I am walking outside to the rubbish bin for the third time today. It’s freezing outside, but I have to keep clearing the junk. I can start to see the light at the end of the tunnel and the floor to my bedroom again, hooray!

A few days later I get sucked into buying two more pairs of shoes. Do I really need them or was it the scarcity mindset kicking in to tell me that I may not be able to get the same look or price again, so I better buy them now.

I’m in the car off to buy some camera equipment. Tim, isn’t this the second camera you have brought in two months? It’s easy not to be happy with what you have brought when it comes to technology because there is always something better.

After a long days work, it’s time to relax. Now I’m on gumtree again, but I can’t bring myself to buy second-hand cameras. What if it breaks? Don’t I want something no one else has messed with?

That week I look at my office and wonder why I have three computers, two iPads and three phones. I am only one person and I can’t use all these devices at once. I make a commitment there and then to think before buying any more of these personal electronic devices.

While I can’t resist the temptation right now not to want a new phone, I can, at least, commit to selling my old one first before buying the new one. Too late, I have already got the new phone. Oh, how shiny it is!

Not a problem, I will sell my old phone on eBay when I get a chance. Two months have passed, and I still haven’t sold my iPhone. I will get to it one day.

That day arrives, I have holidays, and I now spend three hours taking photos of the old phone and posting a red hot description so I can get the maximum amount of money to use towards my next holiday.

Maybe it’s time for a new car. I mean my current one has only done 40,000 Km but its petrol. It would be cool to have a hybrid instead so that petrol would be much cheaper. Yes, it would cost a lot up front but think of all the long-term savings!

I’m at the fresh food market. There are people everywhere, and it’s 6 am on a Saturday morning. I have worked a long week, but I have to get up early so I can get lots of fresh food. You don’t want to get sick do you and then not be able to deliver on your vision?

I better get an extra bag of organic apples you just never know if they will have any leftover when I come back.

A few days later, the bag of organic apples has gone off. Better throw them out as they taste yuck when they are off. Next time I won’t buy as many.

It’s been a long week, time to relax and go to a friend’s house. When I get through the door, the floor is covered in shoes and other miscellaneous items. Better help clean up as just the thought of this mess is making me feel stressed. I can rest after all the mess is clear.

I’m back in my office. Time to write something I am feeling inspired about. Hold on, there are business shirts all over the floor. Better iron them and get them off the floor otherwise, I will have nothing to wear next week.

Once I am done, I will get back to my writing. You can’t write in a messy room can you?

What you have just read are my own thoughts over a week told as self-talk to my brain. I may sound like a mad man, but these types are thoughts are perfectly normal in most of us. I should add that I am already fairly minimalistic in my ways so imagine how much crazier they would be for the majority who are not minimalist in their ways.

Three benefits of becoming more minimalist

1. More time to work on your vision

One of the points above was me attempting to sit down and write an article just like this one. While I had the motivation and the goal of writing an article that week, all the shirts on the floor distracted me from fulfilling my deepest desire.

It’s something so simple, but what if I got rid of some business shirts so that instead of having sixty, I just had five? Five shirts are more than enough to last me a full workweek and some of the most successful people in the world like Mark Zuckerberg already do something similar.

Many of us don’t consciously think about who we are trying to impress with a new outfit or clothing combination every day.

“People are so caught up in their own lives; they don’t even notice what you are wearing” – Tim Denning

Now we don’t all need to take this extreme approach and just have five shirts, but what if we had 50% fewer clothes than we currently had? I suspect we would have less to iron, plenty to wear and feel much better.

By having to go off and iron, the clutter of my material possessions got in the way of what I really wanted to do. Sometimes all we want to do is just sit down and write something or read a book. Adding some minimalist concepts to your life can really get you back on track and closer to your vision.

2. Less day to day stress

If you reread by self-talk again, you will notice that I sound a bit on edge. This is what not having enough minimalist qualities to your life can do. All of us to some degree want to come home to a clean house of some description before we start doing what it is that fulfils us.

Too many possessions can easily become a roadblock to that way of life. In can become a self-fulfilling pattern of never been happy with the hear and now. Our thoughts get anxious, and we always want tot think of the next best thing.

When we can be comfortable with what we have, and we don’t always need to go out and upgrade everything we already have – which already works fine – we can remove some of the daily stress we experience.

3. More money to compound further

The overarching theme to my self-talk was that I was constantly thinking about how to spend more money. For most, it’s money that we don’t have. This is where crazy credit card debts and lack of cash flow in our personal lives comes from.

By putting a minimalist touch to our life, we can have more money without having to go out and work more hours, or sell more goods and services in our business. The money that we save can then be put towards meaningful things like travel, or even money generating possessions like property or stock for our business that can help us create even more abundance.

The initial shift from your current ways to being slightly more minimalist doesn’t need to be much. Don’t try going straight to a life of two t-shirts, no car or TV, and a one-bedroom apartment; it won’t work. Instead, just try being more conscious of how much you are consuming and whether what you are buying is a necessity.

This small change in thinking will get you well on the road to a more minimalist life with much more money. Don’t forget to use some of these increased resources to give back and help others.

Are you already using some minimalist habits? I would love to know in the comments section below or on Twitter and Facebook.