A few words about minimalism

One professor from my studies asked group: what’s the difference between big and small house? This question was tricky, because all answers were… bad. Ha could refute all our arguments related to big, but also to small house. Conclusion was simple: we should looking for the golden mean, something best for our needs. It was few years ago, but I still remember this question, and it’s very good option to start new topic – few words about possible advantages of minimalism in our life.

I’m not totally minimalist person, I must admit it in the begging of this post. But it doesn’t matter. Minimalist doesn’t not have to be “one option to rule them all”, but also good habit, good receipt for better, simpler life and something like lifestyle. Sometimes we can have a lot of things related to something, but in other cases, use only minimal set of tools. I do it for few years and can say, that’s very nice option. Not to limit our life as possible, but limit unused things (and services!) as possible.

Minimalism advantages

We need less space

There we can back to question from first paragraph – what’s the difference between big and small house? Also, what choice is better? Main difference is the amount of things we have in house. With a lot of space, we can have a lot of things. Similarly, if we don’t have much space, we must limit amount of our things. So, if we can (can, it’s very important!) this amount, we can use smaller flat – it means lower costs (rent, heating, etc.),

We can spend less time for cleaning

Let’s move on – if we have smaller house/flat, we can spend less time for cleaning. I mean cleaning everything: furniture, clothes, RTV equipment, household appliances, really everything. We have extra free time, and can spare some money for cleaning tools in long term. Yes, everything is related to each other.

We can spend less time for organising and finding our things

Other advantage: minimalism provides us easier access to our things. How many times you spend a lot of time to searching for something in a mess and excess of things? Remember: you can buy almost everything, but you can’t buy additional time for life. You can waste it for cleaning and searching, but it’s only your choice. With smaller amount for things, searching are simpler. Also, using things with for many applications (when it’s possible) can save us a lot of space and time.

We don’t work for things

We work a lot to earn money and then… we buy things and need additional money to keep these things in good condition. It isn’t problem with for example one TV and energy required by it. But what about many TVs? What about many cars? What about many smartphones, swimming pools, beautiful garden? All of them are very nice and we like them, but in reality, all of them are also costs. Costs in the beginning, and costs in all time of use – something also costs even if we don’t use them. Think about that: do you have any unused thins, which generates any costs annually? If yes, you should consider to get rid of them.

Conclusion

We can save a lot of money, because we don’t have to pay for extra space and also new things (I mean unnecessary things). With that, we can work less, so have more free time for ourselves. We can work in the same time, but have more money – maybe for good trips? It’s only example, but remember: new things are always similar, because based on other. Fast car is just faster than other, but it isn’t huge difference. New experiences are always something new. New culture, new places, new people. We don’t have to think about our things, everything is simpler, life is simpler.

How you can make your life more minimalistic?

I can’t say: sell everything, use only minimal set of things. It isn’t true. I think, we should not do this for example for our hobby. You really like cars, cars mechanics? Still do it! Maybe you love bungee, but jump only few times in year? It doesn’t matter, if you love this, stay with it. You should enjoy your life, not limit it at all cost. On the other hand, you can sell all real unused and unnecessary things – you can earn some money, clean space, maybe after that consider exchange flat to smaller one? Step by step, remove redundant things for life.

Second thing, for future – buy high-quality products. You can use many low-quality and exchange them often (for example, clothes), but it’s better option to buy something maybe more expensive, but also more reliable. Of course, higher costs is not equal to higher quality, so, you should check users reviews before each non-daily shopping. In many cases, we can use better products much longer than standard.

You can also backup all your important documents in electronic versions. We have a lot of old, but important papers. Most of them are only “evidences” for something. You can scan them, move to computer (and also make backup) and remove real. With that, also searching is much, much faster: just type in search, not do it manually with papers. If you like ebooks or audiobooks, exchange real books into them. It’s big space saving and allows you to read/listen to everything without problems in most of time.

Treat your smartphone as swiss army knife. You don’t need powerful training device like expensive Garmin to just be fit. You don’t need external GPS, because smartphones has good navigation apps, you don’t need digital camera if you take pictures only occasionally and don’t require ultra quality. Important thing about phones: similar to computers, it’s also very good place to make life easier. Do you really need tons of apps? Maybe it’s good time to remove a lot of them, save space, save traffic, battery time?