The Minimalists

The Minimalists are Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus. They rethought their lives completely when some traumatic events disrupted their path along the standard ‘American Dream’ route. Their thinking is refreshing and wonderful - it’s a real challenge to how most people live their lives and while it may be quite extreme for some, it made me want to live more like they do.

Allie Casazza

If you want very detailed video instructions on decluttering, plus lots of confidence-boosting affirmations and particularly if you have young children, Allie Casazza could be great for you. She’s young, American and has a a VERY wordy style but she has some wisdom beyond her years. Although her style is a world away from mine, I learned a lot from her from her podcast episodes (which are free). A lot of her content is paid for and she is KEEN on selling it.

Becoming Minimalist

Joshua Becker is an influential minimalist writer and YouTuber at Becoming Minimalist. His approach is simple and thoughtful. Once you’ve started thinking like him, you can’t remember not thinking that way. I think that’s the definition of influence isn’t it?

James Clear

James is the author of Atomic Habits, which I loved. He has some great ideas for how to create habits that stick and how to unlearn bad habits. I use many of his ideas in day-to-day life. I read a lot of self-improvement books because there’s always something I can do better.

Marie Kondo

I read ‘The Life Changing Magic of Tidying’ and started to rethink everything I’d believed about storage and organisation. Marie’s method is not realistic for everyone (or perhaps anyone) but her philosophy is sound and she’s worth a look. Her series on Netflix is useful to see her method in action. I fundamentally disagree with her terminology though - see this blog post.

The Minimal Mom

Another American woman; Dawn at Minimal Mom provides most of her content on YouTube and regularly does house tours. Her approach is all about simplification and reduction. My son thinks she’s the ‘most annoying person ever’, but I like her. This link takes you to her YouTube channel but be warned, it starts playing a video straight away - terrible usability!

Dana K White

Dana’s blog ‘A Slob Comes Clean’ is rather a busy, ad-strewn place, but her books are an oasis of calm, realistic, tried and tested process. I strongly recommend her book ‘Decluttering at the Speed of Life’ for anyone in chaos who doesn’t know where to start. Much of her advice doesn’t apply to me personally but I’ve used it to help other people.

Minimom

Bayley is the YouTuber at Minimom*, which is all about calm, minimalist home-making in New Zealand with two young children. She’s quiet and thoughtful and demonstrates just how little one needs to live comfortably. I found her when I was looking to see if other cleaning systems like mine were already out there. She was trying out the FlyLady system, which I think is rather complicated (and the website is grim). What works in Bayley’s home is not the cleaning system as much as the fact that she has barely any belongings and so cleaning is much easier.

*Update - Bayley has flipped the focus of her channel and changed the name to ‘bayley made it’, but the content before about March 2023 is about minimalist family life.

Faith and Flour

Robin is another American YouTuber. I happened upon her Faith and Flour channel when I was wondering if I could make Housability into a business and so I started looking around for similar offerings. If it’s possible, Robin (love her) might be even more boring and detailed about cleaning than I am and she has thousands of followers!

The Home Edit

Joanna and Clea at [THE] have a fantastic series on Netflix (as long as you’re OK with a lot of very high-pitched, excited screaming). They’re all about colour-categorising and organising the belongings of wealthy Americans who have much too much stuff. I love it!