I must warn you…I’m about to get creepy-intuitive…
You, dear reader…I can sense that you are likely intrigued by the idea of minimalism and living with less? Yes?
No, don’t be afraid by my near-psychic powers. It’s okay. Breath and look at the cute rabbit.
I also see…oh…this surprises me…that there is a good chance that reading about minimalism has inspired you not to live a minimalist life, but to live the same life you always have, with maybe a better work ethic regarding household chores and your e-mail inbox? Maybe you even took up yoga?
Well, I have to tell you…
Minimalism is not about trendy domestic zen!
Minimalism isn’t a way to keep tidy.
Minimalism is ruthless prioritizing.
Everybody’s reason and way is different, but when it comes down to it, minimalism is about priorities and focus.
The maxim of own less is a tool to help you focus.
The maxim of do less is a tool to help you prioritize.
If you’ve been tinkering with the idea of living a minimalist life, or are intrigued but don’t know where to start…here it is…
Your First Step Toward a Minimalist Life:
Reset Your Priorities List.
Make It Small.
Mean It.
This is the beginning. Everything else follows.
Reset.
Throw away your old priorities list. Start your list on a new piece of paper.
Priorities change. Goals are accomplished, forgotten, and alter. Don’t let something that was important to you a year ago dictate what’s important to you today.
Don’t hold onto priorities for sentimental reasons, guilt, or pride. If you bought a guitar last year, thinking it’d be really cool to play…but haven’t…don’t be afraid to call it quits. Nobody is judging you for it, and the sooner you get rid of that out-of-tune guitar the sooner you can stop feeling guilty about still struggling with an F chord.
Your priorities should be where you’re at now. They should be what you’re excited about now. Not what you can do in a year—what you can do tonight. Actually…why are you reading this? Go work on something massively important to you right now.
…
If you don’t have anything massively important, then keep reading, because that’s what we’re working on.
Make It Small.
Pick 2, 3, or 4 things. Only pick what’s important to you, and know that everything else is incidental.
If you can’t pick just 3 or 4, write down your list of 30. Then scratch out half of them. If you were forced to choose, which would you save? Cut it in half again. Repeat until you have less than five things.
Those few things? That’s what’s important. Everything else? Not important.
Don’t let the 27 other things that aren’t important take your focus and energy from the 3 things that are important to you. You’ll never excel at 27 things…and you won’t excel at 3 things if you’re trying to excel at 27.
So drop them. They need to go. And it’s okay.
This isn’t a time to mourn the things you’re going to neglect. It’s a time to get really damn excited about the 2 or 3 things you’re going to devote tons of energy and time into!!
Mean It.
Try actually meaning it for once. Maybe you do. But if you’re anything like me—and I know I am [hehe]—for years I would make lists of things I wanted to do, but I never actually did them. If I spent every second practicing guitar that I spent writing about how I was going to practice guitar in diary goal lists, I…well I would have wasted less paper that’s for sure.
Some people have less obsessive tendencies than others. If you have obsessive tendencies, that’s awesome! If not, maybe you could nurture some?
Either way, these are your priorities. They aren’t set in stone. They’ll change in two months. But they are what you are doing today.
They are what you can work on tonight.
They are what you can get ridiculously excited about right now.
All that stuff about minimalism being decluttering? It’s true. But the most important thing you can declutter is your list of goals and priorities.
So ignore the heap of dirty laundry in your room. Don’t bother trying to clean out another drawer in your desk. Stop obsessing about how disorganized or organized your life is, and start obsessing over whatever it is that you keep claiming makes you really, really excited!
Focus on that, and only that. The compulsive decluttering, yoga, and stuff-tallying comes later ; )
] chloe [
