Mind the Beginner

You’ll experience less stress, you’ll save more money and you’ll be healthier. Just a few benefits that you can enjoy when being a minimalist. But don’t just take my word for it. Here is what some other bloggers have to say about minimalism:

MNMlist

“Often we don’t really need those possessions as much as we might think, and even when we do have them, we’re not as secure as we might think.” A blogpost on the troubles with getting rid of your possessions. It’s actually by far the hardest thing out there in the minimalist approach: the initial struggle to reduce your belongings. Leo argues that your belongings give you a false sense of security. You’re prepared for all sorts of events. The idea of being prepared goes a bit overboard when you have a triple redundancy on your car, a stack of over 20 dinner plates and you just can’t get rid of that old tv. “What if the new one breaks down, I won’t be able to watch tv for a while”

Keeping stuff means you need a bigger house to store them all in.

The Everyday Minimalist

A 20 something blogger living out of a suitcase since 2006. Having lived in 1600 and 1200 square foot apartments and now living in a 600 square foot studio. Just imagine the difference in monthly rent! and immediately two benefits come to mind: the first being that rent, it’s probably going to be cheaper and secondly: you can vacuum the entire space without unplugging the vacuum. Cleaning 600 square foot while owning just a few things means you have a lot of empty floorspace. Enough space to exercise, lie flat on the floor and stare at the ceiling for a while or dance.

A smaller home and less stuff means easier cleaning

Far Beyond the Stars

You know about the 100-things challenge. Everett took it one step further and decided to go with just 50 items for a while! “The 50 things movement doesn’t count shared items like cooking supplies, bedding, and furniture. I was only counting personal possessions that only belong to me.” Give it a little thought, what if you could live with the freedom of having so few things that you could tuck it all in a suitcase. You’d no longer have to wonder what you would be packing when going on a holiday, you’d just pack every single thing you own!

Everett dropped the 50 things and went back to 75 after a while, to make life just that little bit easier (think laundry…) “Living with less isn’t for everyone, but I’ve discovered that it can make life a lot simpler when you decide to opt out of the endless cycle of consumerism.”

Less stuff means more mobility

Wake Up Cloud

“Having the latest gadgets is cool, but I also realize that it is largely unnecessary and something I’m going to grow tired of within a few weeks.” As soon as you realize this, you can start saving some serious money. Do you actually need that iPhone, iPad or high powered notebook? Or worse, phone, pad AND notebook. Thinking about needs versus wants will help you here. Will owning the latest thing seriously make you happy? And if so, for how long. Especially on the more expensive things, think about how long it took you to save up all that money and so where you will spend those hours of your life on you can never get back. And so Henri realized: “happiness doesn’t come from things, it comes from inside of me.” You can be happy with nothing, and unhappy with everything.

Less desires lets you find true happiness

Simple. Organized. Life.

Is there something wrong with you if you choose to own less? David has been told this countless times. Many people think an empty house is an empty life but they couldn’t be more wrong. For them it certainly is true because thy identify who they are and what they are worth by their possessions. Minimalists however find their worth not in the stuff they own, but what they carry with them in their mind and hear. Happiness really does come from within. So is there something wrong with us because we know where to find true happiness?

Minimalists are completely sane and have a full life

The Minimalist Path

Minimalism can be applied just about anywhere in life, and David points out that it’s actually fun! Yes, you know and I know, but do others know as well? Spread the word. You get perspective and control over your own life. There are less things to take into account when making a decision, less stuff to worry about. Although on the one end there are a few who think that going minimal actually costs more, David makes a clear statement that it actually doesn’t cost anything to get organized.

Sure, if you own just a few things, you’ll be inclined to make those few things the best they can be. If you can own only one computer and it’s essential to your income you’ll be wanting a very reliable laptop and those are expensive. If you have just one coat or one pair of shoes, you’re going to make sure that they will last. It’s still cheaper than buying something new every week or month and -maybe that’s just me- it’s fun to go hunting/researching for the best possible buy.

Minimalism goes great with frugality and quality

Step 1 minimalist

The final blog we’re visiting it written by Brett and gives you the absolute best reason to become a minimalist: Time. “Looking at every aspect of minimalism, it constantly comes back to creating more time to focus on and act upon what we love, while discarding the rest.” Remember that triple redundant car I mentioned? If you spend some time (and fun) on hunting down the single best car you can buy, you don’t have to work all those hours to buy the other two, work all those hours to maintain them, and have a garage that will fit them while you drive around in the first one. Bigger garages come with bigger houses, that come with higher rents or mortgages. Well, you get the idea.

Minimalists have more time to spend on the important things in life

Where it all comes down to

There are plenty of benefits to be had in living the minimalist lifestyle. It will save you time, money, space, stress and distraction among other things. You’ll be rewarded with a sense of freedom and control over your own life, and live green and save money at the same time! You want to live the minimal life? A good place to start is to take the one step towards a minimalist home.

One way to get rid of clutter in your bag

After a year of keeping track of minimalism it still seems to be a trending topic on the Internet. It’s not that hard to understand why, it’s a natural extension of productivity and mindfulness. It’s the effect of being focused, a single goal in mind. There is no place for useless things if you want to reach your goal in a straight line.

When you need your wallet or your keys, do you know exactly where they are? Can you grab them without even looking? Or do you need to dig around in a huge bag crying out “It’s in here somewhere” while you turn the entire contents over on a table.

Frustrating isn’t it, when you can’t find what you are looking for. Of course you have these situations every day. That piece of paper on your desk, that file on your computer, that bill, and where did that scarp of paper go with that phone number you needed to call for a job offer.

Small problems, small solutions

You’ve seen minimalist homes like these and these before, and there are many more examples out there. What they all have in common is that “there is a place for everything and everything in it’s place”. Your car is in the driveway, your TV in the living room and your bed in the bedroom. Huge things with their own clearly defined place. The smaller things get however, the harder it seems to give them their own place.

The reason for this is that smaller things have more places they can be stored. How many places are there to store your car? You’ll be looking in the driveway or the garage. Now, how many places are there to store your keys? A smaller home, room, desk or bag will solve issues like these for you.

Reducing spaces

Minimalism is easy in theory and that’s why the solution is easy as well. Reduce the number of places those small things can hide. How, you ask? Get a smaller bag. Have fewer coats to leave your keys in. Reduce the number of folders in your computer. Best would be to reduce so far that even the smallest thing has only one or two places it can be.

If you religiously hold to those places you can find anything and everything in just a few seconds. Make it a habit (Leo is an expert in this) to put those small things in place. I’ll give you the example of my keyring: it has exactly 2 places it can be: 1: My right front pocket 2: The drawer in my desk. If it’s not in either, I’ve lost it.

Sure, a keyring can be stored in many more places but it doesn’t belong there.

Answer me these questions

To help you look at these questions:

• What is it for?
• Do you need it?
• When do you need it?
• What is it’s specific place?
• Is that place suitable? (not to small but certainly not to big!)
• What other things will be sharing that place?

And of course  ask those questions for the other times found in the last question as well. Start small and work your way up. If you find something that serves no purpose, that you don’t need. Is there a need to keep it? That of course is the last step in applying minimalism. Get rid of anything that serves no purpose. A last tip: if you do not enjoy using an item, do not keep it!

A long time ago I wrote about the 100 items challenge and as you might know it’s one of the things on my “Freedom list 2010″.

In a nutshell it’s about getting rid of all your personal possessions save 100 items. Not only does this offer great potential to minimise clutter, it also lets you re-evaluate what really is important enough to keep. But there are some issues to deal with along the way. I’m going to take a closer look at the problems and options you have because I’m experiencing first hand all the problems of taking this challenge.

The problem

It sounds so simple, just take a piece of paper and write down the 100 things you want to keep. Get rid of everything else. But that’s just theory and as you know:

In theory practice and theory are the same, in practice however, they are not.

It’s not the actual selection of things to keep that is hard -well, actually it’s very hard, but that’s a different blogpost- it’s the getting rid of all the others things. How do you get rid of them, especially if they represent a significant value? You could sell them via Internet which is the obvious choice. But doing so will leave you waiting for buyers. Alternatively you could just toss them, but that’s like throwing away money and would be stupid. You end up with stuff you want to get rid of but are waiting for people to buy from you.

That’s exactly the situation I’m in right now, I have a lot of items that can just go, but almost everything represents some value. A problem that can be solved in four ways:

Choose your solution

1. Trash it
2. Sell it
3. Give it away
4. Keep it

Trash it

Not always the best option of course. But there comes a time when you have to realize that nobody is going to buy (or even want) your old bookcase or that collection of Christmas sweaters. You can keep it though but I’ll get to that option in a few lines. If all other options fail this is what you will have to do. It’s tough but when you finally get over this hurdle it’s one of the best feelings in the world. Your possessions no longer own you.  But let’s consider the alternatives first.

Sell it

The best option of all of course. Converting all those items you no longer need to cash so you can spend it on more stuff you don’t need, Oh wait, that wasn’t what we were trying to do. What can you do with the cash? Keep in mind that you don’t want more stuff, you want quality. A clear pitfall here is that you start buying better things all the time to replace the few items you keep. And then you;re stuck with the old thing you can’t find a buyer for. Your buyer wants one of two things: What you have to sell, but dirt-cheap or he wants what you want, the best of the best. And you are selling an older model because you upgraded. If you find a buyer, you’re lucky, but don’t forget: The value is not determined by what you’re asking, it’s what people are actually willing to pay, disregarding catalogue values and whatnot.

Give it away

Giving your stuff away is very liberating and grateful. It’s a great way to be frugal as well. In stead of buying a new gift you can give away what was once yours. The obvious pitfall here is that you give something that the receiver gave to you in the first place. A very painful mistake. Also you might want to check if what you are giving either seems new, or make it very clear that the gift is pre-owned   but still very usable. If it’s not as a gift, you don’t have to bother to much with these things however. Just make it clear why you’re giving it away.

Keep it

This is exactly what happens with most things we want to get rid of. Broken things we plan on mending, once useful things that we haven’t used in years like the spare spare spare bicycle in the shed. (I’m Dutch, there are 18 million bikes here, and one 16 million inhabitants.) Old clothing we will never wear again and why are you keeping those old magazines you’ll never read again? Keeping things you’ll never use again is clutter. If you can’t sell it or give it away you have one last choice to make:

• Will I keep this item that I will never use;
• or should I just trash it.

That’s all you can do. As I already said, things have no value other than what people will actually pay you to buy them. Nobody wants your clutter.

The other approach

I started this blogpost with the idea of writing down everything you want to keep. Let’s turn it around a bit, it just might help. Select 100 things you want to get rid of. Decide how long you will give yourself to actually achieve this and for every item determine if you’re going to trash it, sell it or give it away. Don’t make keeping it an option if you can’t sell it or give it away. You wanted to get rid of it so you know what to do!

After those 100, select a further 100 and keep at it until you have reached your goal. The 100 items challenge actually doesn’t have “keeping 100 items” as goal, it’s all about “getting rid of everything but..”. It’s a huge difference in state of mind. If you don’t feel like getting rid of things but want the minimalists life, you’re going at it the wrong way round. Wanting to get rid of things and living the minimalists lifestyle as a result is the way to go.

A quick edit: I stumbled across a blogseries over at simpleorganizedlife.com with a version on my blogpost. It’s called the 10 Things Challenge and David has been at it for weeks on end. Selecting 10 items each week and getting rid of them, A real inspiration there!

Before you read this take a look around…

Did you have a quick look around the room, your desk area and perhaps even your desktop? Is it cluttered? Are there things there that you haven’t used in 2009? Things collecting dust that somehow just keep put but have no actual use?

Seriously, is there anything there you just spotted that you didn’t use for a whole year? The obvious question to ask as soon as you spot something like that is “Why is it still here?”

At least, that’s what the minimalist would ask himself. Always striving to make things less cluttered and as an added bonus easier to keep clean and tidy. I did that very thing this weekend and it resulted in the removal of two bookcases from my room, books included. That’s 2/3 of my shelf space and of course a drastic reduction of things to dust.

To keep things from looking to empty I rearranged what was left and added a two-seat sofa. Although I live in a single room at least now I have proper seating which means that the bed (which was also my sofa) can now be used exclusively for what it’s meant. The TV is no longer easily visible when sitting at my desk and it’s impossible to watch from the bed.

What happened here is something that might seem very insignificant but actually is nothing of the sort. We humans tend to combine just about anything we do and most of the time it’s not very productive at all or at least we aren’t mindful of what we are doing:

• Eating and watching TV
• Trying to fall asleep and watching TV
• Studying behind a PC…. with Internet (social media etc.)
• Studying with the TV on
• Working and playing

Now all of those save one are things you actually don’t want to be doing to often. Very soon you’ll have the habit of eating while watching TV and don’t notice you’re emptying a whole bag of crisps. It’s just suddenly empty. I’m sure you’ve had that happen at least once. The same goes for trying to fall asleep with the TV on. Your retina keeps getting bombarded with light. A great way not to get restful asleep. Sure, most people claim they can’t sleep without the TV to “help them”. But that’s because they have a different problem: The bed is not the exclusive domain of sleep.

The Pavlovian Bed

Humans are creatures of habit and as such we associate things with one another. We get Pavlovian reactions to things. When I was young my parents didn’t allow me to have a TV in my bedroom. A very wise choice when I think back, of course at the time I couldn’t disagree more. You see, my bedroom was used for but a few things and my bed for only one. So as soon as I went to bed my body knew it was supposed to go t sleep and so triggered all the necessary responses. My eyes closed and I was asleep within 20 minutes or less. Reading wasn’t part of the sleeping ritual, or rather it was but not while having my body in a horizontal or half-seated position. Bed = sleep and nothing else.

In later years I got that TV I wanted, now I could watch TV from the comforts of my bed. How wonderful. My body disagreed of course because now it got it’s signals mixed up. Was the bed for sleeping or for watching TV? Or should it do both things at the same time, and not doing a very mindful job of either. The bed was no longer the exclusive domain of sleep.

Distractionless Internet

The same goes for your workspace, your desktop, your sofa. Is a sofa meant to be used for a quick nap? Why not use the bed for that one, at least you won’t fall asleep during the movie because sleep isn’t triggered by the sofa. Homework/studying and your RSS reader or Internet browser? Though far more subtle preferably these two shouldn’t mix either, unless you need the Internet to study. And be honest here (talking to myself) do you really need social media, IRC, music and the TV on to study? Nope, most of the time all you need is your textbook, a piece of paper to make notes, previous notes and in some cases a computer to write something. (or in my case, write code). There are but few reasons to keep connected to the Internet while studying and all of them have an inherent danger of distraction. Wikipedia for instance is a great resource to help clarify things, but it’s all to easy to become distracted and before you know it you’ll be reading about the history of bonsai trees. IRC is a great way to keep in touch with fellow students and ask questions when you are stuck. If you can use it exclusively for that purpose, brilliant. If you get sucked in to idle chatter and random uselessness, better examine what it is you had planned and if what you are doing is part of that plan.

It’s hard to keep things separated, to have a clear idea about what something is for. Is your bed the place to sleep? If your desk the place to work and your sofa the place to watch TV? Or is eating at your desk, sleeping on the sofa and watching TV from the bed the way things go.

Books and Dust Bunnies

So what do the bookcases I mentioned have to do with it? Well, the bookcases were not only holding books, there was other stuff in there too. And everything in there hadn’t been used for at least the whole of 2009 and I had the dust bunnies to prove it. Getting rid of the bookcases made room for proper seating and relocation of the TV. Now watching TV is a major time suck mind you. So what better way to notice that than to make it impossible to watch from anywhere but the designated seating.

Concluding I’d like you to have another look around for two things:

1. Are there things there that you didn’t use in 2009, if so ask yourself why they are still there.
2. Do you have designated (preferably exclusive) area’s for your most important your activities?

I challenge you: For this month, use your bed only for sleeping – if you’re not sleeping, don’t be in bed – and please do tell me about your experiences.

Yes, it takes just one step to transform your home into a minimalist living space. It’s huge actually and if you want to give it a go there are a lot of smaller steps to go through:

• Throw away everything you haven’t used in a year
• Get rid of paperwork/magazines
• Find a way to properly manage all the cable work
• “A place for everything and everything in it’s place”
• Stop yourself (and others!) from letting more stuff get into your home
• Get rid of anything with strong patterns (floral curtains….)
• …
• …

There are probably hundreds of tips you can find all over the net but in the end it comes down to my one step:

1. Keep every surface clear

Be it your desk, a wall, the floor, a table… Assign one (an only one) space in your home here you can “dump” stuff and don’t ever dump anything anywhere else. Everything has it’s own place and should be in that place and nowhere else. The simplest of examples that comes to mind right now is dirty laundry and the hamper. Dirty socks somehow have this tendency to land on the floor. Make it easier on yourself and undress in the vicinity of the hamper, or put the hamper closer to where you undress. The floor is a very popular storage place for all kinds of stuff. Just imagine the average dorm room, everything is all over the place and more often than not you can’t see the floor. The same goes for desks: stacks of paper, piles of books, (half)empty cups, maybe even your phone charger.

Take a look around your home and see all the surfaces, now imagine how they would look without anything on them. See the minimalism? It’s right there under all the clutter, just waiting for you to uncover it.

Why would you want to create a minimalist living area? Again, there are huge benefits. For ease of reading (and just because I can’t say it any better myself) I’ve copied a bit of a blogpost on Zenhabits

Benefits of a Minimalist Home
I could probably go on for awhile about this, but let me just list a few key benefits:

1. Less stressful. Clutter is a form of visual distraction, and everything in our vision pulls at our attention at least a little. The less clutter, the less visual stress we have. A minimalist home is calming.
2. More appealing. Think about photos of homes that are cluttered, and photos of minimalist homes. The ones with almost nothing in them except some beautiful furniture, some nice artwork, and a very few pretty decorations, are the ones that appeal to most of us. You can make your home more appealing by making it more minimalist.
3. Easier to clean. It’s hard to clean a whole bunch of objects, or to sweep or vacuum around a bunch of furniture. The more stuff you have, the more you have to keep clean, and the more complicated it is to clean around the stuff. Think about how easy it is to clean an empty room compared to one with 50 objects in it. That’s an extreme example, of course, as I wouldn’t recommend you have an empty room, but it’s just to illustrate the difference.

You don’t need modern furniture, a stainless kitchen and all those other fancy things to be a minimalist. It’s simply the byproduct of minimalist living: because minimalists don’t buy a lot of clutter they save huge amounts of money and can spend that on nice quality things. The few items they do buy tend to be highly functional and of a superior quality.

Go have some fun in your home, one room at a time clear all the surfaces and find a place for everything you want to keep. Good luck and above all, enjoy yourself and reward yourself at every step!

I haven’t always been a lifestyle designer with a zen twist, it had to start somewhere and I can blame it all on a book that probably everyone who is into lifestyle design knows by now. The four hour workweek by Tim Ferris. This book opened my eyes to the possibilities of Internet and changed my view on “work”. This is not the only book however so I’m presenting you with a list of the books that had the biggest influence on me. Some of these I read before I read the 4HWW and although I wasn’t familiar with “lifestyle design” I guess I was already working on it. In no particular order these books are:

Tim Ferris – The four hour workweek
A book dedicated to lifestyle design. Promoting the 80/20 way of thinking and letting me know that my dreams can become real goals. If this book didn’t exist this blog might just have never existed as well. As I said, this book nudged me in the right direction and gave my way of thinking a name.

Shunryu Suzuki – Zen mind, Beginners mind
A small book about zen meditation and real life. This book tells you just about anything you want to know about Zen Buddhism that’s worth knowing. It was my first book specifically about zen and I still think it’s one of the best I have. I started reading about zen roughly two years ago and had my very first zazen meditation session on June 7th 2008. I’ve been meditation a year now and the changes are huge. I’ve become calmer, more focused and everything has become so much clearer.

Tony Buzan – The speed reading book
I bought this book yeas ago to learn how to speed read. Although I haven’t managed to reach my target of 1000 words a minute but my reading definitely got faster because of this book. In this information age we’re constantly bombarded with information, most of it in writing. How many hours a day do you read blogs, articles, websites, books, newspapers? This book has the power to cut your reading time in half easily. Or you could read twice as much in the same time. The normal reading speed for adults is roughly 200-300 words a minute. The record holder is Sean Adams with 3850 words a minute. There is wide gap there, even though you probably won’t reach the 3000 words a minute, even 1000+ words a minute will change your life.

Rolf Potts – Vagabonding, an uncommon guide to the art of long-term world travel
Although I’m not a vagabond (yet) this book showed me that travel doesn’t need to be expensive. I’ve always dreamed of traveling, this book has offered me the tools and tips to make those dreams into goals. I think this is one of the essential books to read for anyone into lifestyle design. And anyone who wants to become a Location Independent Professional (LIP) probably already read this one.

Peter Ralston – The principles of effortless power
This is the book for anyone who is interested in the internal martial arts. It completely changed my thinking about T’ai Chi that I was practicing at the time. I found a Cheng Hsin group (Cheng Hsin being the martial art that Peter developed) near my home and started training there. Although I haven’t trained in over a year now this book and the training changed the way I move. It’s hard to explain this book but if you practice aikido, t’ai chi or any other internal martial art please pick up this book if you haven’t already. You might also want to read this book if you dance for a living or are a physiotherapist.

Karen Kingston – Clear your clutter with Feng Shui
Although I’m not much for Feng Shui this book still provided me with some great insight. It’s this book that initially got me to minimalize my living space. Although it’s not minimal yet I’ve been working at reaching the 100 things I wrote about a few months ago. Do you have clutter in your home or do you know someone who is a clutterbug? This is the book for you. With 183 pages you can easily read this book in an evening. A warning though, if you read this book you will want to clear your clutter right away. It’s addictive.

J.J. Gibbs – Dancing with your books, the zen way of studying
I bought this book when I was struggling with the last part of my bachelor’s degree. Now I think of it and see an underlined passage, this book was the reason I started zazen meditation. The underlined passage: “On practice that should be incorporated into everyone’s program of study is daily meditation… The purpose of meditation is to relax and silence the constant internal dialogue that goes on in our mind so you can devote your full attention to studying.” I bought the book on March 23d 2008 (I have the habit of writing the date inside the book at the same time I write my name in it.) This book will change how you think about studying, it will become fun!

Michael Masterson – Automatic wealth for grads
Together with “Your money or your life” this book changed the way I think about money. I was terrible with money and squandered thousands of euro’s, I have no idea where it all went. But now I have an overview (down to the cent) of all my spendings, assets and liabilities. I live below my means as much as possible and have realized that it’s perfectly possible to eventually reach the crossover point (The point where the income from your invested capital surpasses your monthly expenses, your basic life necessities and all the components of your chosen lifestyle, are covered by your monthly investment income.) within my lifetime. Although both these books are written for people who work (the 9-5 grind) I plan on using the knowledge in this book to reach that point with my freedom business. One of the big goals in my life is reaching this crossover point.

Robert M. Pirsig – Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance
The only novel in my list. If ever a novel had an impact on it’s reader it’s this one. From the back cover “The most explosive book you will ever read!” and I agree. This book will make you think about your thinking and about the world. Although I don’t have much to say about this book, if you haven’t read it yet, please do! This book made me think deeper about everything, taking nothing for granted.

What books influenced your life? What books should we read? Please tell us about the books you think we should read in the comments.