Simplify — Top 10 Reasons to Cut the Crap and Go Minimalist
05 Sunday Feb 2012
About three years ago, I had a monumental game-changing experience that would later become the basis for this blog post. Said event? Purchasing my fixed gear bike. Sure, scoff if you must — “Just another hipster with an overpriced two-wheeled accessory” might come to mind, but let me assure you that my bike is so much more than that. My fixie taught me to not only love the anaerobic inducing hills of downtown Seattle, but also that Uncle Mies was right when he said “Less is More”.
On a fateful day shortly after the Pista became a part of my life, I was scouring Flickr for images of the most lustful fixies in photodom, when I came across an image of a room with a fixie and a mattress. What a statement — “All I need is my bike and a place to lay my head.” Needless to say, my husband had a bit of a surprise when he came home from work that day to find that this seemingly innocent purchase of a bicycle had set in motion, a cataclysmic shift in the way that we would come to dwell, for the much much better.
All that being said, it has since come to my attention that perhaps a silly bicycle cannot be the cause of such inspiration for everyone else. So in an effort to spread the fabulousness that is the minimalist lifestyle, I have devised a list of 10 other reasons to go minimalist.
image courtesy of butkaj.com via Flickr
1. Cleanliness is Godliness: You would not believe how often we shampoo our carpets, vacuum, dust, etc. now that we do not have loads of crap covering every available horizontal surface. With three dogs and two humans sharing 600 square feet our home can get un-tidy in a hurry, so the ease of cleaning is certainly high on my list of reasons that minimalism rocks! Think about it — when was the last time that shampooing your living room carpets required the movement of just two chairs and a wheeled tea trolley? Enough said.
image courtesy of spykster via Flickr
2. Less Clutter to Bog You Down: Perhaps it is just my OCD showing again, but I find that I have a difficult time mentally unwinding when physical clutter surrounds me. Disorderliness seems to act as a manifestation of mental unrest, whereas if I find myself in a room devoid of clutter, my mind is free to wander to more creative processes. I don’t know about you, but I would prefer to spend my evening cogitating on how to instigate world peace rather than constantly glancing around my apartment and telling myself that I should be dusting the knickknacks. Give your mind room to wander.
image courtesy of qisur via Flickr
3. Forced Innovation: After making the commitment to go minimalist, there is the difficulty of real-world implementation. Life in a small studio apartment is a very difficult place to make implementation a reality, because no matter how much crap you cut, there are those things that you still require (especially if you enjoy any hobbies). The innovation piece comes from finding ways to appear minimalist, and still hang on to bicycles and tents and climbing gear. Perhaps innovation is taking a large entertainment unit down to a single shelf, or turning a bicycle into a piece of functional art. Whatever the case, you are making each piece of stuff serve more than its original purpose, and that’s never a bad thing.
image courtesy of 401k via Flickr
4. Conscientious Consumer: You have to really want anything you buy. After you have gone through all the work to get rid of your excess stuff, you will find yourself asking: “Do I really want that enough to re-arrange my cleverly crafted minimalist environment?”. I find that this comes in handy when I’m say, at Williams-Sonoma. The fact of the matter is, if I want to maintain my joyfully uncluttered counter top space, it is not practical to purchase that new set of knives, or the mini-loaf pan, or the spice rack, or those four copper pans that are a 60% off, or that manual coffee grinder, or the cute potato scrubby gloves. As much as I really need this stuff to live a fulfilling and productive life, I do not want it enough to spend an entire weekend artfully shifting items around to accommodate it. This will ultimately save my marriage from collapsing under a mountain of expensive and beautifully crafted kitchen ware, thus making America a better place due to the decreased divorce rate.
image courtesy of juggernautco via Flickr
5. A Mansion in 600 Square Feet: I have found that when living in a city where the average cost of an apartment is $457/sq. ft., it behooves one to live in the smallest area possible. That being said, I do have a lot of hobbies, most of which require power tools and the space to use them. Rather than sacrifice my hobbies, (gasp!), I enjoy the open square footage allowed by minimalism. In fact, I spent the better part of two weekends analyzing the usable square footage in my apartment. This exercise afforded an additional 6 sq. ft. of usable space if I merely by re-arranged the furniture. Smirk you may, but my greyhound is mighty appreciative of the extra square footage when turning the living room into an impromptu race track.
image courtesy of laffy4k via Flickr
6. Bolder is Better! If you are at all familiar with my design aesthetic, you are aware that I require a LOT of color. And this isn’t just a touch here or there, I’m talking hot pink entryways, a monolithic bright yellow wall, or Swedish comic book inspired fabric for a set of 12′ tall by 25′ wide curtains. This would not be possible if the I bogged down the rest of my home with useless items. Clutter does not just take up physical space, it uses up your limited supply of visual emphasis too! Now this is entirely up to you, but I would much rather have someone comment on my bravery in painting a 10′ wide union jack on my office wall than my delightful collection of dust covered porcelain knickknacks. Like I said, totally up to you…
image courtesy of ^ W ^ via Flickr
7. What’s really important? When you mentally weigh all of your stuff with the goal of selling or giving away as much as possible, you learn really fast what is important to you. At the risk of sounding sentimental, I surprised myself when I learned that the only piece of furniture in my house that wasn’t expendable was the mid-century chair that my husband brought with him when we got married. That chair has been a constant in our life since we got together, and out of all the newer or nicer furniture, it was the only piece that withstood the great minimization of 2009. For better or worse, minimalism will force you to keep only that stuff that is really, really special.
image courtesy of doegx via Flickr
8. Mandatory Organization: You cannot have unorganized minimalism. One of the best (and/or worst) things about a minimalist lifestyle is that if even the mouse is out-of-place on your desk, it will show. For me, this is an intrinsic benefit, because everything must have a place and I can always find what I am looking for. Since minimizing my personal belongings, the lost item coefficient in my home has dropped significantly. You cannot lose something if it has nowhere to hide!
image courtesy of Damian Hunt via Flickr
9. Endless Possibilities: Minimalism goes against the American cultural norm. In the land of the Big Gulp and If One is Good, Two Must Be Better, a minimalist is challenging what is socially accepted. Going minimalist was a very liberating experience for me, because if everyone was already going to think me weird, how weird could I get? I challenged myself to discover the difference between a social requirement and a real necessity. I went very extreme at first, trying to get as close as possible to just a fixie and a bed, and in the process, learned what my actual necessities are. When challenging yourself to go against what is culturally accepted as “normal” you open yourself up to endless possibilities for better ways to live.
image courtesy of moonlightbulb via Flickr
10. No Room For Excuses: My best and final reason to go minimalist is that it forces one into a constant state of improvement. Life happens, and there will always be those inevitable trips to Williams-Sonoma after happy hour at the adjacent wine bar when you just can’t quite talk yourself out of that new collection of pink mixing bowls. When you do acquire more stuff, it will force you into re-evaluation of what’s important. In this fashion, you have to continually cut the crap and fill your life with only the best things. How many people do you know that have only awesomeness in their life?
I hope that there is sufficient evidence within this article to provide you with the inspiration necessary to immediately alter your lifestyle. Fixies and minimalists are sexy — so be the envy of all your friends! Thanks for reading — please feel free to share or re-publish, but give me credit for my work when you do!