Tips for Adopting a Minimalist Lifestyle

Whether you live in your parents’ house or you just moved into a dorm room or apartment, space is often an issue for students. Finding places to put all of your stuff can quickly lead to a storage nightmare or an extremely overcrowded room. When you’ve had enough of the clutter, check out these tips for adopting a minimalist lifestyle so that you don’t have to be buried in your own possessions.

Spell It Out for Yourself

The beginning stages of minimalism are hard to come to terms with. For starters, write down why you want to adopt the minimalist lifestyle. Focus on the positives—less physical clutter means less mental clutter, you’ll have more room to move around, small spaces will seem more open, and anything else you can think of as to why you wanted this lifestyle in the first place.

Start Slowly

Looking at everything you need to organize and get rid of is intimidating, especially if you’ve let your clutter get out of control. Still, remember that you don’t need to switch to minimalism overnight. Start with one small area, clean out one drawer per day, or decide to give away one item of clothing. There’s no need to pile everything into one day. Take your time, and watch your life slowly minimize.

Designate an Always-Clear Zone

One useful trick is to clear away the clutter from one small area that you regularly see and always keep that area clear. This allows you to always have your goal in mind. Allow yourself to enjoy the good feeling of that always-clear zone. Then, use that feeling to take that mindset into the other areas of your space. In time, you will discover that you want other places to always be clutter-free, just like your original area.

Quality Over Quantity

When deciding what to keep, a good rule of thumb is that having two items that perform the same function is not needed. Choose one of the items—preferably the higher quality one—to fill that space and get rid of needless duplicates. This has the added benefit of consolidating your important items and keeping them organized in your head, so you always know where they are.

Know How You Will Dispose of Things

Before you shove things into trash bags, you should have a plan of what you will do with the items you’re letting go of. It can be tempting to want a clean slate and just throw everything in the garbage, but there are better ways to dispose of unwanted items. Places like The Purple Heart Pickup organization take donations of clothes, old toys, and small appliances and redistribute them to people who need them.
These tips for adopting a minimalist lifestyle will help you declutter your space and your life, letting you focus more on what really matters. After all, there’s nothing better than having both a clean space and a clean mind.

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