my minimalism journey
As you may know, I call myself a minimalist for a long time. I discovered this lifestyle, better-called life philosophy in 2017 or 2018 through Pinterest. And I´ve never regretted following this rabbit hole. Minimalism has changed my life a lot for the better. I observed and archived a lot through minimalism, including:
- being able to pay back 10k € of study depth within just three years
- making moving a lot easier
- helps focus on what is important
- learning to control your spending habits
- spending less time cleaning and organizing stuff
- quitting shopping as a hobby
- quitting hoarding clothing
- becoming very mindful about purchases (at least 90% of the time)
When I discovered minimalism, I lived in a small house of our own with my then-fiancé. I decluttered 50% of the stuff in the home of my then-fiancé and me. After that process, the direct benefit was that the weekly cleanup took just 2h instead of 3h. We lived in a house then, so the benefits of my stressful life with 2h one way to my workplace were visible immediately. And my mind was calmer as I had less visible stuff around me at that time.
After ending the relationship and moving halfway across the country with just one van load of stuff and a small budget to buy new things it brought my minimalism to the next level. The low burden of stuff to take care of enabled me, despite the stressful job, to go swimming regularly and start working on my art seriously.
As you guessed, I moved twice, one time 400 km again. Now everything I own fits inside a van, except my small car. I don´t miss anything and I still discover things to declutter, such as unused kitchen items…
These days I do small minimalism–related challenges. To give you an example: I am a hobbyist artist and love felt-tip pens, brush pens, and highlighters. By incidence, all were used up by the end of February. I decided to go without for a month. And now I notice, that my highly pigmented crayons are fine enough. I don´t need any specific kind of pen to be creative, so I´ll use what I have for as long as possible. I might never be a person who owns just 2 pens, but I guess I could be fine with like 10–20 instead of 100s.
And that is what minimalism is about learning what you need. Trying out to live with less intentionally until you get to the point where you feel no longer distracted by your belongings. Own your belongings but not let your belongings own you, that´s how I want to phrase it.
There are countless content creators with far more definitions of minimalism out there. But this is my definition. Sure, some guys have more “expertise” in “minimalism”, but during my journey, I stopped caring about rules like “a minimalist is only permitted to own 100 items” or equal.
I encourage everybody who wants to simplify their life to start slowly. Put a box of clothing you rarely wear into your garage, cellar, or attic, and check again if you miss them in two or three months. Throw everything away which you haven´t used in two years if you don´t have a specific plan for when you´ll use it again. Digitize the unessential paperwork you keep for “just in case” and make it searchable in your digital filing cabinet. Throw original the paper away. Observe your feelings during your journey. Check in with yourself regularly to find your definition of minimalism.
And the journey of minimalism never ends. I have accepted that my minimalism will look different at changing stages of life. I bought two stuffed toys within a year because their cuteness help me feel comfy at my place. It might not be very “minimal”, but intentional purchases are welcome.
During the last six months, I came to a point, where digital minimalism becomes more important to me. If you read my posts about my note-taking journey you may have noticed that I am kinda obsessed with unhealthy matrices related to my notes. Now I am simplifying and decluttering my system a lot. I stopped hoarding links to websites I´ll never visit. I go through my Read-it-later app regularly and archive everything where the first paragraph doesn´t catch me. I exported like half of the unread articles from Evernote to this app and stored links to reference websites in my new notes app instead of screenshotting everything.
Another aspect of digital clutter: I am currently working on is reducing newsletters and content creators I follow online. I unsubscribe from every newsletter which I haven´t read four or five times in a row. I unsubscribed from almost all of the daily newsletters. I still get five to ten newsletters that interest me a day, but that´s fine for me. I am still on the journey.
There will never be a time when I run out of content I am interested in, because my interests are very broad. But I work towards intentional ignorance of some topics I rarely care about. We´ll see.
What´s next on my minimalism journey?
- Finding the “right” amount of clothing that I feel comfortable with. I guess I could go without half of my shirts, so I´ll wear them until they are worn out and don´t replace them.
- Checking in with myself when it comes to baking supplies. I might get rid of half of them.
- Using the spare time I get from the minimalist lifestyle more intentionally by reading more, writing more and spending more time in public places, and socializing more.
- Invest my money more into experiences than things. I rarely reward myself with things these days and I want to continue this habit.
- Continue the journey concerning digital note-taking and content consumerism.
