This Is How You Can Practice Minimalism in Real Life

A complete, stress-free guide to more through less

While lots of ideas from the minimalist movement brought me plenty of joy and enhanced my quality of life, many essays and videos from self-proclaimed minimalist gurus make me sad.

I could go on forever about what minimalism isn’t supposed to be. Instead, let’s focus on what minimalism is, away from the trends and the hashtags, and how you can make it work for you.

Me and Minimalism

Minimalism with a big M came into my life in a state of flux: Between 2016 and 2019 I moved three times and traveled for a total of 12 months. This meant every excessive thing I owned and didn’t use regularly automatically turned into a burden.

It didn’t, however, mean I threw away 90% of my stuff within a day. Rather, with every move and flight I boarded, I got rid of more and more — it was a linear, non-dramatic process aligned with my needs at the time. Only bit by bit did I realize how little I own and how liberating this is.

Once I was ready to settle down again, my possessions were down to a laptop, a phone, a Kindle, essential clothing, and some furniture. It was also the time I serendipitously stumbled upon the minimalist movement and understood I can apply it to a lot more areas of my life, starting from digital clutter to my appearance, purchasing habits, and friendships.

What Is Minimalism?

Before I continue with applicable steps towards a more minimalistic life, let’s first try to pin down what minimalism is and what it can mean to you.

The roots of minimalism

While minimalism, as we know it today, is an American movement, the ideas and philosophy behind it are ancient. Buddhist monks and Catholic nuns have been practicing an extremely minimalist lifestyle for centuries and owned the bare essentials only.

The concept of non-attachment (to things, objects, people) stems from Zen Buddhism’s Upādāna.

Shintoism, Japan’s ancient nature religion, largely defined what we understand minimalism to mean today, particularly the conviction that the stuff we own deserves care and attention. Although somewhat different from minimalism, this sense of care is also what author and organizing consultant Marie Kondo draws on and conveys in her philosophy.

Minimalism defined

To give you an all-encompassing definition of minimalism, I’ll draw on the voices of different practitioners who all give a different tone to what minimalism means to them.

The famous Minimalists Joshua Field Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus define minimalism as

a lifestyle that helps people question what things add value to their lives. By clearing the clutter from life’s path, we can all make room for the most important aspects of life: health, relationships, passion, growth, and contribution.

In his guide to minimalism in the real world, Tim Denning writes,

It’s about much more than what you own. It’s about making space for what you want in life.

[…]

Minimalism isn’t about rules or numbers or completely empty spaces where you just sit there and stare at white walls. It’s a way of life, an opportunity to spend more time on what you value and less time in areas of your life that don’t bring you any joy or fulfillment.

Christine Platt, also known as the Afrominimalist, formulated her take on minimalism beautifully in her TEDx Talk:

Honestly, I don’t even know how many things I own because I’ve never counted. But what I do know is that everything I have is intentional and serves a purpose because, for me, minimalism is less about the aesthetic and more about the practice.

I hope the above definitions managed to take away most of your fears about minimalism.

While there are endless areas where you can apply minimalism—like your material possessions, digital space, travel, housing, etc.—I like to see these topics as tools of a minimalist mindset, rather than the ultimate goal.

You’re the only one who gets to decide about the right tools for you, i.e. which minimalist practices serve you and which feel more like a burden than liberation.

The Holistic Benefits of Minimalism

First, a disclaimer.

Before I go on to acclaim minimalism, I want to say, as with everything in life, it’s not always the right thing for everyone. What’s minimalist bliss for me is a mental illness for others.

Also, as is the case with every self-help tool, its applicability depends as much on your circumstances as on your mindset, especially when it comes to the details of execution.

For the sake of transparency, here are a few words about me and how I approached minimalism:

I don’t have kids, was single when I started to practice minimalism, and now live together with my partner. This means I get at least a 50% say in my overall living space.

I come from a middle-class background, which means minimalism isn’t my means of survival but a choice — it’s something I do to enhance my life and not something my circumstances forced upon me.

I don’t mention these facts to sound aloof but to highlight how my situation might differ from yours.

If you read this as a parent, and/or under completely different, less fortunate circumstances, rest assured all your doubts are valid.

While minimalism can be beneficial in all kinds of circumstances, I’m not here to tell you about how you should be a good minimalist parent and raise minimalist children, or scold you if random purchases feel like a genuine treat for you. Minimalism is not about reaching someone else’s notion of what’s best for you; it’s about making your relationship with your stuff work for you.

Minimalist advantages

Minimalism and happiness — is there a scientific link?

To answer this question, we first need to understand that human happiness is widely under-researched. As historian Yuval Noah Harari writes in Sapiens,

“Most current ideologies and political programmes are based on rather flimsy ideas concerning the real source of human happiness. […]

Capitalists maintain that only the free market can ensure the greatest happiness of the greatest number, by creating economic growth and material abundance […].

What would happen if serious research were to disprove these hypotheses? If economic growth [doesn’t] make people happier, what’s the benefit of capitalism? […]

These are all hypothetical possibilities because so far historians have avoided raising these questions — not to mention answering them. They have researched the history of just about everything — politics, society, economics, gender, diseases, sexuality, food, clothing — yet they have seldom stopped to ask how these influence human happiness.”

So far, there’s no objective, quantified measure of happiness. When we talk about minimalism and whether it leads to greater happiness, we have to rely on people’s subjective perception of their happiness:

This study in the Humanity & Society Journal found voluntary simplifiers (people dedicated to consuming fewer material goods) believe they’re happier and more content than consumers.

This one, published in the Journal of Positive Psychology, examined the link between the tendency to make experiential purchases above material ones. They found experiential purchasing tendency to be related to higher extraversion, openness, and empathic concern, as well as an increase in subjective well-being.

This paper, based on semi-structured interviews with 10 self-proclaimed minimalists published in the International Journal of Applied Positive Psychology, suggests various well-being benefits of voluntary minimalism, including higher awareness and more positive emotions.

Research also went the other way around to examine whether the opposite of minimalism — excessive hoarding — leads to unhappiness. This study was based on an internet survey among 665 family informants who reported having a family member or friend with hoarding behaviors. Life with an individual who hoards during childhood was associated with elevated reports of childhood distress, family strain, and hostility.

Based on the above studies, we can conclude there’s a positive correlation between minimalism and subjective happiness. How does this happiness manifest in real life, however?

To answer this question I want to rely on the tangible benefits I experienced through minimalism.

The minimalist benefits I experienced

As historian Yuval Noah Harari further wrote in Sapiens,

One of history’s few iron laws is that luxuries tend to become necessities and to spawn new obligations. Once people get used to a certain luxury, they take it for granted. Then they begin to count on it. Finally, they reach a point where they can’t live without it.

This paragraph comes with a truth I seldom thought about, which I find people in general seldom think about: Everything we own comes with a set of obligations.

For example, most things that come with mechanics need maintenance, reparations, etc. at least once in a while — examples of this are cars, laptops, phones, or bicycles.

Other things need more cleaning than maintenance — think of every piece of cloth you own, but also bed sheets, curtains, dishes, your whole apartment, etc.

All tangible things you own take up space, and all digital things you own take up digital space. All people you want to be in your life need your time and attention.

Everything we own comes with a set of obligations.

When I moved a lot a few years ago, I experienced firsthand what these obligations mean once I needed to store, sell, toss, or carry everything I owned with me. In the end, I went so far that I was left with one piece of hand luggage and a tiny room at a friends’ place where I stored some stuff.

I own more since I settled down again and am not competing to own as little as possible. However, to be left with so little at that time helped me realize what I need and how lightweight life can become with only a few things to take care of.

What made me stick with minimalism is how owning so little made me feel. For me, the minimalist habits I adopted and will describe mean freedom and time, above all.

I’m free of many obligations that come with owning a lot. This results in more time I can spend on myself, my hobbies, and the people close to me. Furthermore, I don’t have a lot of material stuff to lose. I know I can strip down tremendously from a material point of view and still thrive.

While I like comfort, I don’t need much to feel comfortable.

With all these aspects combined, I can also report more peace of mind and a positive correlation between my minimalist lifestyle and happiness.

In my experience, a minimalist practice is best done in three stages (the last two overlap): (1) a general decluttering phase, (2) the adoption of a minimalist mindset, which aids most further consumption habits, and (3) an altered mindset about how we treat the stuff we decide to own.

Phase 1: Declutter

This is what most people are afraid of, but it doesn’t have to be extreme.

There are several decluttering tactics out there that range from radical purging to a smooth separation from your stuff.

The question you need to ask first, however, isn’t the how but the why.

My guess is you’re reading this article because there’s something that bothers you. It could be a storage room too full to enter or your wardrobe you completely lost track of.

It can also be something less tangible, like a smartphone that constantly distracts you because you overcrowded it with apps and notifications.

Or it could be your general purchasing habits — if you wonder where your money goes and there‘s never enough, it’s a valid reason to apply minimalism in that area.

My suggestion is to start your decluttering journey with the single biggest issue which got you here in the first place.

For me, this was a cupboard full of stuff and a flat congested with cheap plastic decoration—the stuff I didn’t know what to do with when I wanted to move to a much smaller place.

All of the rest followed by freeing myself from what bothered me the most.

So the first step is to ponder the following question:

What’s the first perceived obstacle that arises when you think of minimalism?

Start right there.

How do I decide what stays or goes?

Whatever you decide to declutter first this way — be it a wardrobe, your phone or your paperwork — here are a few questions to ask for every single item you’re hesitant about:

1. Did I know I had this item in the first place?
2. Would I get this item today?
3. Did I use this in the past 12 months?
4. Would it impact my daily life to not have this item, and how?
5. Do I own something similar I like better?
6. Would I take this item if I moved?
7. Does it make me happy?
8. Why do I want to keep this?

These are the exact questions I asked myself when I decluttered that infamous closet and then my whole flat. Their order is intentional.

If you didn’t know this item existed (question 1), or you wouldn’t get it again (question 2), the answer of what to do with it is easy.

The one year in question 3 is a timeframe that covers all seasons (especially relevant for clothing) and is long enough to determine whether you really need this item.

If you’re still unsure, question 4 forces you to reason with how this item is of use for you.

There’s no rational point in owning plenty of what-ifs and just-in-case items (question 5). If the item in question is a backup for you haven’t used in a year, you can let it go.

Question 6 comes in handy if you’re not in the process of moving as I was. Imagine if you were. Would you make the effort to pack this item, carry it with you, and find space for it at your next destination?

The last two questions (7–8) are there to eliminate false emotional bonds and are good to determine whether an item still makes sense to keep, even if all other questions indicate the opposite.

Here are two examples:

1. Your college diploma: You might not do it all over again, you didn’t use it or touched it in years, etc. but to keep it still makes inherent sense if it makes you happy.
2. Gifts: We often keep gifts out of guilt, even if we never liked them in the first place — they create a false sense of sentimentality. If you find a gift from a dear friend or a long-gone family member doesn’t bring any joy and the only reason you keep it is you feel you should, then it might be time to part.

If you’ve made it this far, you 1) determined the most suffocating area of your life, and 2) successfully decluttered it.

Congratulations — you’re out of the woods. You’re now good to proceed with the easier road works of your life in the same manner.

Phase 2: Adopt Healthy Minimalist Habits

The topic and methods of minimalism are as vast as the ocean. from Mari Kondo-ing your living space to a furniture-free life and the possession of fewer than 100 items — you can take it far if you want to. The question, however, is if this is what you need.

The thing is, minimalism isn’t a race about who owns the fewest items. Once I read an article or watch a video that communicates this mindset, I get turned off.

Minimalism doesn’t exist for minimalism’s sake. Its purpose is to free you of physical, digital, mental, and emotional clutter. It’s there to serve you, not your Instagram feed, or your approval by some minimalist guru.

In the following paragraphs, I will lay out a few life areas in which it can make sense to apply minimalist habits and in which I apply it myself.

I will show you the possibilities for each. That said, you don’t have to apply all of these at once, and you probably won’t ever apply some of these.

The goal is to identify your biggest pain points in life, the areas which feel most cluttered and suffocated and work on those to adopt more healthy habits.

Purchasing habits

We see so many ad impressions every day and are exposed to glamorous lifestyles all over the world via social media. It’s no wonder we never feel like we have enough and what we have is good.

To give you an idea of how manipulative our consumption culture can be, I highly recommend you watch The Story of Stuff on YouTube (~20 mins) and google the terms planned obsolescence and perceived obsolescence.

I don’t have strict goals and constraints on how many items I buy, however. I rather try to give each purchase thought and evaluate whether I truly want and/or need it.

For me, the most important step towards more mindful purchasing was to eliminate impulse buys, e.g. stuff I order online with 1-click because I felt like it at the moment.

For this, I made a list in Microsoft To-Do and named it “Shall I buy this.” Whenever I feel the urge to buy something, I add it to this list and set the “expiry date” (deadline) for one month later. I review this list once a week or so. If I still can reason for expired items, they stay on the list. If I can’t, I delete them.

For the expired items left on the list, I ask the following questions:

• Do I have space for it?
• Will I use it often? (I try to make an honest assessment.)

Only if the answers are yes will I go on with the purchase.

Clothing & Cosmetics

Before I adopted minimalist habits, I spent a lot of money on clothing and cosmetics, owned many clothes, many of which I didn’t wear, and spent a lot of time to get dressed in the morning.

Once I had to cut down my army of apparel to what fits into hand luggage (and survived!), I never looked back — minimalist clothing habits changed my everyday life significantly for the better.

Here’s how I practice minimalism when it comes to clothing:

What I own:

• a week’s worth of clothing for every season, not more;
• a total of 3 sets of sports apparel, for warm and cold days;
• 4 pairs of shoes: sneakers, hiking boots, flip flops, and 1 pair of fancy shoes
• 1 fancy dress
• 2 bags: a small purse and a rucksack;
• a little jewelry;
• 10 sets of underwear;
• 1 makeup, 1 mascara, 1 lipstick, 1 shower gel & shampoo, 1 deodorant.

How I do it:

All my clothes, bags, and shoes must be a good fit for each other — both in terms of color and style. To make this simple I don’t own anything with a pattern; it’s mostly all monochrome tops and sweaters. As for pants, I only wear jeans, short or long, because they fit almost any monochrome top. I like to vamp up this admittedly plain look with some jewelry.

When it comes to cosmetics, I consider myself lucky because I have a clear complexion, healthy hair and skin and therefore don’t need anything else than deodorant, shower gel, and shampoo.

I quit makeup a long time ago and only apply some on special occasions.

That said, I never expressed myself through clothes so all of this wasn’t a huge makeover for me. All I had to do was to declutter what I didn’t wear anymore and switch to monochrome when I purchase clothing.

I have many friends, however, who love to dress up and to express themselves through their style, and that’s awesome — I wouldn’t want them to change.

Again, the point is not to compulsively get rid of everything and switch to forced simplicity, but to focus on what’s essential for you. If clothing and an extravagant style is one such thing, cool.

Also, I realize not everyone wants to get by without cosmetics. Again, this is not a race, and you do you.

Sentimental items

Sentimental items are those that are the hardest to get rid of. Along with their possible financial value, they also carry an emotional value which can range from nostalgia to guilt.

My mom died young in 2014 ,so I know a thing or two about sentimentality. Nevertheless, I own no more than a small box of items that remind me of her and other people and events from my past.

The thing is sentimental items inherently come with a boatload of emotions — for better or worse. For me, owning a lot of them also carried a lot of weight.

Of course, I miss my mum and many other things part of the past. However, we aren’t our stuff, and neither are the people and memories we’re holding onto.

They’re intangible and live within us, not in the things we keep.

To understand this helped me cut to the “essentials.” Of course, there’s no pressure to get rid of everything that carries sentimentality. Rather, the point is to ask what kind of emotions these items evoke from you and what your real motivation is behind keeping them.

Paperwork, paper-based informational material, bureaucracy

While I never was much of a paper-hoarder, I have by now digitalized 99% of my paperwork:

• I scanned all my documents and stored those that cannot be tossed in one box (college diploma, certificate of registration, etc.).
• I switched to digital communication with every provider and service I regularly use (bank, electricity, internet, etc.).
• I pay all my bills online.
• I read solely on Kindle, stopped buying books, and gave those I had away.

All of this takes little to no effort but adds up and makes for so much less clutter and a whole better overview.

Digital Minimalism

In this day and age in which we spend half of our waking hours in front of screens and computers, a clean digital space is as important as our physical surroundings.

My previous point might make it seem as if the solution was to digitalize everything and bulk-load it onto our devices. I found, however, that a cluttered device can cause a lot of distress, so here are my suggestions to bring order into the chaos.

My biggest pet peeves and most useful items at the same time are my smartphone and laptop. I have separate strategies for each.

The smartphone

When it comes to my phone, I had two minimalist goals: (1) to make it work for me, not against me (i.e. to be in control of my phone usage), and (2) to make it as clean, efficient, usable, and uncluttered as possible.

There are several hacks for both of these goals and to list them all would require a separate article. I got most of these hacks from such articles and tutorials myself.

My favorites are the Technology Addict’s Guide to Reducing Phone Usage by Bryan Ye and How to Configure Your iPhone to Work for You, Not Against You by Coach Tony.

Here are my biggest takeaways and what I implemented so far:

• I never sleep with/next to my phone and don’t touch it until I had breakfast and finished my morning routine.
• I turned off raise to wake (the function which turns the screen on whenever you touch your phone).
• What’s more, I turned off all notifications, except for phone calls.
• My background is all-black to avoid the impression my phone is some shiny toy I need to play with.
• All my apps are in folders and some of these apps are hidden on the second page of these folders.

Once I followed these few simple steps, my phone time went down significantly. I don’t say I never scroll mindlessly, but it helped me turn my phone back more into a useful tool than an all-time necessity.

The computer/laptop

As an entrepreneur and freelancer, my laptop is also my workplace where I spend a significant amount of time.

However, since they lack the addictive scrolling “feature” and don’t by default come with several notifications, I find laptops to be less distracting than phones. Therefore, I didn’t have to go such great lengths to keep myself away from it and avoid mindless usage or clutter.

For a minimalist laptop setting, I liked Megan Holstein’s What My Minimalist Laptop Looks Like.

If there’s one thing that kept me from focusing the essentials, it was the number of my open tabs, so my biggest takeaway from it was to close all tabs after every session. This helps me have a fresh, uncluttered start every time I sit down to work.

Relationships

Admittedly it sounds weird to Marie Kondo your circle of friends. However, you can apply minimalism to your relationships.

This doesn’t mean you have to get rid of people in your life. It rather means to acknowledge you only have a limited amount of time and energy, and it’s worth directing them to those who matter.

We’re told to network whenever we can with whomever we can, but I rarely read about how only a handful of relationships you actively cultivate and build on mutual respect and support can be more than enough.

I used to have a large circle of acquaintances, and I was often afraid to lose people. During my years of traveling and moving around, however, I realized people will come and go, those who matter will stick around, and this is the nature of life.

Here’s what a minimalist circle of friends means to me:

• To become out of touch and to grow apart is a normal part of existing and doesn’t mean hard feelings;
• The length of a relationship doesn’t necessarily equal its depth and value;
• Friendships and relationships of any kind need to be cultivated. They require effort and energy, and it’s OK to be picky about whom I direct this energy toward.

Today, I have a few rock-solid friendships and can count my valuable business relationships on one hand. I feel like I’m in good hands and stopped chasing people.

Apart from the six areas I described above, there are several more to which you can apply minimalism, and a quick search will likely give you a bunch of great articles for every possible niche.

These were the areas in which I actively practice minimalism and which I deemed can be useful for most people.

Phase 3: What Do You Do With The Stuff You Own?

This point leads us back to the Shinto roots of minimalism I mentioned above.

For me, a minimalist lifestyle is as much about how I treat the stuff I own as it is about what I choose to own in the first place.

The simple answer to the question about how to treat your stuff as a minimalist is: Take care of your items.

Of course, each item has different needs but here are some helpful general guidelines:

• Repair instead of replacing it. I only replace items if they stopped working and repairing them becomes impossible or unsustainable. Perceived obsolescence is real, and I try to not fall prey to it.
• I try to do necessary maintenance work on the items I have that require it so they don’t break in the first place.
• I try to keep my items clean, in order, and follow their instructions of use, cleaning, etc.

In the end, I’m in the process of adopting a mindset that tells me each item has inherent value and deserves care and attention. Admittedly, this is easier for some items than for others, but owning only one of them (e.g. only one pair of sneakers with no immediate replacement) helps a lot.

A Smooth Kickoff To Your Minimalist Journey

The previous paragraphs contained a lot of information about what you can do and how I managed to dive into minimalism.

However, I cannot emphasize enough how important it is you find your own way. In the end, the ultimate goal of your minimalist journey is your happiness, and no one knows your situation and preferences better than you.

The areas in which I practice minimalism might all be relevant for you—or not. The great thing about minimalism is it doesn’t have to be all black and white (literally!). You don’t have to apply it to all areas of your life. You can be an avid collector of certain items you love and still be a minimalist.

In the end, only you can tell the difference between what’s trash and what’s a treasure for you.

This is why, as the first step towards minimalism, my suggestion is you ignore all advice but one:

Define the most cluttered area of your life and work your way from there.

This way you focus on your internal motivation instead of external definition on how you’re supposed to be a good minimalist.

In the end, the opposite of minimalism isn’t maximalism but indifference. It’s a practice of mindfulness. By opting for a minimalist lifestyle you choose to care — what you own, how you spend your time, and who you allow into your life.

The opposite of minimalism isn’t maximalism but indifference.

The particular methods of how we can get there are as unique as our personalities, lives, and circumstances.