profile

The Minimal Monthly from Tidymalism 🌱

Helping you tidy up & live better with less | Once a month inspiration for home organisation, decluttering and lighter living 🧺 | Sign up below! 💫

Woman painting front door of apartment
Featured Post

10/25 Minimal Monthly — When Your Stuff Holds You Hostage

October 2025 Minimal Monthly Hello, hello! I need to repaint my condo and put in new baseboards. I've needed to do this for awhile already. But every time I think about it, I'm paralysed by the sheer logistics of clearing out every room, moving furniture, protecting surfaces, and acting as project manager for the whole thing... The dread is so real that I've actually caught myself browsing real estate listings lately, thinking 'Maybe it would be easier to just move?' (I know. I KNOW. 😅) Then...

Jeanne Dielman

September 2025 Minimal Monthly Hello, hello! This month I kept circling the idea of control and release. One big spark came from a cult classic film that critics call one of the greatest movies ever made, though few people outside cinephile circles may have heard of it: Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975). It follows a widowed mother through three and a half hours of painfully quiet domestic routine: peeling potatoes, running errands, polishing spoons, and switching...

A duffel bag and basket of grapes on pavement.

August 2025 Minimal Monthly Hello, hello! I had such grand plans to tackle the cellar this summer. Spoiler alert: it didn't happen. But you know what did? I finally got around to photographing a few more handbags from my ridiculous collection for consignment. It's one of those tasks that takes 20 minutes but somehow lives on the to-do list for months. Sometimes 'good enough' progress is exactly that: good enough. That theme continued for the rest of the month. With my day job being busy, all...

Two women collaborate over a laptop in an office.

July 2025 Minimal Monthly Hello, hello! It's funny how a pleasant three-second interaction can sweeten your whole day. I recently read about a professional who had a simple but powerful approach to her workplace relationships: she ended every interaction, no matter how challenging, with a genuine, positive note about the other person. You can already guess the outcome. People felt good after speaking to her. And because people remember feelings, she was highly regarded across her entire...

Books and a plant decorate a bookshelf.

June 2025 Minimal Monthly Hello, hello! I've been on another one of my massive purges the past couple of weeks, and made more progress in my year-long Swedish death cleaning roadmap, woot. It started innocently enough one Saturday afternoon. I had to reconfigure a Sonos speaker sitting on my little trolley of office supplies. Then I noticed the trolley was all dusty. When I started dusting, I realised a lot of it can go. That sparked a big paperwork shredding session. Then I decided to let go...

Laptop and coffee on a wooden table.

May 2025 Minimal Monthly Hello, hello! AI is everywhere, ok, but have you tried it for organising? I’m always experimenting with small ways to make life simpler. This month, I discovered a surprisingly useful prompt that turns your GPT into a personal tidy-up coach. Upload a photo, get an organising plan. That’s it. Here’s how it works: 1. Take a clear photo or screenshot of the space or digital mess you want to tidy. 2. Open ChatGPT and upload your image. 3. Paste this into the chat: I’ve...