Starting off I want to say I am not a hard-core minimalist coach, guru or follower. I’ve learnt a lot in my time and came across all walks of life, What I’m sharing below if some takeaways from how I’ve used some minimalist tactics to enhance my everyday life. I hope it helps provide some ideas if not some tests for you to try in your life.
Here are minimalist concepts that have helped me.
1 Organisation
I establish a home for every item so I don’t have cluttered spaces.
Marie Kondo was quoted as saying “Ensuring that each one of your belongings has its own spot is the only way to maintain a tidy clutter-free home”.
What I take from that is:
- Itemise the things that I would regularly misplace things like keys, phone, wallet etc
- Create a place where these items are out every time I put them down. This becomes their home
*The caveat is my wife does not participate in this practice lol.
2 Follow the 1 thing in, 1 thing out rule
This is a popular thing that millions of people do and I’ve tried it with mixed feelings. But I do follow where I can. The key is to make it work for you.
The rule: If you buy an item then you must regift or donate another item so you are replacing 1 for 1.
This type of minimalism is a dual discipline: Manage both the inbound and outbound possessions to enjoy equilibrium.
3 Try and simplify your finances
At any given time I have subscriptions coming out the wahzoo.
- Automate bills that are a necessity
- Review and then cancel unused subscriptions
- Pay off debt with the firehose method – From The Barefoot Investor (Google it)
- Budget with a 50/30/20 Rule – 50% needs, 30% wants and 20% savings.
4 Curb bad habits
Hide triggers for bad habits.
I don’t like chocolate bars, but subconsciously I will destroy any chocolate bar in my vicinity if I see for long enough. Thats a bad habit Im aware of and actively try to not have chocolate around me.
Take stock of what items are in your living area and one by one ask yourself about them:
-is this prompting a good habit or bad habit
Then you have to decide if you keep it, sell it, or donate it. You know what type of behaviour it prompts in you. Be ruthless with it.
An example for outside of food is the PlayStation, If I have a spare 5 minutes and I see the controller on the couch I might creep towards it and try and sneak in a game, but that 5 minutes can easily stretch to 2 hours. I know this, my wife knows this damn even my dogs know this. So I actively try to put the controller under a pillow or right at the back of the couch so it’s out of eyesight.
Small little habits like this help me protect my time.
5 Curb Impulsive buys
Use the 1% rule to curb your impulsive buying habits.
If the item you want is over 1% of your annual salary, you should wait a week before you buy it. At the end of the week if you still want the item then you should get it. Most likely you forget about it or don’t actually need it.
Save Money with Zyft. I use this handy chrome extension to find prices for the product that you want, this extension will scrape the internet and show you all available places to buy the product and give you the best prices first so you can see where you can pay the least amount for. A huge saving
6 Take the thinking out of clothing
The one thing that drives me nuts in the morning is picking out work outfit for the day. I just want a pre-determined outfit for every day that can be as generic as possible. I came from a career of wearing uniforms to work where there Is no thinking you would just put on your kit and that’s it.
To help me with this is buying some staple items
- Buy x5 black t-shirts
- Buy x3 dark blue t-shirts
- Buy x5 pair of jeans of mixed colours
- Buy x2 pairs of chino (slack pants/trousers) in different colours
- I buy my socks in bulk so I have 50 pairs of black and 50 pairs of white socks
- I have multiple pairs of shoes for various occasions – but I always need more 🙂
This takes the thinking out of it for me so that I only need to shave, brush my teeth and shower. The rest sorts itself out.
True minimalists will swear buy capsule wardrobe living. A capsule wardrobe is a collection of limited clothing items. These clothing items can be mixed and matched effortlessly. Think black t-shirt, blue jeans pretty much universal items for any outfit.
Benefits of capsule wardrobes? You reduce physical space and mental clutter while keeping a small number of clothing items that match and work together.
Minimalism is not for everyone but people swear by it.
7 Minimalism Materialisim
Choose practical materialism. This means buying things that make you healthier, and wealthier or provide you more free time. It’s called practical materialism.
You would only buy products that make a material difference in the quality of your life. This excludes food its more for other purchases. But some people are stalwart defenders of this way of life.
8 Clear your mind
My work moves at breakneck speed, it’s fast, it’s furious but there’s no Vin Diesel. My brain gets a workout daily.
To counter the damage I do at work each day I’ve found the best way to repair my mental exhaustion is to go to a space outdoors and get a nice view over the city. I slow right down and take it all in. Something about looking out over the city helps me step back and take stock.
I keep these rules pretty lose but it looks like this:
- I do this at sunset
- I do this to view the city landscape
- I do this at different viewpoints
This allows me to put the mind into living mode and not work mode. The work mode moves fast, can not sit still and is constantly problem-solving. The living mode is more about the here and now. I really need this. Im not a minimalist coach of hard-core follower, but I take elements and use them to suit my lifestyle.
I hope this helps others and gives you some ideas for making small changes to your life for the better.
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