Living Minimalist – The Easy Practices for a Fuller Life
Living minimalist means pursuing a life of experiences, relationships, and non-material things. It is a lifestyle of more meaningful endeavors and less collecting of “stuff”.
Minimalist living is a simple, more meaningful way to pursue life and relationships with friends and family. From tiny homes and minimal decorations to capsule wardrobes, the minimalist lifestyle can be possible and rewarding for anyone. Whether it’s extreme or simple, there are multiple benefits.
Are you looking for something to bring more meaning to your life, but without the clutter? Did you know living minimalist can simplify your life and bring you more joy?
What Is Living Minimalist?
Living as a minimalist involves making conscious decisions about what items to keep, how to spend time and money, and what experiences and relationships to prioritize. Living as a minimalist is a personal journey, and the specific practices and principles may vary from person to person. The goal is to create a life that is intentional, meaningful, and aligned with one’s values while reducing the distractions and clutter that can prevent personal growth and fulfillment.
Examples of Minimalist Living
There are so many different ways of minimalist living, and there really are no rules about how to do it. So it’s helpful to have some examples of minimalist living, as well as to compare it to a typical lifestyle.
Homes
The typical home has extra rooms, offices, movie rooms, etc. as well as furniture and decorations to fill each room. On the opposite end, some minimalists live in tiny homes, the ultimate in minimalism. Others live in standard homes but keep decorations and furniture to a minimum.
Belongings
Lots of people have many belongings from decorative items to memorabilia and collectibles. Minimalists tend to not have many belongings and hang on to only the necessities, even some items that serve multiple purposes.
Clothing
Most people have multiple items of clothing in different colors and patterns. Outfits for every day of the week and then some. Minimalists, on the other hand, tend to have a small number of clothing items that can be worn for different occasions and coordinate with everything.
Organization
Many people struggle with keeping their homes organized and put a lot of money into storage systems for all of their belongings. Minimalists don’t have much difficulty with organization as they keep only the necessities and the bare minimum. In many cases, the multi-purpose nature of many things makes it easier to maintain organization (like crates stacked along a wall that serve as shelving, storage, and stairs to an upper loft).
What do you think, does this sound like something you’d be interested in pursuing?
Minimalists are more concerned with needs and meaningful experiences rather than belongings.
How to Become a Minimalist in 30 Days
It may seem overwhelming, but you too can become a minimalist in 30 days by starting small and following a plan. Start with decluttering your home, which can free up a great deal of space and help with cleaning and reorganization. Discard, donate, or sell the clutter and things you no longer need. And that can be done in the first week!
Next, identify your priorities at home and in life, and focus on your needs rather than your wants. When thinking about adding things to your home, consider the impact on the environment as well as your priorities-does it line up together?
Over time you will learn that living more intentionally, focusing on experiences, and relationships with others are more important that any stuff. In just one month you can declutter, organize, and simplify to live a type of minimalism that works for you. Now let’s look at some different types of minimalist living.
Types of Minimalist Living
Extreme Minimalist Living
Extreme minimalist living goes above and beyond the “less is more” principle. In this lifestyle there are tiny homes, multi-purpose furniture and belongings, and only the essentials. Their focus is primarily on living intentionally and more meaningful experiences.
Simple Minimalist Living
Simple minimalist living is balancing the “less is more” principle with practicality. It’s having a home that is not cluttered, easy to organize, yet not being rigid about how to live simply. Simple minimalist living is about keeping not just what’s useful, but what brings you joy.
Living a Minimalist Lifestyle
Living a minimalist lifestyle doesn’t have to be difficult-it’s up to you how minimal you want to practice. It starts with decluttering, focusing on people and relationships, and letting go of possessions and unnecessary things.
How to Become a Minimalist Woman
In order to become a minimalist woman, it helps to declutter your social media habits. There’s no need to compare yourself to other women online-besides, everything is edited beyond perfection. Consider paring down your clothing, your shoe collection, and your makeup. There’s beauty in simplicity! Think about the environment in your everyday life and how you can make a difference. Being a minimalist woman can be a rewarding and beneficial experience for you!
Living a Minimalist Lifestyle Tips
Living minimalist doesn’t have to be all at once or even across all categories, but there are some tips that can help you sample the lifestyle as well as bring more meaning to your life.
- Get rid of excess stuff. Not just collectibles, stuff you don’t use, or junk but duplicate items and single use items.
- Get organized. Use storage systems, keep things out of sight, and give everything a home.
- Reuse, reuse, reuse. Do away with single use plastics, use a reusable water bottle, and find new uses for empty containers (or recycle them).
- Spend your money on experiences, not things. This will bring you closer to others, without bringing more stuff into your home.
- Examine what you spend your money on daily. Ditch the fancy coffee, bring your lunch from home, use coupons and sales, and invest in energy-saving things for your home.
This helpful video below shares 4 benefits of minimalist living.
Related Insights:
How Do I Start a Living Minimalist Lifestyle?
In order to start living a minimalist lifestyle, the first step is to declutter your home. Collect the things you don’t need or use, then donate, sell, or discard. You’ll learn pretty quickly the difference between “need” and “want”, and this will help you keep the necessities and live more simply.
What Is Living Minimalist?
Living minimalist is appreciating more meaningful relationships, experiences, and more intentionality. It’s using what works for you, not being tempted by the latest and greatest, and being more interested in comfort and safety than in high tech and fancy. Focusing on what really matters and what your priorities are can save time, money, and sanity!
Why Is Minimalism Bad?
Minimalism is only bad for those who don’t appreciate it or who thrive on personal belongings and things! Some might perceive it as toxic because there is a lot of focus on getting rid of things and perhaps doing without some things, but thankfully there are no rules or set lifestyles for minimalism. Minimalism isn’t for everybody, but it does have many benefits over the typical lifestyle many people lead.
Are Minimalists Happier?
Minimalists tend to be happier because they don’t have so much stuff to worry about! They spend less time cleaning and organizing, they save more money, they focus more on quality than quantity, they have more meaningful relationships, and they appreciate experiences much more than material things.
How Do You Become a Minimalist With Clothes?
To become a minimalist with clothes, it starts with paring down to the essentials. Find the items of clothing you haven’t worn in 6 months or more (everyone has a pair of those “skinny” jeans-just let them go), old and frayed items, and items that no longer fit. Keep the basic items for work, exercise, around the house, etc. but just enough to get you through a week without having to do your laundry. You might even consider a capsule wardrobe-that’s truly minimalist!
Other Resources:
- Minimalism – The Benefits and Joys of Minimalist Living
- Minimalist Lifestyle – My Experience and Simple Living
- How To Become A Minimalist – Learn and Live the Simple Life
- Digital Minimalism – Guide to Simplicity in Our WiFi World
- Minimalism Lifestyle – Learn to Live a Simple Lifestyle
- Minimalist Quotes – Wisdom to Learn and Live By
- Living Minimalist – The Easy Practices for a Fuller Life
- Good Simple Living – Enjoying Experiences over Things
- Minimalist Living – Daily Practices for a Simpler Life
Living minimalist is a pretty big change from the standard of living most people are used to, but it really doesn’t take a great deal of work. Thankfully minimalism has no rules, and you can do it however works best for you. Whether you pursue simple minimalism or extreme minimalism, there’s no better time to start than now. Where will you start?
