When it comes to minimalism, less is more. Imagine a pristine apartment—its living room is bedecked with only the basics, the kitchen with only the essentials, and the bedroom with a platform bed, standing lamp, and a clothing rack filled with a 10-piece capsule wardrobe.

As a philosophy, minimalism breeds simplicity—you don’t need baubles, accessories, or fast fashion to be happy. As a lifestyle, minimalism allows you to fully appreciate all of the intangible pleasures and experiences that life has to offer.

Of course, if you’re looking to adopt minimalism, letting go of long-held attachments isn’t easy. It’s natural to derive a sense of self from the things you own, whether that’s your car, clothes, or furniture. However, minimalism can streamline your approach to life and offer a slew of benefits.

What is minimalism?

Minimalism is a lifestyle that rejects the pressures of modern consumerist cultures that preach the gospel of accumulation. It focuses on paring down every aspect of your life to the necessities so that you can make room for the things that truly matter, like your family, friends, hobbies, and activities that you enjoy.

For most, this means a radical scaling back of the things you own, buy, and use. But, as minimalism is as much of a mindset as it is a lifestyle, it also means reprioritizing how you spend your mental and spiritual resources. In other words, it’s about directing your focus away from life’s unimportant distractions, in whatever form they take.

Beyond that, minimalism is also concerned with environmentalism and the effect that humankind has on the earth. Minimalism encourages lifestyle choices that lessen our impact on the planet, primarily through:

• Reducing personal and household waste – How much we accumulate is inextricably tied to how much we throw away. A minimalist lifestyle avoids creating unnecessary waste that puts on a strain on fragile environmental systems that are necessary to sustaining life on this planet.
• Reducing energy consumption – As a minimalist, you’ll be less enamored with the latest gadgets and gizmos and less dependent on the ones you do use. This cuts back on your energy usage, benefitting the planet and your budget.

But it isn’t just good for the planet. Adopting a minimalist approach to life can also enhance your day-to-day. To that end, here are five benefits of minimalism that can change your life for the better.

1. Minimalism sets you free

Greater freedom is one of the most valuable ways that minimalism can change your life.

After all, freedom is what minimalism is all about. At its core, it’s a way of releasing yourself from the invisible chains of consumerism so that you can live a fuller and more authentic life.

In another sense, minimalism is also a way of literally freeing yourself from physical attachments that keep you tied down. Two key ways in which minimalism can set you free include:

• Freedom from materialism – Minimalism frees you from material concerns that keep you constantly chasing the latest trends—and working longer, harder hours to afford them. It helps you distinguish between the things that you need, the things that you want, and the things you buy simply to impress other people. Consider Alfred’s furniture removal service to rid your space of clutter.
• Personal freedom – When you don’t have many personal items to worry over, it’s easier to say yes to that last-minute girl’s trip or that dream job offer that requires an abrupt cross-country move.

2. Minimalism can make you happier

Because the things we own often bring us pleasure (or seem to), it can seem counterintuitive to think of them as barriers to your happiness instead of stepping stones to it.

But the truth is, no matter how much we acquire, our possessions are rarely responsible for the sense of personal fulfillment and satisfaction most of us are looking for. Guided by a central belief that less is more, minimalism recognizes that instead of happiness, consumption breeds only more consumption.

By embracing a minimalist rejection of the false promises of consumerism, you stand to gain:

• A greater sense of contentment – Reducing what you own to just those things you truly need and value will make you appreciate those things more. And when you aren’t constantly distracted by wanting other things, you can focus on being more content with what you do have.
• A greater sense of what matters – If you live amongst a lot of clutter and extraneous paraphernalia and personal effects, it can be easy to lose sight of what’s truly important. Removing those distractions from your field of vision can help you re-evaluate and organize your life and priorities.

3. Minimalism can improve your finances

A minimalist approach to life can greatly improve your financial situation. At the end of the day,

your possessions didn’t come for free—or even cheap, for that matter. You worked long and hard to earn the money to buy each item.

To that end, two ways that a minimalist switch can help improve your financial solvency are:

• Less debt – As a minimalist, you can forget about maxed-out credit cards or sky-high billing statements. From impulse purchases to eating out, minimalism encourages you to give your MasterCard a well-deserved rest.
• More savings – When you aren’t spending your money on things you don’t need or credit card bills and interest, you’ll be able to put more in savings, giving you peace of mind for the future.

4. Minimalism minimizes stress

Do you frequently feel stressed out or anxious? So much about the modern world seems designed to make worrywarts out of the best of us, from career and social pressures to the demands of home and family.

Minimalism can help alleviate the amount of daily stress you experience in two important ways:

• Stress from clutter – Studies show that cluttered spaces raise the levels of the stress hormone cortisol in your brain. Meanwhile, tidier spaces promote better focus, concentration, and can even contribute to lower levels of anxiety. In addition to limiting the number of items you have, you can also enlist hospitality-trained concierge professionals at Alfred for in-home, laundry, and dry cleaning services to relieve stress.
• Financial stress – From the anguish of trying to afford the essentials to worrying over bank balances and credit card bills, the financial strain of pursuing material possessions can be very stressful. But the debt-reducing, savings-boosting effects of minimalism mean you have one fewer things to worry about.

5. Minimalism helps manage your time

Perhaps one of the most practical benefits of minimalism is the time it can save you. You might not realize it, but a consumer-driven life doesn’t only cost you money—it costs you a good deal of time as well.

But by embracing minimalism you can free up time in your schedule because:

• You’ll spend less time cleaning – Keeping your home tidy on a daily basis is a lot easier with fewer possessions cluttering it up. And when it is time to clean, you’ll have less to work around and fewer individual items to tend to, making the job faster and easier. Rather than dusting around every knick-knack you own, you can spend that time catching up with your favorite book and waiting for Alfred’s fresh flower delivery to liven up your space.
• You’ll spend less time competing – A big part of why we buy many of the things we buy is often to impress other people more than to please ourselves. But just imagine what you can do with all the time and energy (and money!) you used to spend on keeping up with the Joneses. To make more time to do what you love, you can also use Alfred for grocery delivery, prescription pickup, and water refresh delivery to ensure your space is packed with only the essentials.

How to go minimalist

Now that you know the benefits of minimalism, you’re probably excited to get started. Fortunately, all it takes is a little gumption, a little determination, and maybe a trash bag or two to get the ball rolling.

Step 1: Declutter

The first step to going minimalist is to declutter. True minimalism is about trimming the fat from your physical and emotional worlds. This means clearing up literal and figurative space:

• Declutter your home – Go through your home room by room and get rid of everything extra. Emphasize quality or quantity, keeping only what’s necessary and in good condition. An app-based personal assistant from Alfred can help you sift, sort, and cart off your belongings.
• Declutter your mind – Freeing your mind from its material obsessions is the next step to becoming a minimalist. While you’re physically decluttering, avoid sentimentality. Focus on letting go.

Step 2: Don’t Accumulate

Once you’ve cleared space in your home, the project becomes keeping it that way. Your job will be to avoid bringing in unnecessary items.

For most, this will be a bit of a challenge. Old habits die hard, as they say, and society has you well-trained in the art of consumerism. It’s important to be diligent about your commitment to minimalism, but you should also recognize it as a process. Be patient with yourself as you grow.

Live better with Alfred

It’s easy to see why more and more people are making the switch to minimalism—it can clear your world of nonessentials, stress, and discontentment.

While you’re getting rid of what no longer serves you, make sure you’re making room for something that does: Alfred.

Alfred makes renting the most rewarding experience by making life easier for people who live in apartments. From cleaning services to grocery delivery to all those little errands and chores you don’t have room for in your cluttered schedule, Alfred’s resident app is a remote control for your building, so we can take care of what’s pressing so you have time for what really matters—you!

Ready to live better? Download the app today.

Sources: 

• The Minimalists. What is Minimalism? https://www.theminimalists.com/minimalism/
• Lifehack. 8 Benefits of a Minimalist Lifestyle That Get You to Live With Less. https://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifestyle/top-8-benefits-living-minimalist-lifestyle.html 
• Go Green Drop. The Benefits of a Minimalist Lifestyle. https://www.gogreendrop.com/blog/the-benefits-of-a-minimalist-lifestyle/ 
• Kentucky Counseling Center. 5 Minimalist Lifestyle Benefits: There’s More with Less. https://kentuckycounselingcenter.com/5-minimalist-lifestyle-benefits/
• Be Well. A Clean, Well-Lighted Place. https://bewell.stanford.edu/a-clean-well-lighted-place/
• No Sidebar. 10 Benefits of Minimalism. https://nosidebar.com/benefits-of-minimalism/