10 Minimalist Rules That Changed My Life

I used to feel really stuck in my life and unmotivated I'd always try these extreme things to change my life 30 day challenges that I saw other people doing but over the past few years I've built some small simple rules for myself that have really improved my day-to-day life and I hope it can improve yours as well the house on fire rule recently on our trip through Europe British Airways lost our luggage we kept our backpacks but we lost all of our clothes and it was at that point I had a really cool realization I

didn't really care about any of that stuff it didn't make any difference to me if I never saw all my clothes again it wouldn't really matter so I've been practicing this rule recently and the rule is think about your attic or your closet your storage unit whatever it is what would happen if it just went away it evaporated Into Thin Air your house burned down and you lost all that stuff would you actually be relieved are you overly attached to it does your stuff actually kind of own you a little bit for me I had

this realization there's a few things in my house that I wouldn't love to lose for the most part it wouldn't really affect me as a person my happiness levels anything if my house burned down and that's a really freaking concept because the stuff we own ends up owning us so the more stuff I've gotten rid of the more like calm and mental Clarity of ended up having in my life the 2020 rule or just in case I think I first heard this rule from the minimalist but especially in my beginning stages of decluttering when I

was going through a bunch of stuff and I realized that we have so many things that we hang on to for just in case just in case people come over just in case I need to make 18 cups of coffee at once just in case I go up a size or I go down a size we've got all of this stuff for just in case so as you're decluttering you're trying to figure out what to get rid of if you can replace an item for twenty dollars in under 20 minutes then just let it go

obviously without being wasteful but when I've used this Rule and I've exercised this there really hasn't been one thing that I've actually needed to replace so if you're on the edge with something use the 2020 rule if it fits in there just let it go the Box rule this Rule and actually the last two are my absolute favorite rules so make sure you stick around for those but the Box rule kind of expands on the last one where if you're going through decluttering stuff you're unsure about it maybe it doesn't fit in the 2020 rule

throw it in a box put it in your attic put it in the garage and set a reminder on your phone for like six months from now that you will go through that box and decide that so this is for the people who have a hard time getting rid of stuff and you're like well I'm not getting rid of it I'm just putting it in a box and when that time comes maybe six months from now and you realize that you haven't gone to that box because clearly you didn't need anything out of it you

have two choices you can either go through it and decide to sell or declutter it or you can just take the entire box and donate the entire box because clearly you don't need anything that's in there so if you want to trick yourself into cluttering this is a great by the way if you're enjoying this and getting some value don't forget to subscribe it's free and I only post once a week so I won't clutter up your YouTube feed the two day rule I'm pretty sure I already originally learned this one from Matt this rule

is super simple it's pretty much that you're not going to miss a new habit two days in a row for me I use this a couple different ways I read a page of a book every single morning and it's okay if I miss one day because I've got an appointment in the morning or whatever's going on but I can never miss two days in a row and that has kept that habit extremely consistent for over a year now I also use this with going to the gym where I'm going to do some type of exercise

every day and it's okay if I miss one day but I can never miss two in a row but it also keeps you from like falling off the bandwagon for habits that you really want to keep the investing rule this is a rule that I've like followed but I don't I don't really know what to call it if you have any ideas let me know I just called it the investor rule but pretty much instead of investing into stuff into into random books what is this hence Christian Andersen I didn't even know we had that

these are Meredith books by the way we should be investing into experiences investing into stuff has generally led me to being more like stressed it all takes up space and my mind it doesn't really make me happy even when you buy a new car it's cool for a little bit and then it's just a car again same thing with clothes and most things but experiences really help change you as a person they're great memory they help you learn and expand your horizons so I've been really focusing on taking that money that I'm not spending on

stuff and investing it into travel for holidays we gift each other experiences instead of gifting each other like random crap that we don't need and that should be like literally in our budget is to invest money and experiences have a home rule I really gotta get better at naming these things this is this is embarrassing if stuff does not have a home in my house I just get rid of it since I took the time and I found a place for everything to go I've stopped losing my wallet stop losing my keys my phone has

a place to go all my clothes have places to go all the toys have places that they go everything in my house has a place where it belongs and if it doesn't have a place where it belongs it probably does not belong in my house and because it'll end up on the counter it'll end up strewn all over the place and if it doesn't have a place strongly consider getting rid of it like this is just a good overall rule that if it doesn't have a place where it belongs and it's always just sitting around

you probably don't need it other people rule a lot of times we do things either consciously or subconsciously for other people when we're getting the newest iPhone it's partly because we want that new flashy thing but it's partly because you can kind of show off it's cool to have it's a status simple same thing with maybe a pair of shoes or a car or the house in the neighborhood or closed part of it's for you and part of it is for other people even like posting to social media unless it's like for work a lot

of that is just to get some validation from your day for other people and kind of make yourself feel better because maybe you're not having a great day and you want people to tell you how great you look or how hard you're working or or whatever so this one actually took me a while to get out of but instead of worrying about what other people think especially when I'm buying stuff I've been really focusing on wants versus needs is this something that I actually need or do I want it because X Y and Z because

maybe people think it's cool like when I spilled water on my laptop I realize that I didn't need a second laptop I was able to share Meredith's for like a year almost and then when we went to travel and I needed to edit while I was traveling I bought a laptop because I needed it not because it was like ah that'd be cool to have I don't really care what other people think I'm doing what is best for me I don't really care the 90 rule I use this rule two different ways first when I'm

looking at stuff to buy I try not to buy it unless it is a 90 or above so 1 out of 100 does this shirt reach a 90 for me does it fit well will I wear it a ton and if it's below there I'm not gonna buy it and as a result every shirt that I own is my favorite shirt I can reach my hand in grab it I love it I used to have a lot of stuff that was maybe 60 70 and be like oh that's pretty cool yeah I like that yeah

it's not bad and I never wore it because I would wear my favorite stuff and now everything's my favorite stuff and since I found all my favorite stuff I I don't really buy anything anymore so that's really strict criteria to buy pretty much everything in your house and while sometimes that might mean spending a little more money to get a more quality thing in the long run at least for me I've spent a lot less money because I don't shop ever like for anything like obviously I need some stuff but I I don't like cycle

through anything anymore and then the second way to use this is when somebody asks you to do something an opportunity comes up is that a 90 yearbook is it a heck yes and if it's not then it's a no and doing that has cleared up my calendar incredibly I do so much less stuff now the two minute rule I think I've done a whole video on this let's give you the quick version life-changing rule if something takes two minutes or less just do it put away the dishes clean up your room bring that thing upstairs

that's been sitting on the staircase for a month finish that repair put on your workout clothes and go sit in the car only commit to the smallest thing possible and by doing that you'll trick yourself into doing the big stuff and you just clear up like a bunch of crap that you've been avoiding the nightly reset every night before bed I walk through and I reset my house I lay out my clothes for the night before I load or unload the dishwasher so we never leave any dishes around fill up my Kettle so that I

can make coffee by just clicking the button in the morning I lay out the book that I'm going to read I set up my next day for Success the night before and it's been life-changing almost as life-changing as subscribing to this channel because trying to hit half a million by the end of the year so thank you to everybody who has subscribed and I'll see you next week