A Minimalist lifestyle is about living with only the things that we value and to dispose of the things that we don’t need or serve a purpose, and decluttering everything in our lives. It is about discarding things we don’t need to make room for a life of experiences and not accumulating things.
Due to our current lifestyles we are far from being minimalists. Finding time to do the things that make our lives fulfilled such as spending quality time with our friends and family, doing things that we enjoy and value, can be hard due to all the other things in our lives. We often become distracted with all of our possessions, technology and mental clutter, that increases our stress and anxiety. To overcome this feeling, we can become a minimalist and remove excess items around us that we do not need.
So, when did things become so complicated in our lives? We live in a modern world where there is so much more going on, with increased distractions, social media, negativity in the world, more television and increased technology. Sometimes having so much going on can lead to stress, anxiety and unhappiness.
Minimalism Where to Start
Step 1-Write a plan for minimalism
When writing a plan to become a minimalist, make sure that it is something that is achievable for you and your family.
Becoming a minimalist could be:
- Just owning less items.
- downsizing to a smaller house.
- It can be to take a look at your life, including your job, family, lifestyle, and what your needs and goals in life are.
- It could be just that you need to declutter your home and downsizing.
Step 2- Clean Out your home
First sweep of your home is to throw away any obvious rubbish. There are clothes that no longer fit, or things that are broken that you probably never get around to fixing.
Step 3- Remove items that you no longer use
Items that you haven’t used in the last 12 months you can give away or sell. Some minimalists would go even harder and if they haven’t used it in the last 6 months, they would dispose of it. You don’t keep items that you think that you might use one day.
Step 4- Declutter and Organize
Minimalists declutter and organize by category, which helps to reduce the items that you may have multiples of and really only need one of. By doing this process you will know exactly how many of each item you have, for example cooking books, knives, towels and you will know what to remove and give away.
Step 5- Asking the hard questions
Being a minimalist means focusing on our items functionality and to not be emotionally attached to our items. If having trouble deciding on what to keep, we can ask ourselves these questions.
Do we use it?
How many do I have?
Is it something I love or brings me happiness?
If the answer is yes to one of these questions then this item is a keeper, if the answers are all no then you may choose to give it away or sell it.
Step 6- Items with multiple Uses
Keep items with multiple uses, such as a food processor that is able to do multiple functions. You may decide to sell multiple appliances if you can then replace them with one item that can do the same tasks.
Step 7- Accumulate Less
Now that you have minimized your home contents you need to maintain it and not fall back into the old habits. When you bring something into the house then you need to remove something. For example, if you buy a piece of clothing, then dispose of a piece of clothing, also by sorting your mail as soon as you get it, and throw away any junk mail so that it doesn’t clutter up your benches.
Becoming a minimalist can help save you money and simplifying your life, freeing you up to be able to do the things that you enjoy. Some people find by saving money they can now cut back their hours that they have to work.