Minimalism – the intentional promotion of the things we most value and the removal of everything that distracts us from it – requires a conscience choice. It is a counter-cultural lifestyle that begins with the decision to pursue it. For me, that occurred over a Memorial Day weekend while cleaning my garage. The juxtaposition of my possessions piled in my driveway with my son playing baseball in the backyard caused me to finally realize my belongings weren’t adding joy to my life… they were detracting from it. At that moment, we intentionally decided to live with less.
But this world that we live in is not friendly to the pursuit of minimalism. Its cultural tendencies and never-relenting advertising campaigns constantly call us to acquire more, better, faster, newer, and trendier. The journey towards minimalism becomes a road that requires daily inspiration – a consistent re-centering of focus on the things that are the most important.
To that end, here is a list of 7 places to find daily inspiration in your pursuit of minimalism:
1. Simplify Your Life: A Tumblr blog that provides quotes, images, and links on a daily basis inspiring readers to simplify life.
2. Simple Links: Links and images collected by Leo Babauta posted on an almost daily basis.
3. Becoming Minimalist Facebook Page: Our Facebook page provides links to our newest articles and inspiring quotes every single day.
4. Twitter (Joshua Millburn, Courtney Carver, Dave Bruno, Joshua Becker): Four minimalist tweeters that offer minimalist inspiration as it strikes throughout the day.
5. Zen Habits Archives: There’s a reason Zen Habits is considered to be among the most thought-provoking, life-changing blogs on the Internet. And with 5 years of archives to choose from, you’ll find plenty of inspiration every single day.
6. Unclutterer: Unclutterer is a blog that I read often when we first became minimalist. Their team of writers publish daily and generally stay focused on removing clutter from our lives. Interestingly enough, I eventually found the blog design to be a bit too cluttered for my preference… but I did find it helpful to my journey during the initial phase of decluttering our home and life.
7. Take a look outside: If we pause for a moment, stop the hustle and bustle of our lives just long enough to see, we can observe in nature amazing ways that it lives the ultimate minimalist existence.
Gail DeMoss says
January 27, 2012 at 11:20 AMHow do I unsubscribe? Too much “clutter”.
Kourtney L. says
January 27, 2012 at 11:38 AMI love Zen Habits, their archives is a plethora of wisdom!
Bill Gerlach says
January 28, 2012 at 9:45 AMJoshua,
It’s these simple, straight-forward doses of inspiration and encouragement that really make a difference at the end of the day. They always have a way of hitting (me) at just the right time or in just the right way.
And as always, many thanks for the support.
Be well,
Bill
Susan Child says
January 28, 2012 at 10:16 AMA click to Simplify you life led to scrolling and I saw the 3 word challenge. It hit the spot! Since my house and hips both have it “remove the excess” is already above my monitor.
Lorilee @ Loving Simple Living.com says
January 28, 2012 at 7:51 PMI like your list. I wanted to add that I really liked Francine Jay’s book The ‘Joy of Less’ and her site http://www.missminimalist.com. She features a bunch of people who are cutting back. It is exciting to read and hear about how others are doing it too :)
Thanks!
Brinstar says
January 29, 2012 at 11:56 AMThank you for sharing–there are a few sites you listed of which I was previously unaware.
Katie @imperfect people says
January 31, 2012 at 11:40 AMThanks for the suggestions! I have not heard of many of these. Time to start browsing!
Bernice @ Living the Balanced Life says
January 31, 2012 at 1:50 PMA few of these I did not know about, but I have spent hours reading through Zen Habits archives. Since it is such a minimal website, it is very easy to read on my phone. I would read at night before going to sleep or while waiting for appointments. Reading Leo’s posts really helped me change my thinking about things quite a bit.
Thanks for sharing Joshua!
Noch Noch | be me. be natural. says
February 1, 2012 at 3:09 AMthanks for sharing those sites. I think the idea behind being a minimalist is that we crowd out our inner self and voice by things around us
i dont think “things” are necessarily bad
it’s how we deal with them
Noch Noch
Jordan C says
February 17, 2012 at 7:48 AMSorry, but I have to dissent. My own definition of minimalism does not include facebook or twitter. The beauty of minimalism lies in paring out the nonessential and the distracting. This encompasses more than just physical possessions.
Elizabeth says
April 30, 2012 at 4:33 AMI work for a company that focuses on getting people who are over indebted help (in South Africa) and I have set up a blog and a Facebook page to inspire South Africans to start living with less material possessions and stress in their lives. While blogs, Twitter and Facebook may seem like extra clutter, for people who don’t know about the benefits of a minimalist lifestyle, they are very valuable to changing all other aspects of their lives.
Pat says
October 31, 2016 at 5:24 AMI am at the present older than most of those making comments but in my observation never to old to learn. Some of the suggestions have been a practice of mine for decades yet the uncluttering of my mind is relatively new. Old habits are hard to break at times. listening skills are vital to change. Many people self destruct by refusing to accept their own weaknesses. Cluttered minds and self opinionated people self destruct only to often under the title of low self esteem. I limit my time on e mail as well as facebook as otherwise it’s too much. Thank you for the knowledge to know myself even more.