One of the biggest hurdles I’ve come across in my (very slow) journey towards minimalism is the fact that minimalism isn’t just about things.
Let’s say I have a huge collection of CD’s, DVD’s, books, and such. I’ve written before about the pros and cons of physical media. The pros are, if you have a physical copy of something, it can’t be deleted from the cloud. The cons are, it can still be ruined, and you still have to store it somewhere.
So how does all that fit into minimalism?
As I said, minimalism isn’t about things.
You can live in an empty room, own almost nothing, and still not be a minimalist.
Minimalism is the state of mind that leads you to focus only on the things that are important. In other words, it’s a simple life, not a simple house. The piles of clutter are just symptoms of your cluttered mind, your fractured attention, your never-ending drive to do more things.
It’s not things you need to get rid of- you need to eliminate the mental clutter.
You need to do less things.
Unfortunately, collecting physical media does take up space. But every activity you spend time on also takes up space in your mind. By limiting the things you do to only the ones that matter, you can reduce the clutter in your mind to a level that’s manageable.
What’s Important?
This is the question you need to be asking yourself. “What matters to me? What’s the most important thing I need to spend my limited mental energy on?” Let’s face it- we don’t have unlimited mental energy, or as some call it, “attention. ” And yes, focusing on things requires mental energy. They take up space just as much as a record collection, or a book collection would in the physical world.
If you’re interested in “simplifying” your life, it doesn’t hurt to de-clutter your house. But you need to start by decluttering your life. You need to take an inventory of all the things you do- your daily and weekly activities- and decide if you want to keep them, or toss them.
I won’t use the phrase “empty your mind” because that has a lot of woo-woo connotations. I’m not saying you can’t have thoughts.
What I’m saying is, the more responsibilities and activities you have, the harder it is to have spare brainpower left over to, you know… actually think.
So here’s what I want you to do.
- Make a list of every regular activity you do in a week. (include sleep, meals, work, etc.)
- Add up the hours each activity uses. Write out the number of hours you don’t have allocated to a specific activity, too.
- Take the list of activities you made, and rank them in two columns: activity by hours, and activity by importance. (“Work” and “sleep” will hopefully be at the top of both.)
- If you have less than 30 minutes a day as “free” time (not including doomscrolling or video games), start going through your lists and figuring out which activities use the most time for the least importance.
- Ruthlessly trim those activities from your life until you have enough margin to not feel stressed or hectic all the time.
Yes, it really is that simple.
Minimalism isn’t about things. It’s about what the things do to your mind. If your record collection stresses you out because you’re running out of room, or you’re worried about them getting damaged- is it really bringing you peace?
If your video gaming or social media stresses you out because it steals time away from being able to process important things, is it really necessary?
Be honest with yourself.
You know what wastes your attention.
It’s time to throw it in the dumpster, an reclaim your life.