Minimalism: Quality, not Quantity
I have an obsessive personality. I’m also a bit on the faddy side. So my latest penchant is minimalism…
Not the musical variety (although I don’t mind a bit of Glass every now and again), this is rather the holistic, organisational, get-rid-of-anything-don’t-need kind of minimalism.
I’ll get on to the specifics in just a mo, but first a little about the journey that got me to this point.
I’ve have had THE busiest year ever. I’ve had great work projects coming out of my ears, and though I’ve enjoyed it all for the most part, it’s took its toll.
Long hours, long hours, long weeks, no time off – it’s a recipe for burnout. And a touch of RSI in the mouse-clicking hand, it appears (I know I know… I’ll stop banging on about it soon…)
But this has meant that keeping organised and on top of the day-to-day life schedule has been tricky, and to be honest I’ve really let things slide.
Piles and piles of paper built up in the studio. New kit was joining the clutter of old equipment that was on the desk for show but I hadn’t honestly used in years.
So I kept up with the work schedule by deprioritising everything else – my health, diet and exercise, my environment, my family, my friends.
Ok… maybe this is slight exaggeration of the extremity of the situation, but safe to say it was less than ideal.
So the clutter was starting to really grind me down. The studio was not a pleasant place to work with all this stuff everywhere so I looked around for organisational tips and tricks, systems suggestions, that sort of thing.
But then I came across minimalism as a concept of reducing the amount of stuff you have to only the stuff you need.
The benefits of minimalism as applied to work and life…
- save money – only buy what you need, not just what you want.
- encourages creativity by reducing distraction
- encourages focus by having the best tools to hand or otherwise they’re easy to find
- less stuff to organise – spend more time on what you want to do
- kinder on the environment – have less stuff, use up fewer resources, take up less space storing all your junk…
… and these are just a few I can think of quickly, there’s loads more.
So rather than just a system for organising all my stuff and busy life, I instead found a holistic philosophy for life:
Cut out the crap to let more of the good stuff in!
More great reading about Minimalism:
Becoming Minimalist
The Minimalist Path
mnmlist
More Minimal
On Simplicity
Everyday Minimalist
Unclutterer
Related posts:
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
Comments
3 Responses to “Minimalism: Quality, not Quantity”
Leave a Reply
Hi Heather,
I’ve been facing similar issues and like you have been ruthlessly cutting out unnecessary stuff.
A truly liberating feeling and increasing overall energy level as well.
Thanks for the links – good stuff. You might want to check out Leo Babauta over at zenhabits.net. He also is a great proponent of simplification.
Marko
Hi Marko – thanks for posting. Great to hear from someone getting positive results from minimalism. Completely forgot to put Leo’s blog on the list, just slipped my mind, though I very much enjoy reading his posts.
Good luck with staying focussed!
I enojoyed this post since minimalism is a great ethos to apply to the creative process. I wrote up an article more on the history and concept of minimalism here:
http://www.redvoidmusic.com/blog/2009/02/minimalism/