Minimalista: Your step-by-step guide to a better home, wardrobe and life

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Over the years she created a signature decluttering and organization process that promotes sustainability, achieves lasting results, and can be applied to anyone, regardless of their space or lifestyle. Her Virtual Closet Makeover Program and Virtual Work Space Makeover Program sell out instantly and have garnered attention from A-list celebrities, Olympic athletes, and tech entrepreneurs. Also, her style “uniform advice” rubbed me the wrong way…I’m not Obama, I need some flexibility / spontaneity / diversity in my life, thank you very much, even if i have very limited closet space and have to fit it into a capsule collection (for better advice on this front, I recommend Nina Walder in Instagram). I read the first half on her organizing principles and then jumped back and forth between the chapters in the second half depending on the room I was working on.

I was determined to retain my sense of style and say “no” to all the latest gizmos and gadgets and baby gear despite the pressure to do otherwise. Natural light-filled rooms and closets are in lovely white and neutral palettes and are not jarring, nor overdone. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband, two daughters, and their Australian shepherd, who sheds all over their very organized home.

In her world, people also don’t really exercice and should chuck all their sports wear they never use (you got me here Shira, i confess, guilty as charged), nor do they do any of the crafts they have stoked their drawers with (leave my 64 pans of watercolor out of this! Broken into small, bite-sized chunks, Minimalista makes it clear that if the process is fun and easy to follow, anyone can learn the principles of editing and organisation. i’m trying to accumulate LESS, and i’d like to use what i have already (for instance i started with my junk drawer today, and i’m finally using all those slider bags i’ve saved). You can read my most recent book review of Minimal Mom by Diane Boden h e re, and see all my book reviews here.

Rather than imposing strict rules and limitations, Shira redefines minimalism as having the perfect amount of everything—for you— based on your personal values and the limitations of your space. When you tackle even a single drawer, you’ll experience success, boost your confidence, and start to feel hopeful, even excited, about tackling the rest of your home. Not intentionally, and I’m sure organizing existed before Marie Kondo and it will exist after…but damn, that lady was such a phenomenon, and for many people (me, me, me) our very first organizing saint. Once completed, sure, Minimalista is the perfect refresher course, spin-off, reminder you need in your life.I already know that a minimal, functional, and inviting home is accomplished by organizing and that organizing one's abode needs to entail getting rid of stuff. For anyone who has already done this in their home, there is not much in there that you don't already know. Being a life coach and an organizer helps me approach the challenge of clutter through a unique lens and allows me to help my clients make dramatic and lasting transformations—both from the outside in and from the inside out.