Soon after becoming minimalist, I minimized my office. In doing so, I made a deliberate decision to throw out anything related to my previous place of employment 8 years ago. This included books, materials, trainings, etc. Working at a local non-profit serving local teenagers, it occurred to me that youth culture has changed so much over the past 8 years that even the things effective 8 years ago are just not as effective today. New problems call for new solutions. And so I got removed them. And in doing so, I discovered an important benefit of minimalism: Freedom from being tied to the past.
Clutter keeps you tied to the past. Your thoughts tend to dwell in the past as the things around you force your mind to reminisce. Solutions tend to be rooted in the past as the things around you conjure up the same old thought-processes. Additionally, our minds are tied to the past because there is no available space for anything new.
Minimizing my workspace (and life) forced me to recognize the problems of today and solve them with solutions for tomorrow. Some might say – you have to release the past to create a better tomorrow. And this benefits every area of our lives.