Zen Again - Finding calm in a busy world using minimalism

While strictly not a minimalist subject, I've found that increasing my productivity has in fact minimised the time I waste procrastinating. This, in turn, gives me more time to concentrate on the things I enjoy doing. So you could say that productivity & minimalism make prefect partners. I often get asked advice on productivity & motivation. I've been self-employed for most of my adult life & I've always worked from home, which takes dedication & serious discipline to get right. It's not easy when you are the boss. The Internet can become a black hole of distractions if you allow…

I've had a smart phone since the iPhone 3G was released in July 2008. Back then, the app store was only just getting started & apps didn't really exist. I enjoyed the web browser & large screen, not to mention the fast 3G connection, but it wasn't invasive. It acted similarly to the Nokia & Samsung phones I had owned before it. It was a nice phone, with the added benefit of email & web browser. Fast forward to 2018 & smart phones are ubiquitous with daily life. Maps, music, games, video, fitness trackers, social media. The list of apps…

I've always got a few books on the go & over the last few months I've really stepped up my minimalism & organisation background reading. When delving into the world of minimalism & organisation it's easy to fall down a rabbit hole of bad advice & regurgitated nonsense. A lot of the tips & techniques discussed in these books can be common sense & many authors simply borrow each others ideas, meaning you get little value from reading a lot of books. Over the years I've read a plethora of books on minimalism, but I haven't dedicated much time to…

A lot of people set themselves New Years resolutions. The New Year marks a fresh start for a lot of people & resolutions help to set goals for the coming year. Some are very simple, such as dieting after the festive period or signing up to a gym. I'm not really one for resolutions but a lot of people I know like to do this, so I thought I would lay out a few tips & ideas for anyone interested in simple living & minimalism. One of the first things I do after the Christmas period is to address my…

It's 2017 and people all over the world are starting a new year & implementing resolutions for the coming 12 months. I don't tend to set resolutions, I prefer a constant evolution as & when I discover something causing me an issue or concern. So this year (not because it is a new year, but because I discovered an escalation in my own dependency) I've decided to radically change my smartphone habits. I've had a smartphone since 2008 when I bought the iPhone 3G at launch. Back then, smart phones where pretty basic & the app store had only just…

This morning, when paying my water bill I realised that minimalism can be applied to all aspects of our lives, not just our physical belongings. It occurred to me that I spend time on the 15th of every month logging into a website, entering my card details and paying a utility bill. This process takes me around 10 minutes each month, or two hours over an entire year. What a waste of time! Beyond the physical act of sitting & paying the bill, I also have to be conscious of the date & remember on the 15th of each month…

I've been online since around 1994. I have a Bachelors & Masters degree in Computer Science so I tend to spend a lot of my time on a computer & using the internet. In that time I've acquired terabytes of files and other clutter across various computers & devices. When I started my minimalism journey I completely overlooked my digital life. I just thought that having files on a computer took up very little physical storage space. Surely that means digital files aren't an issue? I was wrong. When I started to look into digital clutter I found the problem…

Minimalism has become an important part of my life. As a young (ish) couple, my wife & I live in private rented accommodation which is by definition insecure. We generally have a 12 month guaranteed lease, but after that time we can choose to leave. On the other hand, a land lord can issue notice to ask us to vacate. We have lived in rented accommodation for many years. As yet, we haven't decided where we would like to settle down. We aren't even sure which country we will be living in when it comes to buying a house, so…

I've been thinking about the concept of belongings & their direct relationship to freedom. If we own a lot of stuff, we tend to need a large property to store them in, we may need storage lockers or overflow storage elsewhere, we may even find ourselves needing to move house just to accommodate our belongings. For a long time I was following that pattern. The first few times I moved house as an adult I only needed the space in a car to transfer my belongings, as time went on that car became a few car trips, then small transit…

I have been waiting on Joshua & Ryan's documentary for a while now. The documentary is called Minimalism - A documentary about the important things. When they announced they where making a film I got very excited & knew that the final documentary would be great. Yesterday I saw them tweet the link to their documentary on Vimeo and I instantly headed over to the website to place my order. What I wasn't expecting was to receive over 6 hours of bonus content & interviews. For £13 this is an absolute bargain. My wife & I sat down to watch…