Despite many aspects of university education becoming digitalised, students are still not completely free of paper. And it will probably be a long time before we are completely done with it, if ever. Paper – worksheets, assignments, data, sources, references, extracts, forms and letters obtained from professors, coursemates, friends and our own research – can be one of the main culprits when it comes to desk pile up.

Not to mention other things that can contribute to a cluttered desk, such as books, mugs, a computer or laptop, pens, a lamp, knick-knacks, folders and if you’re really messy even clothes or food(!).

why you need a clear surface

If you live in a single bedroom with limited space, desks can get very cluttered very quickly if you don’t consciously keep it clear. A desk packed full of stuff can:

• Create a distracting environment
• Encourage procrastination
• Be off-putting to creativity
• Make it difficult for you to find things you need
• Encourage cluttered-ness in other parts of the room

By far the simplest and easiest way is to literally take everything off your desk and put it on the floor. Then one by one put things back only after you’ve carefully considered why you need it. You’ll find that you’ll have to relocate a lot of stuff, but it shouldn’t be too hard to find a home for it if you’ve kept your drawers and shelves pretty minimal.

how to maintain a minimalist desk

1. Dispose immediately. If you think you’ll probably never use a sheet of paper again, just chuck/recycle it. If you leave it to mix with the stuff that you do need, you’ll be put off organizing it because the pile looks bigger and scarier. The worst that can happen afterwards is that you look on your university portal for an electronic copy or borrow off a course-mate. A lot of sheets only have a one time use, keeping them will not benefit you so it’s best to clear it out as soon as you can.

2. Organise. Use fileboxes, trays or folders to store papers that land on your desk. Only you can work out a system that works for you, but for me I find a simple ‘Urgent’/’To Do’ /’To File’ method works perfectly.

Everyday, I deposit all of the sheets in my thin folder into the appropriate boxes/folders (after I’ve done step 1). Sheets that have to do with upcoming deadlines obviously go into the ‘Urgent’ box/folder. General things like homework sheets and long-term assignments go in ‘To Do’, and sheets I want to keep for revision but have no immediate use go in ‘To File’.

Instead of filing one sheet at a time, which can be time consuming, when the ‘To File’ pile gets to a certain level, I sort all of those sheets into labelled boxes. Once everything is sorted out, it’s much easier to identify what and how much you need to deal with at any particular moment.

3. Inbox Zero. Once you’ve deposited all of the things you need to deal with in once place, try to reduce everything in it to zero everyday or every other day. This will help you gauge your workload and do everything in an according pace. In other words, if you see that your work is beginning to pile up, you know that you it’s time to do block out some time to get it all done before you fall behind. If the ‘Urgent’ box is empty, celebrate!

4. Clean. If you must eat at your desk (I do sometimes when I’m watching TED), clean up as soon as you can after finishing and don’t leave it overnight. Clean dust away often and wipe off coffee mug rings. Be adaptable and try moving things around so that you have as little on your desk as possible. You can use bookshelves to store non-urgent folders or things you don’t use often such as reference books. Many people like to keep this stuff on their desk but actually they don’t use them very often anyway.

5. Get rid of knick-knacks. A lot of people keep photos or little figures on their desks which can be kinda cute, but also a little distracting. I used to find myself daydreaming whenever I looked up because I would see a picture of my old friends which got me thinking of home, and sometimes I would find myself on facebook a moment later to check up on them! Also, most of the time you don’t need an entire pot of pens, even if they look ‘professional’ sitting on your desk top. I moved all of my stationary to my top drawer, and since then I’ve stopped getting distracted by highlighters and the hole punch (like a six year old!).

common pitfalls

Once you’ve obtained a beautiful minimalist desk, you’ll have to be careful not to let things creep back on one by one. Also watch out for these other pitfalls:

Out of sight, out of mind. Don’t be tempted to hide stuff by putting it away in boxes. I used to be very guilty of hiding sheets in file boxes without organising them, and in the end they overfilled the box in no particular order and in the end it took hours and hours to sort out during exam revision time. If I had spent just a minute putting the sheets in the right place, I could have stopped myself from wasting time and getting stressed out.

Just clearing the middle. I’ve seen desks that only have enough clear space in the middle for a laptop, and surrounding it are piles of paper and various aforementioned junk. One may be able to survive, but they wouldn’t be working to their full potential because they are being limited by their environment. You should give yourself plenty of room so that you can spread out and work more comfortably.

Since my desk only has my laptop on it when I’m writing, or one book, piece of paper and pen when I’m working, I’ve seen a marked increase in my productivity. I realise that there is a certain amount of motivation required for one to actually get going on the work after they’ve sorted it, but just try it, even for a week, I promise you’ll have less of an excuse to put things off and you’ll be one step closer to being a productivity black belt.

In the field of Economics, one of the first things that you learn is that resources are scarce. Now, that doesn’t necessarily mean there is little of it. There many things that there are almost unlimited quantities of. Almost.

But the one thing there is never an unlimited quantity of is your time.

Even with all the money in the world, you can never buy enough time to do everything you want.

Opportunity cost is what you sacrifice in order to be able to do something with your limited time. You can’t go out and study at the same time. You can’t join all the clubs. You can’t have the convenience of fast food and be healthy. You can’t please everyone. You have to choose. There are rarely times you can have your cake and eat it too.

On top of that, there isn’t an unlimited amount of you. Whenever you are stretched too thin, you’ll find yourself with a large quantity of things, but without enough time or money to develop quality.

You can know a little about a lot of things, or a lot about a few things. You can have lot’s of friends that are really just acquaintances or you could  invest time in cultivating good, longer lasting friendships. You can help make a tiny impact on many people, or a change the life of a few people.

Neither is really wrong. By prioritizing what is important to you can discover for yourself which is better for you. Whichever you decide, quantity or quality, can be adapted in different situations; course, friends, clothes, food, skills, activities, to suit you. Sometimes it’s quantity that’s better, sometimes it’s quality.

When it comes to buying things, having stuff, minimalism is about definitely about quality over quantity. More wholesome and nutritious food over vast quantities of junk. More high quality, versatile and longer-lasting clothes/furniture/equipment over cheap and disposable stuff.

If you really want to get things done properly, you have to prioritize – choose what you want the most, because you can’t do them all, and it would be a shame if it was because of that you ended up not doing anything at all.

–

On that note, I’m prioritizing writing for Minimal Student as part of my Five Focus of 2011. This year, I’m aiming to publish more frequent, shorter posts like this one, tell me what you think! 

Related Posts

• 5 Ways to Reclaim Ten Minutes a Day
• Commitments

During this time of year, the post offices are getting completely swamped with Christmas present packages, last minute internet purchases and of course, Christmas cards.

When I was a kid, I used to love writing and receiving cards, but as I got older I sent fewer cards and received much fewer in return. Now, it’s been a few years since I’ve written one. If I want to wish my friends “Happy Christmas”, I would say it to them directly, or else just get in contact with them on the phone or online.

Personally, I no longer see the need to send Christmas cards. But there are many people who still do. And there are many more who believe in sending real letters, photographs, souvenirs, and postcards.

three questions

In this age of technology and constant connected-ness, I wonder about a few things.

1. Should we still be doing it?

There are so many other ways we can get in contact with the people we love. The internet may be a modern-money making monster, but it has enabled us to share our thoughts, photos, videos and stories with almost anybody we want. Letters were good in the old days when telephone was the only other option.

Because of the prevalence of the internet, there are people who want to go back to those good old days and handwrite everything. But there are other things to consider – such as the environment, money and of course what happens next.

2. What will I do with all these things for the rest of my life? Shall I leave it to collect dust in my parent’s attic? Or take them with me whenever I move house? Will I be able to endure keeping them now only to let my kids throw them away for me? Shouldn’t I be the one to let them go?

As much as I love getting letters, they’re not that much different from general clutter. They don’t provide any good use, apart from to make me feel better every couple of years, they’re a hassle to store and look after and they’re meaningful only to me.

3. Why do we keep stuff?

When we get special cards and letters, most people tend to keep them because we feel grateful for the time and effort a loved one put into writing them for us. It’s not something we want to discard easily, unlike other paperwork like bills, magazines and so on.

This was a very big problem for me because I found it so hard to let go of old birthday cards and handwritten letters, but I now I know I can’t  hang onto them forever.

how to let go

1. Realize what they really mean.

Here was the problem: I actually believed that letters and cards were a physical manifestation of somebody’s love for me.

But then I had to ask myself – is that what they really are? I came to the realization that a piece of paper had nothing to do with it. My family and friends would love me all the same, whether or not I kept them. It was the thought of sending the card that counted, not really the card itself. To be honest, most of them probably had forgotten that they even sent me that stuff, and there I was hanging onto them for dear life.

2. Think about the future.

The problem only gets worse the longer you leave it. The older something becomes, the more attached you get to it. One of my biggest fears is becoming an old lady hoarder with a house full of trinkets, ornaments and boxes of stuff I couldn’t bear to throw away. If something should happen to me (touch wood), who will the burden fall on to get rid of that stuff?

Nothing lasts forever. One day, that stuff will be dumped. You’ll have to let go sometime, so why not make it soon?

3. You can still save them.

Thanks to technology, a part of those letters, cards, trinkets and so on can be saved. During my summer purge, I scanned/took pictures and recycled/donated a lot of stuff.  And I have to say, it felt quite liberating to get the burden of those boxes off my back. I can still read the letters when I want to, even if it’s not the real tangible versions. To me, being able to read their words was more important than being able to touch the piece of paper they were attached to.

Also, because I have digital versions of them, I don’t have to bring them with me wherever I go. It would have been quite inconvenient to take them with me to Japan, or to anywhere I would end up living for that matter.

–

It’s up to each person if they feel it’s worth trading, you should do whatever feels right for you. Because of course, minimalism isn’t about throwing away everything, especially the stuff that really matters to you. If you’ve decided that you really want to keep something, it would probably only cause more pain for you to get rid of it.

In that case, keeping a little shoebox of photographs wouldn’t be the end of the world, would it?

Related Posts

• Attachment, defined.
• So what if I’m only human?
• Why You Love The Things You Love

Interested in more de-cluttering tips?

In many of my posts, I talk about not getting attached to things, because it makes it harder to let go. In my last post, I talked about trying to not get too attached to people and places, because it makes it harder when you inevitably have to say goodbye (or do you?).

But you can’t go through life not making friends or going places just because you don’t want to get hurt.

In response to my last post Debbie V said

Reading your post made me wonder if minimalism can be sometimes related to a person’s avoidance of emotional attachments to people. Just a thought. Holding on some things from the past – memories, friendships, even those mementos of very important events – is important to my sanity. These things sustain me in the rough times of the present. There’s a balance.

Thank you Debbie for your comment, I really appreciate it! I’ve wanted to clarify this point for a long time.

attachment, defined.

Attachment to something means:

• you depend on having it to be happy
• you never want to let it go because you think it will make you less happy

The problem with attachment is that you are depending of something outside of yourself to be happy. But we all know that nothing lasts forever. Things can break, get stolen, be misplaced, lost in a house fire, become redundant and a hundred other things. People can move on, drift away, change, fall out of love, get in an accident, move house and more. So your happiness is only temporary if you rely on them for it.

If you want to achieve stable happiness, you need to find it in yourself, not in things or other people.

But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have deep and lasting relationships, it just means you don’t depend on them to be happy.

For example, imagine a couple A. You have probably witnessed something like this before. They meet, they get together and ‘fall in love’. They spend all their time together. They think they’re really happy and they can’t stand to be apart.

But, after a while, they start to notice things about the other person that irks them. Eventually, they get into fights and break up. They’re used to spending all their time together, so they’re really unhappy because they’re alone. They can’t stand it, so they get back together. But all of the issues that caused them to break up in the first place come back, and they break up again. The cycle continues because they can’t stand the unhappiness that comes with being together, but they can’t stand the unhappiness that comes from being alone. They depend too much on having the other. It’s a downward spiral.

This is a typical example of an emotional dependency (attachment) to one’s partner. I know this doesn’t happen to everyone, but I know that in my experience, it does happen.

Now imagine couple B:

A couple ‘fall in love’. They spend a lot of time together, but they also spend some time apart. They miss the other person when they’re away, but they find their own life that is separate from their partner’s. They share things, and depend on the other person, but not all the time. They are independent, strong people together and on their own. They support each other and don’t hold the other back for selfish reasons. They’re not needy, suspicious or joined at the hip. Instead they’re honest, trusting, and strong. Because of this, their relationship is deep and fulfilling.

Should something bad happen to the other person, of course they would be devastated, just like anyone else. But they know that the other person would want them to find a way to move on, instead of losing their ‘life’ too.

They don’t agree on everything, and it’s not always easy for them either. But they keep an open mind, they’re willing to compromise and contribute equally to the relationship. They’ll probably live a long and happy life.

Couples A and B illustrate the difference between a relationship made of attachment and a truly loving relationship.

Yes, a part of minimalism is about avoiding attachments. But it’s not about avoiding emotions. You don’t have to be scared of meeting new people, making friends, or finding partners. If another person makes you happy, let them.

If keeping mementos from a holiday makes you happy, then keep them. Minimalists aren’t trying to avoid things because we don’t want to get emotionally attached, we try to avoid the things that can lower our happiness.

Where we can help it, I believe we can greatly contribute to our own happiness by finding it within ourselves and taking it wherever we go, instead of having to drag around another person or piles of junk with us, because let’s face it, they’re pretty heavy.

I’m really interested to know what you guys think about this topic. Let me know in the comments!

Just because I’m a minimalist, doesn’t mean I’m an early riser.

Are you surprised?

I used to be a strong supporter of the idea of waking early (I still am) but I have discovered over the years that I have so many reasons not to (even though I very much admire people that do). For example, my brain tends to be more productive in the evening. If I try to go to bed too early, I know I will probably waste a good few hours tossing and turning around in bed thinking about things I have to get done, when I could have actually done it.

Also, I am absolutely blessed that I live only a few minutes by walk + bus away from my university, so I really don’t need to get up early. If I push myself, I would probably make myself unnecessarily tired during the morning, which is usually a crucial time for me. I’ve found what works for me, which is not too early, but not too late either. You may think I’m trying to make excuses, but being the non-conformist that I am, I would prefer to do what I feel is right, rather than what others tell me.

my morning routine

I’ve been getting a few emails about it, but to honest there’s nothing superhuman or special about it. I have to leave by 8:45, so by trial and error I worked out a routine which I can comfortably follow to the minute. I tried to minimalize as much as possible, so after a month of practising, this is what I came up with:

7:30-: Get up, bathroom, brush teeth.

7:45-: Exercise, put away futon.

8:00-: Make up

8:15-: Hair

8:25-: Change clothes

8:35-: Breakfast

8:45-: Leave house.

That’s it. Simple – exactly the way I like it.

A few tips that I can offer are:

1. Get a pleasant alarm clock. Although my iPhone doesn’t work in Japan (long story) I still use it everyday to wake me up. I have an app called Alarm Tunes which allows me to pick any song I want as the alarm. That way, I can choose nice ‘pick-me-up’ tunes to wake up to, which gives me a pleasant start to the day. If you don’t have an iPhone/iPod, I know you can buy little clocks that you can upload mp3 tracks on to.

2. Don’t miss exercising in the morning. Even if it’s just ten jumping jacks, don’t leave it out. I find just doing five minutes of stretching makes all the different for the rest of the day. If I ever forget or didn’t have enough time for some reason, I definitely feel sluggish or tired for hours. My morning stretch is possibly more important that remembering to brush my teeth.

3. Don’t dawdle. Sometimes I put on music because I can listen to it at the same time as getting ready. But I never watch TV in the morning because it’s almost guaranteed to slow me down in some way. The more time I spend getting ready, the more time I could have spent sleeping, who needs more motivation than that?

4. Pack the night before. It’s such a simple tip, yet it works so well. I just put everything I need in my bag before I go to bed so all I have to do is slip on my shoes grab my bag and go. No running about looking for stuff and NO forgetting anything as I’m halfway up the road. There’s nothing worse that having a bad feeling you’re forgetting something and only remembering past the point of no return 🙂

5. Whatever you do, have a system. If you’ve ever met me, you know I’m a pretty laid back person. I usually like things to be spontaneous and different (my weekends are usually free for whatever life in Japan wants to throw at me) but when it comes to my mornings I’m the complete opposite. I like efficiency. I really do love my sleep and besides that I have better things to do than to waste too much time flaffing about. So even if you don’t have a specific agenda to complete, just trying to wake up at the same time and leave at the same time most days is quite an achievement, it will at least reduce the chance of you waking up stressed and rushed which really does put most people in a bad mood.

So to sum up, the most important thing about your mourning routine is that it sets you up well for the day. Try to find a good that suits you and your own preferences and circumstances, whether your an early riser or not. Every day is a brand new beginning and a chance to live differently, so take it on wholeheartedly and have a nice day!

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This is the fourth part of a five part series on Seneca’s On the Shortness of Life.

Read Part I – Finiteness, Part II – Protecting time and living in the present, Part III – Desire and life goals.

Of all the things that we spend time on, learning is arguably one of the most important. It contributes to our knowledge of everything around and within us, makes us better people, and therefore the world a better place to live in.

We are so lucky to live in an age where there is more information out there than we can possibly consume in a single lifetime. Never before in human history have we been so connected to each others’ thoughts, teachings and discoveries.

This freedom, to be able to learn about whatever we want, is one of the most precious gifts we have.

we are excluded from no age, but we have access to them all

Seneca emphasized the importance of learning from great masters, whose teachings were once exclusive to certain people is now free for everyone.

“None of these will force you to die, but all will teach you how to die. None of them will exhaust your years, but each will contribute his years to yours.”

Lessons that otherwise would have taken a lifetime to learn are now accessible to us at our fingertips. The only obstacle we face now is whether or not we are ready to receive them.

Of course, we’re still free to make out own mistakes. But for those who don’t want to, or can’t afford to, we can always learn from the past.

“Of all people only those are at leisure who make time for philosophy, only those are really alive. For they not only keep a good watch over their own lifetimes, but they annex every age to theirs. All the years that have passed before them are added to their own.”

If there’s one thing that living a minimalist lifestyle is good for, it’s to take away distractions so that we can spend more time on the things that matter.

Without the distraction of chasing material gain, we can devote our energies towards continuous learning – whether that means to travel, or to stay at home to read, or reflect on ourselves, or anything in between. Ultimately, learning all comes down to expanding our horizons and opening up to what this beautiful world has to offer.

–

Related Posts

• When you let go of words
• The Recipe for Student Success – Ingredient Four : A Curious Mind
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Take a good look at yourself. What do you see?

Would you think that you are a wonder of the universe? If you’re living and breathing, you already are a miracle.

Why would you seek to be anything else? Look up at the sky. Watch how the clouds float contently by. A cloud is happy to be a cloud. The water within it is happy to be in that state, and doesn’t seek to be anything else. When the time comes, that water will naturally turn into rain, flow along rivers, and into trees and dams, doing what water does. It goes with the flow, and is happy to be that way.

As people, you can be as content as water. Imagine the waves at sea. Each wave has a beginning and end, each has a rise and fall, and each is beautiful in its own right. Does a wave feel fear and anxiety? Does it compare itself to other waves? Does it strive to be a better wave?

If it could look into itself, it will see that it is water, just like the wave behind it, and the wave behind that. The entire sea is one. Once it realises this the wave laughs as it goes up, and laughs as it goes down.

Like a wave at sea, things are changing all the time. You are changing all the time. Things will go up, and things will go down. All you can do is laugh and cry. Life doesn’t always work out the way that you want it, but you are already perfect in your own way.

You are already like water. Just flow, be content.

–

Related Posts

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This is the third part of a five part series on Seneca’s On the Shortness of Life. Read Part I – Finiteness, Part II – Protecting time and living in the present.

What do we want in life? How do we balance what we want to have and what we want to do in life? Are desires and goals the same thing, or are they opposite from each other?

My attempt to answer these questions could last a lifetime. There are plenty of things that I want to have, and many more things that I want to do. Thinking deeply about them is a good start.

“So it is inevitable that life will be not just very short but very miserable for those who acquire by great toil what they must keep by greater toil. They achieve what they want laboriously; they possess what they have achieved anxiously; meanwhile they take no account of time that will never more return.”

It takes a lot of physical, emotional and spiritual effort to get what we want. We daydream about buying the hottest new thing, and if we’re lucky, and work hard enough, we can afford to buy it. But by the time we get around to it, we’ve already moved on to desiring the next biggest thing, and the enjoyment that we were supposed to get from getting the things we want never lives up to the fantasy.

That’s why I have committed to a minimalist lifestyle (as much as I can). The list of things I want to own is a little different from most people. I don’t want a huge house, brand name clothes or an expensive car (I don’t even like to drive). So I don’t work to earn money for these things.

Yes, I want to live a fairly comfortable lifestyle, but I would feel guilty about indulging in too many luxuries. It feels wasteful and selfish to me. I decided a long time ago that I want to spend my life on things that are important to me, not what my culture, society, or neighbours think is important.

You act like mortals in all that you fear, and like immortals in all that you desire

There are things that almost everyone is scared of – disease, old age, and death to name a few. We are human after all, it’s perfectly normal to not want to think about suffering, to block out a future of which we cannot change, and to fear the unknown.

But in our desires, we act like everything can last forever. If all of us wanted the biggest, latest, fastest stuff, we would end up destroying our environment (more quickly than we are now) and the cruel irony is that everyone will wind up with nothing.

Just because someone has a lot of things, it doesn’t mean that they’ve lived. Indeed, if the cost of obtaining a huge house, lots of money and a fancy sports car was one’s health, relationships and spiritual fulfilment, you could argue that they haven’t really lived at all.

So when it comes to things I want to have, it isn’t too difficult to see the easiest way to be happy is to not desire too much, or at least, desire things we can’t have.

But, when it comes to things I want to do, that’s a whole different story. There is just so muchthat I want to do in one lifetime I can hardly see myself being able to accomplish it all. And what if I don’t? Will I be unhappy about it? Will I regret it?

“So you must not think that a man has lived long because he has white hair and wrinkles: he has not lived long, just existed long. For suppose you should think that a man had had a long voyage who had been caught in a raging storm as he left harbour, and carried hither and thither and driven round and round in a circle by the rage of opposing winds? He did not  have a long voyage, just a long tossing about.”

You can even travel the world, but unless you’ve learned things about people, about other cultures, lessons that made you a better person, more understanding and open, then you may as well have stayed at home.

In the same way, you can achieve a lot of things in life – it seems almost anyone can earn a million dollars these days – but if they don’t have any meaning, if they don’t make us, or anyone else happy, then what’s the point? If you’re going to spend your precious time on doing stuff, well then it better be bloody worth it.

So what have we learned? Wanting too much leads to unhappiness because we can’t have everything. Trying to do too much can also lead to unhappiness because there isn’t enough time to do everything we want to.

But there is a way. If we pick and choose our desires and goals carefully, then surely happiness can be found where they align the most. Can it not?

Life is what goes by as your waiting for it to happen.

It’s too easy to mistake ‘life’ as the moments when we’re having a good time. When we’re doing something amazing like travelling, lying on the beach, sailing on a cruise boat or only when the weather is nice and sunny.

It’s also easily mistaken only as the big milestones in your life, like when you graduate, get married, get promoted or watching your kids grow up. We think that the times in between are something we have to put of with before we get to the weekend or our planned vacation when we can finally ‘live life’. But what many of us don’t know is that we’re already doing it.

Life is happening right now as you’re eating, working, waiting, breathing. It’s a miracle and yet it’s the easiest thing in the world.

We forget that life happens in every crevice of our existence. It penetrates every part of your mind, soul and body. Life is amazing. Life is the happy and sad times and all the moments in between too.

Life is the train journey before you reach your destination.

Life is waking up early, or sleeping in late.

Life is sitting back with a good book.

Life is waiting in line at the supermarket checkout.

Life is running until your lungs feel as if they’re about to burst.

Life is the moment you turn your bedside lamp off.

Life is when a good song comes on the radio.

Life is getting caught in the rain.

Life is staying up late to watch trashy TV.

Life is the smell of good cooking.

Life is every gray morning.

Life is every smile, every tear, every hug, every touch.

Life is every moment of everyday. It is right now, waiting for you to embrace it.

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