How Moving (Out) to A Smaller Space Changed My Life

Sometimes there’s nothing like lack of sleep to push someone to make a significant life decision. Just last year, I moved out of our house and transferred to a newly built condo across my workplace with the goal of being able to sleep longer without being late for work. I knew this was only possible if I put an end to the four- to five-hour daily drives to the office. The fact that the average Filipino spends three years of her economic life in traffic also served as a validation. Moving out also meant saving over a thousand pesos from paying toll, parking, and gas every day, and experiencing living on my own for the first time—so it all seemed like a really great and practical idea.

The entire process was exciting more than stressful, till I realized I had to Konmari Method my life to actually fit all my essentials into a 21-square-meter unit—pretty much the size of my old closet. I could have opted for a larger two-bedroom with my dream space for hosting dinners with all my friends and a real living room, but that meant triple the rental fee and/or asking help from my parents to cover for what I couldn’t, which totally defeats the purpose of being “independent.” I refused to be that kind of millennial.

After I had fixed all requirements for the move (including a paper with a Moving Out SWOT analysis I presented to my mom, which is another story entirely), I began sourcing for pegs to design and decorate my unit and deciding which things from my old room I could fit into my new space. Here is where the purging began.

The fact: The built-in closet in the unit was as tiny as an extra large fridge.