How to Become a Minimalist
Minimalism is a lifestyle concept that entails taking an active effort to only live your life with the things you truly need. Being surrounded by fewer possessions allows people to live more freely and openly, giving them the opportunity to be more productive with their time, and put more energy towards living a happy and carefree life. If this is a lifestyle goal you wish to achieve as well, here are some simple ways you could become a minimalist today:
Write down your rules and reasons
Minimalism can have a different definition for each person. For some, that might mean owning less material possessions, while for others it could represent downsizing their living space. Whether your goal is to simply declutter, or even scale down your life completely, it would be a good idea to write down all the reasons that led you to consider a more minimalist lifestyle and make them as attainable and sustainable as possible. This list will present a guideline for the way you wish to live your life, while also providing motivation when it gets difficult to keep going and helping you to remember where your priorities truly lie.
Let go of unnecessary items
While most of us don’t like to admit it, the truth is that we all have a couple of items in our home that are simply trash, from a pile of empty delivery boxes to that broken thing we never got around to fixing. These things are nothing more than wasted space, and one of the most important aspects of minimalism is cleaning out the junk and starting anew. So, make it a point to go around your home and put any duplicate, broken, old items, or items you’ve never used before, into a separate storage box. Then, put the box away for a couple of months. If you don’t end up using any of the items, or you don’t even remember what’s in the box, it’s time to get rid of it.
Construct a simpler personal style
The wardrobe is the place where many people tend to keep unnecessary, outdated and impractical items, mostly due to emotional connections or the hope that something will be more suitable in the future. This is exactly the reason why a closet should be purged rigorously, just like your home, in an effort to end up with only functional clothes you truly love and wear often. For instance, many minimalists decide on a capsule wardrobe, leaving only 30-40 essential clothing items. Similarly, others will downsize their accessories as well, choosing an elegant cardholder wallet instead of their regular bulky alternatives, in an effort to live their daily lives carrying only the truly necessary items like their IDs and payment cards.
Organize your home efficiently
After you’ve finished decluttering your home and getting rid of anything you don’t need or use, the next step would be to organize your space in the most efficient manner. One of the best ways of achieving this is to organize by category, as this will allow you to see exactly how many items you own in each group, giving you the opportunity to downsize even further, if necessary. Organizing your home this way will also allow you to know exactly where everything is at all times, without needing to rummage through your home in order to find one item you need, and will make cleaning in the future that much quicker and easier.
Bring in only what you need
Once the amount of possessions in your home has been minimized, the final step would be to approach new purchases with caution, as impulsively buying items you don’t necessarily need will only undo all of your hard work. To that end, try to set yourself a limited spending budget for each month, cancel any subscriptions you don’t need, and aim to throw out one old item for every new replacement you buy. This will allow you to maintain the ideal amount of stuff you own and prevent you from creating clutter in your home once again.
Evidently, living a minimalist lifestyle doesn’t need to be overly complicated. As long as you get rid of the clutter and start simplifying your life with small but significant changes, you can easily start to enjoy living with less.