theone thing we had to do was just get rid of the stuff we didn’t want to keep. we decided to sell some stuff on craigslistand donate as much of the other stuff as we could.
make sure to keep in mind the people who areless fortunate than you are. everyone is in a different position so ifyou can, donate as much as you can. hashtag donations matter. now that you’ve seen us use this method,we’re going to give you our top three tips. number one: sort by category, not by location. it is crucial that you get everything youown in a single category and put it all in one location. it gives you really good perspective on whatyou have. and you’ll find a lot better results bydoing this.
number two: stay focused on the question athand. “does this item bring me joy?†you’re going to get an influx of thoughts,feelings but try to tune it all out and stay focused on the question at hand. number three: make sure everything is silent. you don’t want any music playing. you don’t want any tv on. you don’t want any external stimulus that’sgoing to influence how you make your decision. so how long did all of this take us?
four days. [cow mooing]. and we were working twelve to fourteen hourdays over a four-day holiday weekend. it was pretty brutal but we wanted to getit done. this is pretty non-typical from what we’veheard. a lot of people have a lot more stuff thanwe do, so be prepared for it to take a little longer than that. so do we miss any of it? no.
not even for a second. one of the craziest side effects of this bookis it doesn’t just apply to physical items. it will branch out and go into so many otherdifferent aspects of your life. it’s more of a philosophy and a mind shiftchange than just a downsizing method. if you guys want to see how this book reallyhelped us, make sure to check out our big reveal and tiny home tour right here. and thank you guys again so much for watchingand as always, we will see you guys on the next video. [twigs snapping] there’s a cow.
[laughing] there really is a cow.
