Introduction

It’s easy to feel overwhelmed looking around your room at all the things you own. Partially closed doors, a house filled with stuff, a loaded schedule, and a mind that won’t rest makes modern life feel like a constant juggling act that makes us stressed out and confined to our homes. Keeping things we haven’t used in years, and over-committing ourselves make us feel like our possessions end up possessing us.

The process of learning to downsize is not about showing off an empty apartment. It’s about gaining freedom, time, and money while reducing stress. There is a good reason everyone is looking for minimalist living tips for beginners.

Looking at what’s causing the overwhelm helps put things into perspective. When we clear the obstacles that take up space in our life, we are able to mentally and physically surround ourselves with the things that bring us joy. So, without further ado, let’s start changing things up and get rid of a bunch of stuff!

What Are Minimalist Living Tips for Beginners?

Minimalist living is intentional living with the things you really need, and the things you love. It’s about removal of distractions that take away the quality of your life.

Many people think of minimalism as a room in purely black and white. This is not the case. Minimalism is subjective. For you, practicing minimalism may be having a smaller wardrobe so you don’t have to think about your outfit every day. For someone else, it may mean keeping their kitchen counters free from clutter to decrease stress while cooking.

Think about that favorite coffee mug that you reach for every single morning, neglecting the other mugs hidden in the back of the cabinet. Living minimally is maintaining your favorite mug, while discarding the rest. This process involves assessing your values every day and deciding to be free from the things that do not bring you value. Living minimally is not about putting yourself through starvation, rather it is about living abundantly and bringing noise to the things worthwhile and silence to everything else.

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Causes of Clutter: Why We Need Minimalism

Before we get into solving these problems, we need to understand why our spaces get so messy. This doesn’t happen overnight. Messy spaces are the result of daily habits and psychological tricks that we fail to notice.

Convenience Culture and Clutter

Fast sales, quick deliveries, and constantly shifting trends create the perfect climate for impulse shopping. These days, people are inclined to buy something they didn’t know they needed until 30 seconds ago. For instance, you may have bought a cute, cheap kitchen gadget you saw on a late-night TV ad, used it once, and then left it in a junk drawer. The conveniences of fast shopping and low prices encourage us to buy things impulsively and often without a purpose in mind.

Keeping Things in Life for Emotional Reasons

Everyone holds onto things for emotional reasons. You may keep a guitar shoved in a corner because even though you never learned to play, you have this romantic idea of yourself as a musician. You may hold on to a dress you can’t fit into that is from five years ago because of memories. These emotions attach us to things, and end up just gathering dust and making us feel guilty instead of happy when we look at them.

“Just in Case” Mentality

Being prepared and orderly is a good quality in life, but people take this mentality to unreasonable levels. The motivation to be prepared may spur a person to pack away a giant, useless box of old and tangled cords because they’re “just in case” needed someday. These things end up just cluttering space in your life and creating a visual eye sore and mental frustration when you’re looking for something from your massive cluttered space that you actually need.

Best Practices For Beginner Minimalists

Here are actionable ways to start your journey toward living minimally without becoming overwhelmed.

The “One In, One Out” Rule

It’s simple: when you purchase something new, something old has to go. When you buy a new pair of shoes, get rid of the old pair. When you read a new book, give the old one to someone so they can read it too.

This rule is effective because it’s a hard limit on things coming in your house. It discourages thoughtless buying.

Practical Example: The next time you buy a new winter coat, find your old coat in the back of your closet that you haven’t used in two winters, and throw it in the donation bag.

The 90/90 Rule

Do you use that item once every 90 days? If you don’t and you won’t in the next 90 days, get rid of it.

This removes the emotional judgment for you and gives you a solid basis for your decisions.

Practical Example: This rule can be used with your bathroom supplies. Those nearly empty bottles of lotion and that specialty shampoo that you used once three months ago? Throw it out.

Zero in on Digital First

Newbies are typically overwhelmed and stressed by piles of paper. Let’s face it. It is mail. It is receipts. It is manuals. Add to that bills, past and present.

Why it works: Paper files and documents take on physical form. Digital files take up absolutely zero space. They are more organized and more searchable.

Practical Example: Take a scanner app and put all your paper together. Save them in your file space. Put them in a cloud and shred it. Avoid trying to put them in one random file, name all your files to fit a structure (2023_Tax).

Daily Clear-All Flat Surfaces

Make sure that flat surfaces are clear of any materials. You should do this every day for 10 minutes. This should clear your kitchen surfaces, dining surfaces, and your desk.

Why it works: Because flat surfaces are like magnets for anything and everyone’s stuff. One slip with the mail, and the keys, and the cups join it.

Practical Example: Put the mail in the recycling, put the keys in their place, and put the cups in the dishwasher. You will have a calm space to begin your day.

Apply a 48-Hour Ban on Buying

When you see something you want to buy online, or in-store (as long as it’s not groceries), you must wait 48 hours before buying it.

Why it works: It breaks the cycle of impulse buying for good. The dopamine one associates with shopping for new items wears away within a couple of days, and more often than not, we realize purchases are unnecessary.

Practical Example: Stop right there if you catch yourself lusting over that pique sweater on sale you spotted earlier. Close that tab and return to your regular browsing if you can wait two days to see if you still want it – or if you even remembered it.

Create a “Maybe” Box

Decluttering causes a lot of emotional stress, and you may end up talking yourself out of ditching that random item you clearly won’t use. In the meantime, store it, along with other similar items, in a sealed cardboard box. Label it with the date six months from now.

Why it works: It is a safety net. For now, you aren’t getting rid of the item, so the stress is gone. If you haven’t opened the box after six months, you didn’t need those items to begin with.

Practical Example: That box of decorative pillows you are only mildly confident to part with can go to the thrift without opening after you’ve successfully convinced yourself you won’t miss them.

Audit Your Subscriptions and Digital Life

Being a minimalist is more than organizing your physical space. Clutter in your digital space is detrimental to your mood and energy the same as physical clutter.

Why it works: Eliminating marketing emails and the services you have no use for helps fight the temptation to spend with a clearer budget.

Practical Example: Search “unsubscribe” in your inbox for 15 minutes and opt out of all store mailing lists, then check your bank statement and cancel your subscription for that app you haven’t opened since last year.

Expert Tips

Here are some more tips and tricks to help you perfect your decluttering techniques:

1. Never Organize What You Should Discard

A point where people often fail is buying storage bins without first organizing their belongings. They end up buying storage bins to perfectly organize belongings which are completely unnecessary and in most cases are totally eliminated after purging.

2. Ignore the Sentimental and Start with the Visible

Emotions can quickly bring you to a stopping point if you start taking pictures or journeys down memory lane, so save that for last. For beginners, start with a bathroom counter or the junk drawer. Quick wins of empty visible space create the incentive to continue.

3. Move on From Your “Aspirational” Self

Each of us has purchased things for our “dream” or “fantasy” selves. That lately unused display of your aspiration running shoes and inspirational language books, go ahead and make space for the self that actually exists rather than the self that you wish you were.

4. Forgive the Sunk Cost Fallacy

I’ve seen people keep a jacket they hate because they spent $150 on it. That money is gone forever, so holding onto the jacket is just having a piece of evidence against yourself that’s going to give you guilt every time you pass by it and see it. It’s not going to put the $150 back in your account.

5. Treat Minimalism as a Tool, Not a Religion

It’s not a big deal if your house doesn’t look like a magazine cover. It’s a good thing to keep supplies for your knitting or painting hobby, for example, even if you’re losing some minimalism points.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

Don’t declutter your entire house in one weekend. You will probably end up burned out.

The correct approach: One room, one shelf, one drawer at a time.

Don’t take the liberty to clear your partner’s or kids’ things. This leads to [major] issues.

The correct approach: Focus on your things.

Don’t get too hardcore. If you want to get rid of your couch to be ‘hardcore’, don’t.

The correct approach: Keep things that are actually useful for your day to day activities.

Resisting the urge to keep ‘just in case’ doesn’t work.

The correct approach: A crazy baking party isn’t going to happen.

Correct Approach: Have faith that you can borrow it or buy a cheap alternative that will suffice.

Where most people go wrong: Expecting that decluttering will only happen once.

Correct Approach: Approach this as a daily habit that you will maintain for the rest of your life.

Pros / Cons of Minimalist Living

Pros

Time and Money Saving: It becomes less time and less expensive to maintain your home because you aren’t vacuuming so much or cleaning so many surfaces, and because you halt your impulse-buying habit.

Reduced Cortisol: Your space being uncluttered correlates to lower levels of cortisol in your body.

Predictable Habits: A smaller wardrobe and smaller concise space leads to less habits of decision fatigue.

Cons

Required Mental Exertion: It can become mentally tiresome when you have to deal with a lot of your cluttered items and the emotions tied to those items, but this Mental Exertion eventually is unsustainable.

Potential Family Issues: This is a huge issue if you have non-minimalist cohabitants.

This eventually becomes sustainable: Rewiring your brain doesn’t happen right away.

FAQ

Does minimalism leave me with an empty space?

Not at all. Minimalism leaves with us items with purpose and joy. Art; rugs; books; these all have their place in a minimal home. MInimalism removes clutter, not the intentional.

How do I deal with gifts from my family?

Gifts are expressed love, and once the gift is in your possession, you are free to do with the gift as you wish. If the gift does not align with your lifestyle, it is perfectly acceptable to gift it to someone else.

Can you be a minimalist if you have kids?

You can definitely practice the minimalist lifestyle if you have kids. Kids attract toys and gear, but you can still incorporate the minimalist lifestyle. Focus on experiences (field trip to the local playground) and open-ended/quality toys, and let go of broken toys.

What is the 20/20 rule?

The 20/20 rule states that an item which you are holding for “just in case” must be quickly replaced (20 minutes) for under $20, in order to relieve the fear of letting go.

I have some items laying around that I bought, but never use. What do I do with these?

To start, acknowledge the loss of money you’ve taken on. It is a sunk cost. Money has been lost and nothing comes back. You could sell it to at least get back some of what you spent. Another option would be to donate it. Someone else can now have the utility of it, and you would not have to look at it everyday because it would now be out of your possession.

Is minimalism / minimal living only reserved for singles?

No. Minimalism can be adopted by anyone. Like any habit, if you live with multiple people, it’s important to talk with and include them. You can start by working towards the goals you have with only your possessions and your own flat surfaces. More often than not, the example you set will be motivation enough to get everyone on board.

How long does it take to declutter a house?

There are many variables, like how many possessions you have and how big your house is. However, you can expect it to take several months of consistent decluttering. If you rush it, you’ll quickly become burnt out. Set a goal to declutter for 15 to 30 minutes a day. The result you will see with this commitment will be huge.

How should I allocate my time once I get rid of stuff?

Begin by separating everything you decluttered into three different piles; one for selling, one for donating, and one for throwing away. If anything is worth money, it can go on Facebook or eBay. Clothing and housewares can go to local shelters and thrift stores for sure. Anything of no use should be thrown away.

How do I introduce my partner to minimalism?

It’s not about the persuasive talking, it’s more about the approach you take. Never urge or force them to throw their possessions away. Work completely on your possessions. When they see how your wardrobe is so much easier to handle or manage, your possessions organized neatly and your stress levels are much, way less, then they will be interested!

What do you mean by a ‘just in case’ box?

It is a possessions purging method where you store possessions you don’t want to get rid of, but that you don’t want laying around either. To do it, you store the possessions in a box, seal it, and set a 6 month expiration date. If you don’t have to open the box before the date, you donate the box, showing you really don’t need those ‘just in case’ possessions.

Conclusion

Achieving minimalism, doesn’t mean you have to have completely bare walls. True minimalism is that mental shift in your habits and daily activities. Some of the habits, such as the more famous ‘One In, One Out’ rule, the 90/90 rule, and eliminating the ‘just in case’ mentality help create a shift in mental, and physical, stress.

This is a marathon, not a race. Don’t try to drastically change your life overnight. Live your life one small change at a time. A small change such as clearing one counter top, unsubscribing from a delivery service you no longer use, or donating five articles of clothing that have never been worn, can save you space and put your mind at ease. Life is busy, but taking chances will bring peace to your life. Don’t be afraid to make the first step toward a balanced and intentional life.