Why living Minimalism is essential & why this Minimalism Guide?
Doing more things is good, there no way around it. Also, we can simply put it this way, “Do more of what matters”. But doing more things also means that you are doing unimportant things. You will be stressed, burn out and overworked at the same time. To achieve doing things that matter, we have to minimize the distractions.
Over the course of time minimalism is called simple living, intentional living, small living and tiny living. If something is not what you want in your life or if it’s not adding any value to your life we can remove them from our life. if you have a life that is cluttered with things and is getting in the way of the things that you want more often in your life
Minimalism is not about having very few items or living in a room without any stuff in it. It’s more about identifying what adds value for you. What makes you happy and then eliminating the extra’s, the burden, the clutter, the stress, that’s keeping you from enjoying. For most of us, the path towards a minimalist lifestyle starts with decluttering your home. So downsizing your stuff and then changing your consumption habits. So you are being more careful about what you are bringing into your home and into your life. Lastly, we prioritize what’s important in your life and where you wanna focus your time & energy.
“The secret of happiness, you see, is not found in seeking more. But in developing the capacity to enjoy less” — Socrates,
Know Why you want to live the minimalism. For eg., creating more space, spending less money, reducing your carbon footprint, spending less time on cleaning, having more free time. It can be more than one. If you are clear for yourself write it down and it will help you to stay inspired along your way.
Dont try to be superhero, dont try to do all at once. you dont have to do all at once.
You can achieve big goals by achieving a one small step at a time. Think of minimalism more as a lifestyle change that will help you live your best life, instead of a project that you have to finish. For starters opening up your wallet and going through that, then you may be your drawer, closet and then your room and slowly you will go through every item in your room before you know it.
There is a documentary named Minimalism – Examining the many levels of minimalism by looking inside the lives of minimalists from various walks of life. Available in Netflix.
Different ways of decluttering.
About this decluttering, downsizing and deciding what to get rid of, there are a lot of methods and we will go through one of them, Chaos method –
- Chaos method
- Kon Mari method
- Minimalist game
- Closet hanger method
- Swedish death cleaning
Chaos Method
Try to declutter them responsibly.
Throwing an item into the trash is way easier and quicker. I get it. but, if you are bringing an item into your home, it’s your responsibility to declutter in a responsible way. it helps us by thinking twice before any new things because we already consider the fact that I might have to put efforts into decluttering. One favourite way of decluttering is to give it to someone that I know personally. If that’s not possible, then donate or sell or recycle.
Start somewhere fun & easy
Always start with somewhere that’s easy, fun and get inspired, something to gain momentum. for me decluttering my closet was the one thing I’m afraid of, and if I start there, I don’t know whether I would be able to finish and push it through the end. So, the closet is not the right starting point for me. It’s always better to start with easy and fun, play some music and it helps you to get that mindset and it makes a big difference. I personally recommend sentimental items at the end as they are not replaceable and you don’t want to get rid of things that you might regret later on. By pushing sentimental items to last, you will know and have the experience of what items you need and what matters the most.
Changing our buying habits
As you go through your stuff and even just taking a look around your space right now and you can see the stuff accumulated right there over years. So, at one point, these things came to your home or your life, either you bought them or you got it as a gift. At this point, you would be able to look at the flow of things coming into your home and changing your buying habits and consumption habits.
Here, you are the only person who can decide which things you want in your life and which things adds value to your life. So, minimalism teaches us is to be more intentional with buying new things. So, as you start to let things go and increase that flow of stuff going out of your home, it can really help to also look at the other side and decrease the flow of stuff going into your home. And that way you will end up owning less and that living less is a lifestyle.
Living with parents, spouse and kids make minimalism tricky, so always focus on yourself, focus on things which you have control over, never force people to join you. But if you show them how nice it can be and keeps things positive and exciting, you might inspire them as well
Things are just things
In the end, things are just things. Most of us know this and we intellectually understand it, we do attach more value to them. So it can be helpful to remind yourself that the small satisfaction that you get when you buy something new only lasts for some time. It’s not going to make you any happier in long run. So be grateful for the abundance of things you already have. Be grateful that you have a home, shelter from the rain, clothes to wear, food to eat. This will help you to realize, that you don’t need anything extra.
Thinking outside the box
As you go through this journey of minimalism, you will practice the action of evaluating things
Do I really want to own this?
What purpose does it serve?
Do I want to buy this shirt, if I already have 6 other shirts in my closet?
As you start asking questions more and more you start thinking about other things as well. Not just stuff in your life, but in your life in general. This is where the magic of minimalism begins. Your life is what you design. You get to be in the driver seat and create a life that you love, filled with things that give you joy. Minimalism will give you more time, more money and more space. These three things are way more valuable than anything you could buy. So by thinking out of the box, you can see a lot of other areas in our life where we can simplify.
The larger part of life is now digital and a lot of us have a lot of digital clutter. Take that into consideration. Delete apps that you haven’t used in a while. Refine contacts, photos and folders, also organize your emails, unsubscribe your newsletters, create folders for everything.
Conclusion
Minimalism is not a one-time process. It’s a continuous process. you need to focus on decluttering once in a while. declutter them seasonally. Every time you do you will always find something which you aren’t using for a while. In the end, keeping inspired about minimalism is important. Reading books, watching youtube videos, is a great way to keep motivated and stay inspired.
Happy decluttering
