Contributed Content
Image Source
You might have heard quite a lot recently about people downsizing their homes and their lives in general. This is something that certainly has a lot of benefits to it: not only are you going to feel a lot less cluttered and able to think more clearly, you’ll find that you prosper financially as well. You might even have more time to spend on worthwhile pursuits. But is downsizing for you? And if so, how do you actually go about doing it? Let’s take a look at some of the things you might want to bear in mind if you are going to try downsizing your life.
Fewer Belongings
The main cornerstone of downsizing is to aim to have as few belongings as possible, or as few as you are comfortable with. Just doing this can bring about a lot of those benefits we listed above. But how to do this? First of all, you can simply walk around your home and throw out anything that you haven’t used in a year. You’ll probably find that’s a lot of things. You could put them in self storage or give them away to charity – the point is, clear out your home as best as you can and then see where you stand.
Smaller Home
You might also want to think about downsizing the home itself, the actual building. If you think that it might be a little too large for your needs, then you might be able to gain a lot of headspace by opting for a smaller home. There is one very obvious benefit to this too, which is that smaller homes are generally cheaper to buy or rent, and cheaper to maintain and run. So if you are looking for more money in the bank, this is definitely a good way to achieve that.
Avoiding Splurges
Once you have done all that, you now just need to try and stop yourself from collecting more and more belongings again. For most of us, that means finding some way to resist those splurges that can happen. If you are prone to those, then you might want to set out an action plan for dealing with those urges when they arise. What are you going to do next time you want to make a sudden purchase? Having a plan will make it a lot more likely that you can see it through, and keep your life small.
Basically all of this is just about finding your own balance, which is much easier said than done but perfectly possible for us all. You don’t necessarily need to downsize as much as physically possible, you might find that just minimizing a little is all you need in order to experience the benefits. Test it out, try it out for yourself and see where you end up. You might be surprised at how much it improves your life, and before you know it you could be proselytising to everyone about doing the same.