10 Little Life-Changing Minimalist Hacks

[Music] this video was brought to you by javi coffee today i want to get right to the point and share with you 10 little life-changing minimalist hacks these are just some little ways to make your life more minimal simpler and just better i'll admit some of these you may have heard of before but some of them might also be new to you so i'd encourage you to stick around to the end of the video [Music] the first hack is to keep out of season clothes in storage and i know this one is somewhat commonplace for people to do but i didn't do it for many years and i realized that as a result getting things in and out of my closet and in and out of my dresser drawers was always so much effort it was like cramming something into this huge heap of stuff it was just a lot more physical work and then also quite often i wouldn't see what was there that was appropriate for the season and i wouldn't recognize how many options i actually did have and i would just feel overwhelmed by how many belongings i had in these areas so once i started keeping clothing that was just truly out of season like shorts in the winter time here in minnesota in storage i found that it was just a lot easier to dress myself i felt less overwhelmed by my stuff and i just realized that it felt better to have less in my closet which ultimately reinforced me for moving towards minimalism and maybe wants to declutter even more my second hack is to use those times where you're moving things for the season as an opportunity to declutter so if you're actually putting your clothes away for the season it's a great opportunity to recognize what did i use this summer time or this winter time how frequently did i actually wear this and if you didn't use it much maybe it's time to declutter it by putting things away in storage you're organically going through all your stuff numerous times a year and so it's helpful to use that opportunity as a way to get rid of more stuff that way every season you're just downsizing a little bit more my third tip is to use gateway storage and basically what i mean is when you're doing a declutter and you have a maybe pile just take that maybe pile put it away in storage for a while and see if you actually miss any of the things that were in that pile so often i come back and i realize wow i haven't used anything in this bin for like three months i think i can actually let go of it and so it's a great way to recognize how much you actually use your belongings and to get rid of the stuff when it's really time a fourth tip is temptation bundling and this is actually based on research and social scientists who have come up with this idea to take things that you don't like to do and pair them with things you do like to do so that you get more done and i should really make a whole video on this but what i've noticed is i really love listening to narrative podcasts or podcasts that are really engaging and i notice that if i only let myself listen to podcasts while i'm doing something productive like cleaning the kitchen or doing some decluttering or just like clearing off surfaces or reorganizing i end up looking forward to those mundane tasks way more because i associate them with listening to a podcast by bundling the things that you really enjoy with the things that you need to get done but you don't like doing you're more likely to be motivated to do those things and get more done a fifth tip is to have your brain learn that sometimes the same is okay in today's society we're so reinforced to seek out new things and to show those new things off to the people around us and our brain just gets wired to enjoy the idea of novelty i do think that some of it may be a natural human tendency to like new things but i also think there's something about when people give us a compliment on a new haircut or a new outfit that we tend to want to get more new and the brain is so plastic and subject to change and to learning that you can try to retrain your brain and the neural networks that drive that desire to want new things by really paying attention to what you already have and using the same things over and over again and this idea was actually inspired by a little exercise that one of my classes asked of me in high school one teacher i can't even remember for what class but one teacher offered that if we wore the same outfit to school every day for a certain period of time i think it was like maybe a week or so that the teacher would give us extra credit and i thought this idea was so brilliant because especially in high school when i went to high school i think wearing something different every day was so highly valued and expected that that actually felt like quite a challenge to do at the time just because so much of social hierarchy was based on what you were wearing and how you looked and that sort of thing so i ended up doing it and i loved the experience it actually made me enjoy the clothes that i wore that week so much more i picked something really comfortable and cozy and enjoyable to wear and i realized hey this is awesome i really like this outfit i can use it all the time i don't have to wear something different every day to be satisfied by what i'm wearing and it actually just helped me appreciate my outfit all the more and it made me realize i don't need as much as i probably have so this idea is kind of going off of that see if there's some area of your life that you can use the same stuff over and over again for a period of time and see how you feel see how you enjoy it and see if you kind of stop itching for something new [Music] the sixth tip is to make daily tasks easier or more efficient in some way maybe the number one example of something that a lot of us do every day is making coffee for ourselves and getting that cup of joe in the morning that's where the sponsor of this video fits in i really enjoy javi coffee because basically it's a way for you to make really high quality coffee very easily and simply in the morning basically you can just add one to two teaspoons of the javi coffee concentrate into some kind of liquid whether it be water or milk or cream and create whatever kind of coffee you want to have quickly and easily the quality of the coffee itself is incredibly high it's not way overpriced and you can also play around with what you want to add to it to make it kind of interesting or different it saves space because you just have this little glass bottle that you can keep in the fridge and it tastes incredibly delicious and decadent if you guys love coffee and want a more efficient easier way of making your coffee in the morning that's still really high quality hit the link in the description box below for 25 off using my code so like i was saying find ways to make those everyday tasks the ones that you do on the daily a little bit easier and more efficient and you'll just have more time and space in your life for other things a seventh tip is when you're decluttering consider what you want to keep rather than what you want to get rid of sometimes i get so bogged down in declutters where i'm focused on what i need to get rid of and how much i need to just get out of my life and then i start missing things and i regret the choices i make but if i instead focus on the fun enjoyable process of building a set a curated set of belongings that really matter to me that make me happy that i enjoy i'm then able to just more easily let go of the rest i think instead of focusing on the challenges and the difficulties and the tension that you experience when getting rid of these items that maybe at some point meant something to you and instead focusing on curating the life that you want to have and just keeping those belongings that give that life you're able to get rid of more and you end up just enjoying the process more it feels like you're creating something beautiful and fun for the future as opposed to letting go of things that you feel you might miss down the road there's a lot of research that suggests that positive reinforcement is far more powerful than punishment so make the whole decluttering process more enjoyable more reinforcing as opposed to punishing one way that i do this is when i do clothing declutters for example i'll build my wardrobe on my bed i'll just take the items that i absolutely love set them on my bed and then just kind of like put everything else in storage and then eventually declutter it this eighth tip is one that a lot of us may do naturally but it's to always be grabbing something and bringing something with you when you move through rooms or when you go to a different story of your home so basically so often i will have these like nightly comfort waters that i bring up with me to bed i call them comfort waters because like sometimes i don't even drink much of them but it's just like nice knowing that i have a glass of water there if i need it anyway so often i'll then forget to bring it with me in the morning and then it's left upstairs but if i always am thinking about what can i move out of this room when i'm leaving the room and put it away then i remember to grab it and it's cleaner and easier and i don't have this landing pad of cups of water on my bedside stand when i go through my day constantly bringing something with me putting it away i end up having a clearer cleaner space and it's just less stressful and more minimal a ninth tip is related to the last but it's to have a spot where you can inconspicuously place things that you intend to bring either upstairs or downstairs by having a little spot just to put things that you know you need to bring to a different story of your home if your home has multiple stories it's easier than when you do need to go up or down stairs to bring it with you very quickly and not have to make a bunch of extra trips and ultimately i think it helps me keep things cleaner and neater in the long run my 10th tip is something i've mentioned before on this channel but i cannot underline how important it is and it is to reduce task switching there's a lot of psychological research in the area of cognition that shows that switching back and forth between different types of tasks can really slow us down and make everyday tasks take a lot longer i'll admit so often when i feel like i'm frazzled and i'm juggling a lot i'll switch from this to that to this to that and i just get overwhelmed and all the more frazzled but research shows that that slows us down because it increases the cognitive load so if you need to get a lot of things done just take one at a time that way it's also less overwhelming anyway that's all i've got for you today but please hit the thumbs up button below if you enjoyed this video doing that really helps support the channel just a simple thumbs up not much for you but makes a big difference for me you can also subscribe below if you ended up enjoying the video and check out javi coffee in the link below if you're interested it's just such a great easy way to get high quality coffee i also have my instagram and patreon linked below if you're interested thanks so much for taking the time to watch this video and i hope you have a wonderful rest of your day bye [Music] [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: Slice of Light

Views: 508,399

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Id: dgDkeifI7Qc

Length: 11min 39sec (699 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 24 2022