To become a minimalist gradually we can take a step by step approach at home. We should apply this method to ourselves then preach it to others by our behaviour and appearance. Becoming a minimalist is possible even in the 30 days irrespective of your gender, woman, man or you are living with family or not.
There can be many ways to become minimalist and live more simply. Our aim should be high to live as simply as we can but there are always distractions. But every step we take in this journey will be a win for us.
For the step by step approach to become a minimalist these things should be considered
- Goals and objectives
- Financial minimalism
- Food minimalism
- Decluttering
- Valuing the time
- Value the words
- Stop multitasking
- Emotional minimalist
- Spiritual minimalist
- Living in the present
- Zero waste movement
- Essentialism
- Permaculture minimalism
Goals and Objectives
We need to define our purpose and goal in minimalism. We first have to study the philosophy of minimalism and how to implement it in our life. How to improvise the changes according to our lifestyle. Then setting realistic goals that what result do we expect by it.
Financial minimalism
Budgeting our spending and earnings by taking step-by-step measures. Taking more control of our life by spending what is really essential for us and not encouraged by any false advertisement. It is the financial aspect of minimalism.
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| Financial minimalism |
Money is one of the essential things in our life. But getting in debt for most of our life and getting chained to the system forever can be a problem. To address this problem there is a simple solution to consume less. Not compromising on the quality of your consumption but the extra quality that usually goes to waste. keeping yourself away from the consumerism behaviour that we have discussed in the other article of minimalism. by consuming less, avoiding anything that you don't need, don't believe in the advertisement, and defining the purpose of every single action you take in life. This will eventually be a very pocket friendly approach and we can use this money to spend on the actual benefit things and purposes in life. Also that will take off the burden of the debt that we have our whole life.
Food minimalism
It is to reduce the Intake of the processed food in our life. Also using the recipes that require less ingredients to prepare our food. Once again not compromising on the quality of the food.
This is also a huge topic of minimalistic food. Start with the knowledge of our body requirements. By reducing over more calorie intake and other food that our body really does not need. Then we can be healthy for the longer term. Everyone is different from the other so we have to define but what and how much is really good for our body.
Decluttering things or belongings
The first and the most common thing that we meant from minimalism is to declutter for getting rid of the things that we don't consider as essentials. This can be many many things that we see everywhere in our room, wardrobe, in the car and our house. We can all name many things that we don't use much but we see near us or we carry with us. We have to separate the things that really matter from the things that don't matter step by step.
We have covered the whole topics of decluttering life, mind and home in detail.
Valuing the time
Valuing the time we have to give to everyone and everything. The best thing we can give others is our time. We are all mortal and we all have to die at some point of our life. Sometimes we think that we are very healthy and have a full life ahead of us. but the sad reality is no one can predict power on death. The time we live in there are different kinds of diseases, infections, cancers and many other problems becoming more and more common that we haven't heard before.
So the real currency is not money, gold or anything else it is the time. Tomorrow is a mystery and today is a blessing. We have to really value our time when we really can.
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| Value of time |
Being productive
It also means to be productive and achieve daily tasks in our time. Being productive most of the time is a difficult attribute to achieve. The most effective method to achieve goals or tasks is to make mini habits. These mini habits or small habits are the same habits like when we wake up we subconsciously wash our hands and face and then we brush our teeth. These are the examples of these Mini habits which have built over time with persistence. By building these mini habits we can improve our overall efficiency and also will become productive with time.
Consistent, Persistence and Perseverance by remembering these 3 words we can achieve my things in our life.
Valuing the words
We need to value ourselves in every way. We are accountable for everything we do and everything we say. We can not run away from the things we do; they always come back to haunt us for the most part of our life. There is a Karma that What Goes Around Comes Around.
Speak only when your words are more beautiful than silence.
Hazrat Ali (R.A)
Stop Multitasking
It has been proven from the new researches that multitasking is not effective at all. But pinpointing your goals, your tasks and focusing mainly on one thing at a time can be effective. Also it can help us in other ways like keeping our mind stress free by losing the burden of the other tasks and other thoughts. In the end we can feel more accomplished and content by tackling these tasks.
Digital Minimalism
Digital minimalism is to reduce our overall screen time. It can be watching TV for a long time, using mobile phones when we do not need them, or wandering away to other tabs from our basic reason for using the laptop.
We need to ask ourselves what we really want and what makes us happy in life. People get scared or offended when they hear the word minimalism. It's not some kind of taboo thing but in simple words it just means to simplify your life. Not deprive yourself from the things you need or abuse yourself in any kind but living life more effectively and happily.
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| Becoming digital minimalist |
There are many ways to achieve digital minimalism.
Avoiding distractions
The first one is to avoid all kinds of distractions doing your office work or any other work. This includes putting away your mobile phone when not needing it. It has become a natural tendency of a human to use a mobile phone whenever there appears any notification or you listen to the tone. In this day and age, this can be the most distracting thing for doing any work.
Stop multitasking
The other important thing is again to stop multitasking also in digital minimalism. Like we have covered before using your phone while watering your plants and drinking coffee at the same time is not helpful at all. So it is in digital minimalism that focusing on a single task first and opening other tabs will shift your focus from the main work you want to do. We will wander away and the train of thoughts will take us away from our objectives.
Doing small tasks at once
One technique can be doing all the small tasks in the day at once. It will take the burden off of the mind of the stars and will make you feel more accomplished. Then we can focus on the other bigger tasks and objectives. doing these small talk early in the day for leaving it for later it all depends on you. For some people doing it in the morning makes them more efficient and for some other people doing this thanks letter at the night makes them more efficient. So make a timetable, start a journal, aur make a habit of making a list of tasks and objectives to perform everyday.
These tasks can be like replying emails, messages on different platforms, any other task necessary to handle everyday. Like sending or reading emails can consume a lot of time and energy. So we should make a schedule of a specific time when we go through this process. you should do all of this reading and writing at once. Also we have to define a pattern which is efficient for us.
Limiting social media use
Social media platforms are built in a way that we can utilise most of the time using them. These platforms are specifically designed in a way for users to keep scrolling down to grab more and more information and happenings in the other people's lives. These social media platforms can be the biggest time wasters and keeping us away from focusing and working on our own lives.
Limiting the use of social media to a specific time and for a specific time live for only 20 minutes. It can really be helpful for us to alter our life for betterment. It will also help to reduce the psychological effects of the social media like the anxiety, envy and jealousy and other really poisonous behaviour that we can get using these social media apps for more time.
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| Limiting social media |
Limiting the watch time to fewer days
The same method and technique goes for limiting our streaming of movies, documentaries and even informational YouTube videos. We should limit our overall watch time and also the days in which we can enjoy these platforms for more time. Human mind is very curious and sometimes this curiosity keeps us streaming different topics. Also streaming platforms like Netflix, YouTube and others are designed this way just like social media apps to keep the user engaged. Which will eventually keep us away from our goals and objectives of the day. Affecting our productivity for more time.
Use of screens at night
The blue screen of mobile and computer screen can trick our mind to feel that it's still daylight.
The mind will then not feel sleepy enough. Which can keep you awake for a longer time. Affecting your routine and health making it harder in the journey of minimalism. Also making us waste some more precious time in front of the screen. This routine also will affect our mini goals and mini habits for the next days. One way to reduce the effect of this blue screen is to get softwares which can make our screen appear more red and reduce the blue lights. For example, one software called f.lux is totally free to download and you can use it with no strings attached. You can download your desired version by clicking on the hyperlink f.lux.
Emotional minimalism
The emotional bond with our family and friends can be really important. When really working on all the aspects of minimalism we can really create time for our loved ones or the people near us. So creating quality time and emotional bonds. Also choose wisely about the people that surround you. Some people are full of negativity and they can hold you down with them. Choosing the right amount of time for the right amount of person can really help.
Spiritual minimalism
There can be many ways to achieve spiritual minimalism. Like meditating for a few minutes everyday. There are many kinds of meditation and we can choose what really suits us. We can use mindfulness techniques, practice yoga, doing reiki or playing with chakras.There can be many ways to achieve spiritual minimalism. Like meditating for a few minutes everyday. There are many kinds of meditation and we can choose what really suits us. We can use mindfulness techniques, practice yoga, doing reiki or playing with chakra. To help in the process of minimalism we can use other techniques like yoga. Making the best out of it and controlling all the important parts of your body. Or maybe channeling the energy through all of the seven chakras.
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| Spiritual minimalist |
There is also other ways of meditation in many religions like in Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam. It also includes other religions with their own kind of meditation. Like in Buddhism there are monks living self-sustaining, simple life of minimalism and doing meditation to find peace in their life. In Islam there's also a type of meditation in which the people prostrate, offering prayer(salah) channeling the energy from the body to the earth. So are there many different types of yoga and types of meditation in Hinduism.
We have to keep our mind and heart open to any kind of meditation that can really change or affect our life.
Channeling the energy
Working on spirituality can refine our whole thought process. when We indulge ourselves with positive things then it really creates value for us. We automatically gradually turn our mind towards the positivity around us. This way we can get rid of all negative thoughts that come to our mind.
Living in the present
The only thing holding us to attain beneficial knowledge and to achieve anything in life. Is the regrets of the past and the fear of the future. We have to live in the present and press the reset button of the mind.
You cannot pull yourself back because of the things we did wrong in the past. We should not fear anything that has to offer in the future. We just have to focus to make our present life better than the day before. we should work on ourselves enough that our future self will be thankful to us.
“How strange and foolish is man. He loses his health in gaining wealth. Then, to regain his health he wastes his wealth. He ruins his present while worrying about his future, but weeps in the future by recalling his past. He lives as though death shall never come to him, but dies in a way as if he were never born”.
There are also other methods, movements and lifestyles that are inline with the minimalist way of living.
Zero waste movement
There are a bunch of people that are producing only a jar of waste in their entire year. The way to achieve it is to turn towards organic and natural methods. Making your own natural products to consume to reduce the waste. By using the 4 R’s Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle Zero waste is pretty much achievable.
Essentialism
Essentialism can be another name given to minimalism. But some people make a little difference between them. As an essentialist keep things with more quality and for long-lasting use. While getting rid of the other things. So the difference is in the more quality of the things to keep.
Permaculture Lifestyle
The regular visitors of this website know that we have also covered the permaculture techniques or lifestyle. Permaculture is not limited to only farming but it is a social economic and political system. We often undermine the minimalistic aspect of the permaculture. The ethics and the principles of permaculture states that we should move towards self-sustaining, producing minimum waste and achieving minimalistic lifestyle.
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| Simple living minimalism movement |
Working on any part of the minimalism will be a huge success for us. We should consider our lifestyle and then we can incorporate these changes gradually. We will see positive changes from every side of the minimalism. Once again achieving total minimalism is not important but the journey towards these changes matter. In the end we will be financially, spiritually, emotionally and also in the other parts of the life better.
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