Minimalism Is The Name Of The Game:

30 Days Minimalism Challenge With Practical Tips For Clearing Out, For More Calmness, Satisfaction, Success And Luck In Life

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Copyright © 2018 - Madeleine Wilson

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Minimalism is the name of the game

What is minimalism?

Necessity of minimalism

Advantages of minimalism

The connection between minimalism and our habits

The connection between thoughts and habits

Setting new habits as goals

Habits of minimalism

30 Days Minimalism Challenge: Practical Tips for a Minimalist Lifestyle

Leave your comfort zone

Minimalism in thought

The minimalist gift giving

Earn Money by Clearing Out

Donate superfluous items

Reduce media consumption

The 30 days shopping rule

Sorting the objects ... Red, Yellow, Green

Emotional and rational decision-making

Clearing out helper

Plan Clearing out

Buy something, get rid of two things

Does it have to be a TV?

Cosmetics and body care

The wardrobe

Investing the right way

Plastic minimalism

Food shopping - is it minimalistic?

Social Minimalism

What is your optimal order?

Digital Clearing Out

A little library?

No more presents for you?

Insurances, contributions and Co

Newsletter and Advertising

Chaos in your wallet?

Stay minimalist

Maintaining minimalism

Drink tap water

Search for challenges and practice mindfulness

Effects of minimalism

More serenity through minimalism

More satisfaction through minimalism

More success through minimalism

More happiness through minimalism

Checklists for more order in the own four walls

Checklist study: Minimalism made easy!

Bathroom checklist: Minimalism made easy!

Checklist corridor: Minimalism made easy!

Checklist Living room: Minimalism made easy!

Checklist dining room: Minimalism made easy!

Checklist Kitchen: Minimalism made easy!

Checklist Children's rooms: Minimalism made easy!

Checklist bedroom: Minimalism made easy!

Checklist wardrobe: Minimalism made easy!

Checklist cellar and attic: Minimalism made easy

Introductory remarks

Dear reader, already in 551 B.C. the Chinese philosopher Confucius said: "Life is simple, but we insist on making it complicated." The everyday ballast that we carry on our shoulders does not seem to go away despite much effort. By deciding to buy this book, you are embarking on an adventure. Let's follow the traces of minimalism together to get rid of this ballast in the short and long term.

The word minimalism is currently on everyone's lips. A large part of humanity has already adopted this term, but most are not aware of the strength of the orientation of everyday life towards this lifestyle. Minimalism is the conscious limitation to the most necessary objects, for more serenity, contentment, success and happiness in life. This means that the seventeenth pair of shoes or the fourth reserve hairdryer no longer necessarily contribute to our happiness, but rather represent a material burden for us. It seems almost insane, especially in a society dominated by consumption, to deliberately focus on renunciation. After all, there are all these beautiful things around us with which we can sweeten our lives. But now let's be honest: What makes you really happy? An extensive shopping tour or a cosy dinner with your loved ones? If you're thinking, "Oh, I'd definitely prefer a shopping trip", this book on minimalism can offer you many new approaches and inspiration. And if you thought, "Yes, a dinner with my loved ones, that's what makes me happy," then you'll find the optimal guidance in this book to consciously limit your material odds and ends to make more room for love, gratitude, and conscious living. In this book we explain to you what minimalism is, how our habits and consumer behaviour are connected and how we enrich our daily lives by giving up. This is where theory and practice meet, because 30 practical tips for implementing the minimalist lifestyle and checklists for clearing out the junk await you.

How come we wrote this book? We ourselves have been minimalists for ten years and can share our experiences with you. The book's strength lies in the fact that we have not only drawn on a single experience, but have also analysed the changes in lifestyles from a wide variety of starting positions. So we can also tell you that this book is just the beginning of your journey into minimalism. Minimalism is not a thing for a weekend, but it is precisely with these small "actions" that minimalism is increasingly coming into life. What was classified as "necessary" a year ago no longer necessarily has to be important. Our attitudes towards material goods changed as we became more involved with our consumption-driven habits and travelled to poorer regions of the world. What awaited us there was not necessarily misery, but rather friendly, happy people, who could show little material possessions, but had all the closer ties to family, relatives and friends. So we quickly became aware of the importance of love in our lives and for our happiness. With so many special offers, status symbols and shopping centers, it's not always easy to focus on the really important things in life. Minimalism is an effective way to clear out, sort and prioritize both internally and externally. The book and the minimalist lifestyle will help you to achieve more happiness, contentment, serenity and personal and professional success.

Minimalism is the name of the game

Before you start with your minimalistic program, you should know as much as possible about minimalism. In this chapter you will find out what exactly is meant by minimalism, why a minimalist life makes sense and what the advantages of this lifestyle are. This basic knowledge is important so that you understand exactly how decluttering and minimalist lifestyles can enrich your everyday life and happiness. Because why should you dare to tackle the mammoth task of clearing out if the benefits are not clearly understandable beforehand?

What is minimalism?

Minimalism means limiting oneself to the bare essentials. This is done consciously in order to experience more joy of life and happiness. Minimalism can be lived out in many different ways and we almost want to think that there are as many different forms of minimalism as there are minimalists. The one minimalist may focus on not letting the wardrobe overflow. Another minimalist loves the minimalist holiday feeling of camping and yet another practices an almost ascetic lifestyle. How you live out minimalism is up to you. We are sure that you will continue to evolve as a minimalist, to examine more and more aspects of your life and to learn to apply your minimalist way of thinking beyond your home environment.

All minimalists have one thing in common regardless of their individual stage of development and focus: they focus on consciously renouncing material abundance in order to create more space for a fulfilled life. It is clear to all of them that possessions do not guarantee happiness and contentment, that material goods do not build friendships and love, and that changing one's own consumerist habits (spiritual and practical) opens entirely new doors. Suddenly there is more time again for an intensive examination of oneself and one's own happiness in life. Most people feel happy after an extensive shopping tour, but this is not a lasting, real and deep happiness. Instead of shopping indiscriminately, conscious consumption and above all renunciation are lived. The decision to minimalism has nothing to do with poverty, but with attentiveness!

Necessity of minimalism

Why is it necessary to consciously limit oneself? Because it gives us back full control over our habits and thought processes. Constantly present advertising, seemingly endless unused possibilities thanks to apps and Co., one special offer after another and how do we react to it? We just walk along, we give ourselves up to the whole thing and feel quite comfortable in our consumption-controlled skin for a short time. However, it quickly becomes clear that the new Smart TV doesn't really make you happy if you sit alone in front of it evening after evening. Today's society already teaches children at a young age that one is more respected if one is equipped with the most up- to-date material goods. Only then is one properly accepted by society and part of it. How much money do you spend on your apartment every month? How many hours did you go to work for it? And how many hours were you actually at home to enjoy this beautiful apartment and the new Smart TV? Our days have every 24 hours of which we spend on average 8 at work and 8 at bed. We still have 8 more hours left, which can be quickly filled with the way to work, a little television and shopping. How many of these 24 hours do we really consciously experience, how many of our decisions do we consciously make and how consciously do we really shape our lifetime?

This is exactly where the necessity of minimalism begins: Through a minimalist lifestyle, we carefully and consciously choose what we fill our time with, what goods are allowed to play a role in our lives, and what facets of our lives are really important to us. Through minimalism we pedal ourselves free, we free ourselves not only from material goods, but also let unhealthy behaviour and ways of thinking go, perceive ourselves better and can let true feelings of happiness enter our lives.

Advantages of minimalism

The advantages of minimalism are obvious: Those who don't spend every Saturday on extensive shopping tours suddenly have time for completely different activities and also save a lot of money. Let's say you spend an hour watching TV or sitting at your smartphone (or both at the same time?) in the evening. The conscious renunciation of media and social media can also be an aspect of minimalism. As you can see, part of your minimalism could be the deliberately limited use of media. In this way, you prevent yourself from being "sprinkled" with less valuable content on TV and other media and create space for yourself to deal with things that really get you ahead and have a real benefit for you. You could use this saved time for example to read books with useful knowledge, to become creative yourself or to learn the art of meditation.

What is the advantage of merciless clearing out of one's own four walls? The old, unused coffee machine finally finds a new owner and you have less ballast. The material ballast in your home inevitably has an influence on your mental situation. The separation from unnecessary material objects helps you to let go, to separate yourself, to create space for yourself and to focus again on yourself and your happiness in life.

The advantages of minimalism are therefore clearly defined:

- You save a lot of money by more conscious consumption.

- Material goods receive an ideal value that has nothing to do with the material value itself.

- Your handling of your belongings is becoming more conscious.

- You save a lot of time by avoiding shopping tours and dealing with the latest market trends.

- You let go of superfluous material possessions and create more space for yourself.

- You have the opportunity to consciously deal with what makes you really happy.

- You will develop more conscious and mindful thought processes and patterns of behaviour and thus have more opportunities to take care of yourself, become creative and develop yourself personally.

- You learn which facets of your life actually contribute to your long-term happiness and give your life a deeper meaning.

These are just a few of the advantages of minimalism to bring you closer to its strong effects. On your way to a minimalist lifestyle you will discover many more individual advantages that minimalism offers you personally.

The connection between minimalism and our habits

Now that you know what is meant by a minimalist lifestyle, why it makes sense and what its benefits are, it's time to take a closer look at your habits. In this chapter you will learn more about the connections between our (still) consumption-driven habits and minimalism. So you're one step closer to the practice again. It's likely that as you read through this chapter, you'll realize how minimalism could enrich your life - don't worry, in the next chapter we'll get down to work on the practical implementation.

The connection between thoughts and habits

Our thoughts control our habits. Our thoughts naturally also control our shopping habits, our media habits and similar habits. So we should take a closer look at how the thought patterns that shaped our consumer behaviour came about. The constant hype about the latest car model, the latest smartphone, the biggest TV and the most expensive shoes - does that make us happy? No, not really, because we are constantly under stress to meet these strange expectations. From experience, we can say that many of these consumption-driven habits arise out of fear. For example, there would be the fear of not fitting into society, of losing one's social status and thus of becoming an outsider. So it can't hurt if you take a little time to investigate whether there may be similar fears behind your consumption habits. These fears are human, because who wants to be alone? The hoarding and collecting lulls us into a deceptive security. Most habits are already so firmly anchored in our behavioural habits that we no longer perceive them. This is a good thing, because it makes our everyday life a lot easier. Otherwise, we would stand in front of the refrigerated shelf every time we shop and philosophize about which butter should be put in the shopping basket and why. Habits therefore make our everyday lives easier. Around 80% of our behavioural repertoire consists of habitual actions. Well, at some point in life every person comes to a point where he wants to change something. And this works best through changes in our habits. You want to make your life more minimalistic? Then you should become aware of habits that do not fit your new attitude towards life and change them in a targeted way. That sounds easy at first, but have you ever tried running backwards all day? No way! It would be incredibly exhausting because we're not used to it. Changing habits means being very reflective, motivated and mindful over a longer period of time in order to uncover old patterns of behaviour and replace them with new, better ones.

Setting new habits as goals

In order to achieve our goals, i.e. the establishment of our new minimalist lifestyle, we need one thing above all else: motivation. Motivation arises as soon as we have set ourselves a goal that is realistic, challenging and not overstraining at the same time. This goal can best be subdivided into several subgoals - this works wonderfully with minimalism. After all, minimalism has incredibly many different facets and is more a development than a fixed concept. In the next chapter you will get to know many subgoals of minimalism. Maybe some of them suit you or you can think of other inspiring partial goals. Set one minimalist goal per week and divide it into seven steps. Let us take the example of the "minimalist bathroom project" as an illustration. This project could be a weekly project and can be divided into seven different steps:

- Definition of goal: What does my perfect bathroom look like and what purpose should it serve?

- Clean out the bathroom (more on this in chapters 3 and 4)

- Give away, sell or throw away misted-out things

- Seek inspiration for redesign

- Remodel the bathroom

- simple structures, clear shapes and unobtrusive colours

- Search for natural alternatives for chemically contaminated products

- Plan regular cleaning and clearing out

Of course, your seven-part plan could look quite different, after all, you have very individual demands on your bathroom. By setting goals, deadlines and sub-goals, you first change your environment and then lay the foundation for changing your habits. Clearing out and designing is an important step, because in a tidy and newly designed bathroom it is difficult to implement the old habits. The more goals and partial goals you achieve, the more motivated you will become and the easier it will be for you to replace your old habits with new ones.

Habits of minimalism

Minimalists are individuals and therefore there are no universal habits for them to live by. The basic idea of minimalism is to simplify life as much as possible and to get rid of unnecessary ballast in order to experience more happiness and contentment in everyday life. This can express itself for each minimalist in different habits. So your habits of minimalism will be strongly influenced by what contributes to your happiness in life. Anyone who strives for minimalism basically pursues the following goals: You want to have more time for yourself or your loved ones, you want to get rid of unnecessary ballast to live more freely and to concentrate on the really important things. Depending on preferences, the goals of minimalists can look quite different. What everyone has in common, however, is that they want to achieve an overriding goal with minimalism. The more precisely this goal is defined, the easier and faster you will achieve it. Let's assume your goal is to reduce your expenses by 50% in 6 months, clean out your apartment and accumulate fewer possessions. The saved money and time you would like to use to develop your career, maybe start your own business, finally have more time for your family, learn Qigong or finance a long journey. Ultimately, the great goal of a minimalist lifestyle is to experience more personal freedom and to live more self-determinedly, in other words to free oneself from the common paradigms - the habits of minimalism that emerge depend on your individual path.