How To Be A Minimalist When You're A Maximalist At Heart

Loperfido wears many hats—each one of them sparklier than the last. She's a performance artist, costume designer, and event producer. There's nothing simple or understated about her. "I've always had floor-to-ceiling art hung up in my room. The minimalist aesthetic of simple, solid colors and spare objects is just not really my vibe," she tells mbg. But as her passion for sustainable causes has grown over the years, the number of her belongings has had to shrink.

These days, Loperfido travels the country helping others adopt more mindful habits through workshops, online videos, and a soon-to-be book. "It is really urgent that we reconsider how we're using resources and living on this earth," she says. "But it needs to be fun and appealing, or people aren't going to do it."

So if taking on a year of no purchasing doesn't sound like your idea of a good time, Loperfido recommends easing into things by starting with a month of no trash. The premise is pretty simple: Hang on to anything that you would otherwise put in the garbage can (except for your food scraps, which can be composted!). Then, at the end of the month, lay everything out and sort it into piles. This will show you what categories of things you tend to accumulate the most.

"And be like, OK these are the things I consume often. How can I consume them without sending them to the landfill?" Loperfido says that this is a great way to become aware of where your pain points are, so you can better separate wants from needs. "It's about taking personal responsibility. Do I actually need this? Or is it just a Band-Aid?"

The nice thing about this technique is that it can be easily scaled (Month too long? Try a week!) and replicated whenever you feel yourself becoming overburdened by your stuff. Like actress and environmentalist Bonnie Wright's idea for a "pollution journal," where you record every time you come in contact with single-use plastic over the course of the day, it makes you aware of how pervasive waste is, so you can start to avoid it.

Loperfido's routine also reminds us that the essence of minimalism is less about maintaining a bare home and more about only bringing things into your life that actually add value to it—and don't destroy the earth in the process.