How To Become a Minimalist

"Fear less, hope more; eat less, chew more; whine less, breath more,talk less, say more; love more, and all good things will be yours." --Swedish Proverb

I am breaking down Leo Babauta's book The Simple Guide to a Minimalist Life into a post per chapter. This weeks post is on chapter three and its about how to become a minimalist. In Leo's book he gave us four main points for us:

1. Start by realizing you already have enough
2. Start cutting back on the clutter and possessions
3. Start simplifying your schedule
   
4. Slowly edit everything you do

To me how I am becoming a minimalist is slightly different but I do find that it is also very similar. I started realizing that I wanted to become a minimalist in late December 11 while I was at work one day. I still can't figure out where the inspiration came from but I just decided I owned way too much stuff. And so this is how I am becoming a minimalist

1. I realized that I already had enough (1 for 1 with Leo)
2. I am starting to cut back on my clutter and possessions (I am doing this in a few different ways which I will explain in a moment)
3. I am also trying to simplify my finances
4. Then I shall try simplifying my schedule
5. And I am sure eventually I will be able to keep editing (But I am a long way off from being close to done with my decluttering at the first stage)

Now going back to cutting back on my clutter I am doing this in a few different ways

1. I have for the most part already done my first round of decluttering for my clothing and scrapbooking items. The next step for my clothing is going to be looking at every piece and making it work as an outfit and if I can't it has to go. As for my scrapbooking I think I will do another round of decluttering to see what I am left with.
2. I am in the middle of doing a 10 Things Challenge on this blog where I get rid of 10 things for 10 weeks. This is helping me declutter the things I know I can get rid of now without thinking in all the different category's I hold within my "Stuff"
3. I will also of course be following Leo's guidelines once we get further into the chapters.

So that's it. I wanted to keep this one focused on only what The Simple Guide to a Minimalist Life said this chapter because I think there is a lot of great advice out there that kind of all ends up equaling the same thing when you are cutting down the basics.