What is minimalism?
Do you get to join the minimalism club when you own only 15 belongings?
When you settle on one signature outfit to wear every single day?
Or when you finally realize that you don't really need a bed or a couch, you
can just sleep on the floor.
While that's a perfectly fine variation of
minimalism, minimalism is simply a way of thinking that emphasizes less is more
and that owning more stuff, doing more things, knowing more people, isn't
necessarily better.
By removing things from our lives we make room for what's important
Now, by some standards I am a far cry from a minimalist. I own too
many clothes and don't wear a lot of them. I have lots of knickknacks with no
practical purpose, they're just there for aesthetics, and I keep random
photography props stashed under my bed.
But hey, at least I listen to The Minimalists podcast.
But the ways in which I have chosen to apply minimalism to my
life have greatly improved it. It's important to remember that minimalism
isn't all or nothing. Each minimalist change that you make to your life is a
step in the right direction. So you don't have to throw away a certain percentage
of what you own before you can call yourself a minimalist. You can call
yourself a minimalist right now, here's your minimalist badge, I hereby declare
you a minimalist, congratulations.
Anyways, these are ten minimalist habits that
keep my life simple. my mind clear, and my heart happier
I shiver when I see people's inboxes with hundreds of unopened emails like
what if you missed something important? So I like to get to inbox zero by the
end of each day, which just means that I've ideally responded to or at the very
least opened all of my messages and emails, and if I can't get to it right
then, I mark it as read and it's taken care of for now. When my inbox
consistently stays in the low range I just feel more on top of things rather
than feeling like I'm drowning in all the messages that I need to respond to
It's amazing how much these folders can fill up for me. I take lots of
screenshots, download lots of stuff when I'm making videos, and at the end of the
week one of the most satisfying things is to just select it all and put it in
the trash. Not only does this take just a few seconds but when I start the next
week with a tidy computer, it's much easier to find what I'm currently working on.
Recently every time I check to see how long it took me to complete
my morning routine, it's a solid 45 minutes, give or take like two minutes.
But I've gotten really good at having a uniform morning and evening routine that
I've perfected to include exactly what I need to start and end my day and the
beauty of it is that it's exactly the same every day, so I hardly need to think
about it, and as a result, I have more mental space.
There's nothing complicated about the way that I track income and expenses, I
have a video all about that if you want to watch, but the point is that I update it
daily, so by now it's like a second nature habit that's just part of my
bedtime routine, and so my record is always accurate, I'm
never wondering if I forgot to record something I bought because I only have
to think about that day's transactions. and usually I can remember that far back.
I have just one magazine holder for all of my important papers and then a folder
for each category like stuff from the eye doctor, personal bank account, business
bank account, product warranties and manuals, etc. Once in a while I'll go
through everything in here and throw away what's no longer important, and this
makes it easy to find exactly what I need when I need it.
I used to hold on to so much stuff for the sake of memories and now I've just
had like a complete 360... or a 180 I guess. Many people would say that I throw away
too much, but I'll tell you this: I have never regretted throwing something away.
Not once have I thought, oh wow, man, I really wish I still had that lumpy
pottery project from fourth grade to look at and reminisce about the good old
days. Without objects from my past weighing
me down, I feel lighter and more free to move on to bigger and better things in
my future.
According to the Getting Things Done system by David Allen, there
are two categories of stuff that you'll find in your workspace: what belongs
there permanently and what is in transit and incomplete. So permanent objects
include supplies, reference material, decoration, and equipment, while the in
transit stuff is something that, for example, you need to make a decision
about, you need to file away in the right place, or like a sticky note with a
to do reminder. And he recommends putting all of those "in transit" items into one
"in tray". I just use the lid of a box from IKEA, it works. So anything that doesn't
have a home goes there and that way I know exactly what I need to take action on.
Whenever I feel like my followed list on Instagram is getting cluttered I go
through and I just mass unfollow, and I feel kind of bad saying this because
like, I'm also, you know, trying to build something on Instagram, but the same
applies to you watching this, if you no longer get value from what I create, if
it doesn't inspire you, cheer you up, please unfollow me. I don't want to have
a negative impact and that's the same thing that I'm trying to avoid when I
cut down the list of people that I follow.
Honestly these days my room just
isn't really messy unless I'm filming something and have to completely destroy
it, like I did today, but in the day to day, I've gotten so used to putting
things away as I use them that when I officially tidy up my room at the end of
the week, there's hardly anything for me to do. When I'm working, for example, and I
take a five minute break, I'll look around and see what in my room I can put
back where it belongs, and *poof*, I'm back to having a clean space.
As a productivity YouTuber I am pretty much always thinking about how to do more.
Thhere's a lot more I could be doing, I could be meal prepping, planning out my
workouts, watching more documentaries, learning how to play the ukulele, but
actually, I've realized that I'm okay with what I'm currently doing. I think I've
got a lot of good habits and projects going and I'm choosing to keep my life
simple by not piling on other things unnecessarily just for the sake of doing
more, or doing what everyone else is doing. So those are my 10 minimalist
habits, I hope this kind of shows how minimalism really can impact a lot of
areas of your life, it's not just about like, decluttering your closet or stuff
like that, it's also about decluttering your mental space and your emotional
space. So I hope you enjoyed this video, maybe found some ideas for minimalist
habits that you want to incorporate into your life.
Remember that starting with one habit or decluttering just one item leads you to
making more and more changes so you just have to start. Thank you so much for
watching this video and I'll see you next week, bye!