How To Practice Minimalism For a Clutter-Free Life
One of the ways to feel in tune with your home and live more contentedly is to remove the clutter and live minimally. There are countless beliefs about the connection between our home and our emotional wellbeing and practicing minimalism can go some way to reducing our sense of stress and overwhelm.
Most of us have way too much stuff, and these items are enough to help us feel weighed down in our lives. In response to this consequence of over-commercialism is the growing movement towards minimalism and minimalist living – and interior designers are in love with it.
While you might think this means owning very little, the actual definition is to intentionally promote owning only those that have the most value in our lives. Minimalism means removing all those items that distract us from this joy in the objects that mean the most.
Here we explore how minimalism can be applied to our homes, but it is a principle that can also be applied to our schedules, relationships, and much more.
6 Tips to Begin Minimalism in Your Home
Begin by focusing on one room at a time
The route to minimalism in your home is through the decluttering of your space. You need to remove those objects that are a distraction and serve no purpose in your day.
To tackle an entire house is daunting, and you will soon resort to procrastination, and your hopes of minimalist living will be dashed. Therefore, you are best advised to take on a room at a time, moving through your home gradually. The more you do, the more you will want to do. However, you have to help yourself get to this point by making the work to be done seem manageable.
Start with the most visible areas
To gain the intrinsic motivation that will drive you to minimalism, you need to see a quick win for your efforts. Choose shelves, things scattered around the floor, and the amount of furniture you own first.
By sorting these things out, you will see a dramatic impact on your life, and these gains will fuel the more niggly tasks with fewer returns.
Find the discipline to define the essentials
Minimalism is more than decluttering. Minimalism is a commitment to have only the essentials around you. Therefore, you need to be sure of what is meaningful. The Japanese Art of Decluttering speaks of the need to touch every item and see if it brings you a spark of joy. If there is no joy in holding the item, this should be removed from your life.
While you don’t need to be this extreme in your decision-making, you need to decide if the things around you add value to your life. It takes discipline to avoid a natural nostalgia attached to objects, but it is necessary for minimal living.
Ask yourself these four questions:
- Do I need it?
- Do I use it?
- What would I use if I didn’t have it?
- Why do I have it?
These questions will help cut through the emotion we sometimes attach to objects.
Meaningful décor
We often buy trinkets because they look cute. However, these small items are dust gathers and clutter harbingers. When it comes to home décor, you should be even more wedded to the idea of value.
Each decoration should carry a meaning to you beyond its looks. An item in your home buying for its visual appeal should be beautiful and bring a smile to your face. If it doesn’t, then it is likely superfluous in your life.
Make minimalism a regular habit
Minimalism will need to be maintained, and it is best achieved through regular tidying. As space is lived in, it fills with detritus and becomes cluttered. Therefore, remove these items rather than tidying them away when cleaning your home. Minimalism takes weekly attention to the details in your life if it is to be maintained.
Increase your self-awareness and your sense of purpose
Your home does not exist in isolation to you. The place you live reflects your clarity of purpose and sense of self. If you are completely aware of how you find joy and what brings you meaning, you can easily distinguish between the items needed in your life and those discarded.
While the goal of minimalism is to own fewer things and free yourself from these objects, realistically, it is a process of boiling your life down to what really matters to you. It has become so popular because people want to feel like they are living their best life, which comes from awareness, purpose, and meaning.
Author Bio
This article has been created by the content team at Display Sense, who are one of the UK’s leading suppliers of display and storage-based products that help to organise your space.
RELATED DECLUTTERING ARTICLES:
- How To Tidy Your Room Quickly And Efficiently
- Top 21 Time Saver Tips And Best Time Saving Habits
- 27 Life-Changing Organizing Products You Never Thought Of
- How To Get Motivated To Clean And Declutter – 17 Tips
- Speed-Cleaning Tips: How To Clean Your House In 2 Hours
- The Best Storage & Organisation Essentials You Need At Home
- My House Is Messy, Where Do I Start?
- What Causes Someone To Not Clean Their House?
- What Is A Cleaning Schedule And How To Make One
- Marie Kondo Folding Underwear: Tips You Need To Know
- 4 Simple Steps To An Immaculately Tidy Wardrobe
