Productivity has continuously gained popularity in recent years, which seems slightly strange considering people could instead be talking about cryptocurrencies or perhaps the global pandemic raging across the world, but I digress. I can’t say much considering I consume quite a bit of productivity-based tips and tricks throughout any given day so as we continue our stride into 2022 I wanted to share my #1 productivity hack. If you’ve been reading my content for a while you’ll fully see this one coming so let’s take a look at the one and only #1 productivity hack I use and abuse to get a lot of work done.
Minimalism
Physically, digitally and mentally. These are the three areas that I try to apply minimalism to in order to not only gain productivity but also to maintain high levels of productivity as well. I’ll break down each one individually in just a moment but I really want to take a moment and focus on what minimalism means to me. Ultimately, I’m not super interested in counting how many spoons I have in my possessions, and instead, I’m incredibly focused on being able to make use of the things that I do have as well as ensuring that those things add value to my life on a consistent basis. Now let’s break things down just a little bit further.
Physical Items
Reducing your physical items has a lot of productivity benefits. The most noticeable part of getting rid of or decluttering things is the fact that you just simply have way less shit to maintain. Now, this is a bit extreme so bear with me. If you had three vehicles, you would have to spend time refueling them, changing their oil, paying for insurance, and keeping them clean throughout the year. Doing all of these for one vehicle is already a big ask in my opinion so tacking on extra vehicles would just be debilitating. The same applies to smaller items like books or trinkets across your home, having to reorganize, move or even just dust them off every once and while becomes a major headache once you start to realize half your life is spent maintaining your items. Own your stuff, don’t let it own you.
Digital Items
Digital minimalism is something that is becoming increasingly important as we all proceed to shift more and more of our lives to the digital side of things. One of the biggest reasons why it’s so important to minimize your digital footprint is because while it takes up a minimal space like a smartphone or a laptop it can very rapidly take up the majority of your day. With social media continuing to be a major player with new entries like TikTok and Snapchat attempting to make a dent in the world of Meta, it’s clear that we need digital minimalism more than ever. By reducing either your apps, people you follow, or even just deleting duplicate files across all your hard drives, you could stand to gain a lot of your life back. I will add that digital minimalism shouldn’t be restricted to just minimizing but instead optimizing as well. Too often are minimalist people afraid of the word “organizing” but when it comes to your digital space organizing can be just as important as decluttering, try both and I assure you that you’ll gain a lot of time back into your day.
Mental Items
This is probably the most complicated and debatably controversial item on this list. While I considered adding emotional or spiritual minimalism, I thought those are a little too complex for this article so perhaps I’ll revisit those at a later date. What I mean by minimizing your mental space is the hard fact that you simply can’t do and be everything that you want. This is something I’ve tried to both learn and accept over the last couple of years. As you grow older not only is your ambition heavily reduced by the amount of free time you have to explore and engage in different areas of your life is also heavily reduced. That being said, I have to urge those of you who are reading this to let some things go. Things that don’t make you jump for joy or at the very least bring a smile to your face need to be dismissed appropriately and swiftly. I’ll let you interpret this in a few different ways but I’ll also explain how I try to apply this on a daily basis. I generally try to maintain three things in my life currently, those three things being; school, work, and relationships. Generally speaking, everything else is a side task, debatably even writing this article does not fit into those three main items. While in an ideal world you would completely avoid everything else you were interested in so that you could focus on the select few items that are truly important to you, I understand that that simply isn’t realistic enough. So feel free to continue to watch Netflix or play video games when you see that adding value to your life, but if it’s conflicting with your main goals or aspirations in life it may very well be time to minimize their impact. Try to bake in a level of focus in your life and you’ll see the importance of a minimalist mindset in no time!
Minimalism isn’t for everyone, but I do think everything that I’ve mentioned in this article could be applied to everyone that lives a modern lifestyle. Too often are we caught up in owning everything or doing everything that we don’t actually take the time out of our lives to figure out what exactly it is that makes us happy day in and day out. For some, that energy drink is well worth the $3.00, for others going out to dinner with your friends once a week is one of their favorite activities. Both are perfectly ok because they add value to your life. Focus on value and meaning when it comes to what you bring into your life and you’ll find yourself a lot more productive!