10 Minimalist Lifestyle Tips and Enjoying Life More

I believe that there are hidden costs in not using these minimalist lifestyle tips and tricks. When you choose to manage what comes in and out of your life, it will lead to a more purposeful, less stressful, and happier existence.

If you are looking to live a happier life with less anxiety, stress, and fear. Only allowing the essential to occupy your time is a GREAT first step.

There is a finite amount of time in the day; why waste any of it? Be mindful and purposeful of what and who you allow into your space.

Along with the things you spend your time managing. Minimalists find a balance between keeping too many things and too few things.

Minimalist Lifestyle tips will focus on caring for fewer relationships, as five friends are a better substitute for a family and less time-consuming than 500 acquaintances.

A Minimalist, in my opinion, lives with most things that are necessary. Everything in a minimalist lifestyle will have a purpose and add value.

There will be minimal excess, redundancy, or clutter. A Minimalist is more concerned with enjoying life and not spending excess time accumulating possessions. These are my 10 Tips For Living A Minimalist Lifestyle.

1. Pay attention to what makes you anxious

In the hustle and bustle of the self-imposed hectic lifestyle, we can learn to block many negative feelings.

Blocking negative feelings does nothing to reduce the adverse physical effects they can cause. Fear, stress, and anxiety can wreak havoc on the mind, body, and relationships.

What is causing you to feel tense, procrastinate, and impatient? Can you reduce or eliminate such situations?

You can massively reduce your fear, stress, and anxiety by taking care of these things as soon as they come up. Additionally, addressing the root cause of these feelings first, rather than procrastinating and ignoring them, will help alleviate those feelings.

This principle is discussed in the book Eat That Frog!: 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time.

2. Cultivate where you constantly spend your time & money?

Are you spending money every day on that expensive cup of coffee or on eating lunch out? Are you wasting time at useless meetings and on worthless conference calls?

Stop it! A minimalist lifestyle approach can be beneficial here. Only attend the ones that you can really contribute to and avoid the rest. No one will miss you, and you can get one or two crucial details from one of your co-workers.

Do you really need a second car or any car at all? Can you walk, take the train, bike, or bus to work? Do you have excellent public transportation where you live?

Can you use it to get around? Perhaps buying an older car and eliminating the stress of monthly payments on a new one may be an option for the occasional times during the week when you need one.

Having a second car can be nice, but the time and money spent on storing and managing it can be better spent. Don’t spend time shopping for clothes and other items you don’t need.

Try spending a whole year buying nothing. That is right. . . NOTHING! You already have everything you need and all the clothing to last you a few years.

If something breaks that you think you need, try borrowing it from someone to see if you genuinely need to purchase it or if you can avoid buying it.

Trust me, you will survive, and you will regain a lot of time. You won’t waste time going shopping, window shopping, or mentally preparing to shop.

Growing a new appreciation for the things you have, you will realize that you may have some things that serve a redundant purpose. This is another benefit of following minimalist lifestyle tips.

You will even find that you have things that perform dual purposes. Ask yourself, “Is there a way I can sidestep or eliminate these expenses/commitments?” 10 ways to curb financial anxiety when you’re stressed about money.

3. Have a preference for Minimalist Lifestyle items that are versatile

A Minimalist would prefer to have three items that perform ten tasks than ten items that perform one task each. When I was de-cluttering my kitchen, I realized that I had a few items that performed a redundant task.

Eliminating those items contributed significantly to the new clutter-free counters and crisp, clean Minimalist look of my kitchen.

Clothing is where you have the most incredible opportunity to save, multitask, and be versatile. In my post “Simplify Your Life With a Minimalist Uniform Wardrobe,” I devised a simple shirt and pants combination that I could wear every day, much like a uniform.

It made life easier for me in many ways. Shopping for clothing was simpler because my uniform consisted of a blue or gray top and black pants. That is all I had to look for when shopping.

If I found a quality combo that fit well, I could buy multiple pairs and be done with clothing shopping for the year. I am sure that is what Steve Jobs did, as he wore a black turtleneck and blue jeans as his uniform.

It saved me time and money. It also reduced decision fatigue, as I didn’t have to waste time trying to decide on multiple styles and colors of clothing.

If you are more fashion-conscious or need more corporate attire, you can try the Capsule Wardrobe method.

This is where you purchase a selection of tops and bottoms that complement each other well. You then mix and match them to give the appearance of a much larger, fashionable wardrobe.

4. Declutter, declutter, and declutter some more

This is one of the most essential minimalist lifestyle tips.

Minimalists believe that less is more. The less useless junk you don’t need, the less time you spend acquiring money to purchase it, and the less time you spend storing and managing it.

Less junk leads to more time for good friends and family. De-cluttering can take many forms.

9 Decluttering Secrets From Professional Organizers can be a guide for many. Others respond to challenges, and the Get Organized With the 30-Day Declutter Challenge may be a suitable option for them.

Whatever works for you is fine. Give it all a try. Anything that does not add value to your life or make you happy.

If it does not invoke a positive emotion or if you would not immediately replace it if lost it probably should be sold, donated, or discarded. Get rid of EVERYTHING that does not serve you well.

5. Give unused things away to people who need them more than you do.

This is one of my favorite minimalist lifestyle tips. After decluttering and examining the piles of unused junk you have accumulated over the years, selling it may not be the best option. Think about giving it away or donating it to those in need.

That content may not add any value or evoke positive emotions for you, but it may bring value to others.

Giving away your useless junk or donating it may help you avoid the time spent holding a garage sale or listing it on eBay or Craigslist for little profit.

Spend that saved time enjoying family and friends. Now, for those of you whose junk is actually worth some serious cash, by all means, sell it.

Sell it all and spend even more time creating memories with family and friends. Just think, now you don’t have to clean that stuff or move that stuff around as you clean. Just enjoy your newfound clutter-free extra space.

6. Boil your job down to a few simple objectives

What are the actual responsibilities of your profession? When you align your efforts solely towards things that will lead to results, you can reduce your workload by half.

Try to be honest with yourself and identify things that you do during the day that could be classified as busy work. Busy work is a task that you continually perform, yielding few results.

This should be avoided. As I try to Live The Freedom Lifestyle every day, I have found that some tasks I once did yield little results and learned to avoid them.

Some social media tasks that I developed stopped yielding results, despite spending hours a day on them. I just did them because I always did them, and that was a tremendous waste of time.

Remember, one of the Minimalist goals is to spend as much quality time doing the things that they REALLY love.

Spending time doing useless tasks runs counter to that. In Greg McKeown’s book Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less, he creates a whole culture devoted to getting things done and maximizing time spent.

I am sure there are things you can eliminate from your workday that will save you time without negatively impacting productivity. Things that will give you more free time to do more.

These may include meetings, reports, or processes that are done solely because they have always been done. Change that.

7. Get comfortable saying “NO” and “I don’t care”

This is one of the minimalist lifestyle tips that feeds the soul. You don’t need to waste brainpower to have an opinion on everything, and you don’t need to “optimize” every damn thing in your life.

Relax, a minimalist lifestyle should add value to your life and not be a burden. Don’t get bogged down in planning every second of your professional and private life to Minimalist principles.

Minimalist lifestyle principles vary for everyone, and self-improvement takes time. Enjoy it. If you miss something, it’s ok. You will get it next time.

Saying “NO” is ok. “No.” Is A Complete Sentence: How to Use & Stick to It is a goal. If you don’t feel something is a “Hell Yes,” then it should be a NO.

Don’t stress over it. Consider this, and if circumstances change, you can adjust your response to ‘yes’. It’s better to err on a “NO” response than to lock yourself in a “YES” and be obligated to that poor choice for extended periods of time.

This should be a trained response. You should be able to calculate and make that decision in seconds. The minimalist lifestyle advantage is that the “NO” response should be stress-free, and you should be able to completely move on to the next task without giving it a second thought. NEXT.

8. Eliminate toxic relationships

I always believed that 10% of your relationships (professional, personal, romantic, etc) yield 90% of your unwanted drama. Identify this 10 % and avoid it. You may not be able to do this with all of them, but any progress would be helpful.

With the fast-paced life that many of us lead, combined with our advanced communication technology, dealing with even the people you like can be time-consuming and a little bit stressful. Why not consciously avoid interacting with people you don’t care for whenever possible?

I am not saying to be a dude or make it known to the world that you don’t care to be in the company of someone. Consciously limit time with toxic people when you can. Be polite at all times and refrain from engaging with them.

Less is more, and minimalists strive to spend quality time with friends and family rather than accumulating possessions. Learn to make more space for positive people for greater happiness.

9. Be frugal until you’re free

I believe there is a big difference between the minimalist lifestyle and being frugal. Minimalism is a philosophy, and frugality is a series of acts, but they can work hand in hand with Minimalism. Saving time and money is a core Minimalist principle, and being frugal is a path.

If you are not a Minimalist, being frugal every day over time can yield similar results. You will spend less and acquire less stuff if you save. With fewer hours to manage, having less to manage should also lead to less stress and more time.

As I explained in my post, “Living Simple: Being Frugal Until You Are Free,” being frugal can be an effective counter to Minimalism.

You can also adopt frugal consumerism by shopping every day, taking advantage of sales, and using coupons, believing you are being thrifty and saving money.

I sincerely believe that even if you don’t choose to become a Minimalist, simply being frugal over time can be freeing.

Being frugal in most cases should alleviate the stress of managing massive debt. Not having to work two jobs and beg for overtime at work to keep up with enormous debt will add to the quality time you can spend with family and friends.

Football Player Marshawn Lynch being frugal until you are free was the result. Newly Retired Marshawn Lynch Hasn’t Spent Any of the $50 Million He’s Made in His NFL Career.

Learn to prepare mentally to become a minimalist. It is more than meets the eye 😉