For us, minimalism is our ethos, and our approach.
For me, minimalism is all about pruning away the inessential, in order to allow you to maximize the essential.
For example, a simple act is wearing the same all black everything outfit every single day, thus, one less thing for you to worry about or think about first thing in the morning, and allows you to jump directly into what you care most about. This was Steve Jobs‘s approach, apparently he had 100 of those iconic Issey Miyake long black turtlenecks in his closet. The same goes with Mark Zuckerberg, and his simple great T-shirt approach.
Always the danger and the fear is becoming a lemming. Nobody wants to become a herd animal, and just follow the herd.
I had a funny realization when I was at a hipster coffee shop in Berlin: everybody in the coffee shop was wearing all black everything. At that moment, I knew I had to switch up my wardrobe.
However, upon deeper reflection: for me, perhaps the purpose of minimalism isn’t to be different, but just to strive towards the most simple and Zen approach. If that means just wearing whatever is in your closet on the day of, without worrying or thinking too much about it, perhaps this is a good thing.
For minimalism, 99.9% of the obsession is about stuff, and getting rid of stuff. However, perhaps a better approach is to think about your mind. Your clothes and stuff is important, but should maybe only comprise up of 10% of your life. 90% of your life should just be towards your mind, and your body.
I discovered that the most productive mind is an empty mind. The irony: once you empty up your mind, then you could fill it up with interesting thoughts, which come from within.
Let us say that you like to write, or do some sort of creative work. A very simple one is to not check your email first thing in the morning. Ideally uninstall email or work email from your phone. And just do it on your laptop once you get into work.