Minimalist Mindset: How To Declutter Your Schedule

Two years ago, my life was a mess. I was working full time, studying, and trying to keep up an active social life in between my family time and time with my partner. I was a dedicated schedule keeper, constantly carrying around my full sized planner in my bag. It was exhausting and I knew that something had to change.

Then I found minimalism. Minimalism changed not only the amount of stuff I own, it changed how I spent my time. Over the past two years, I’ve gone from that jam-packed schedule, to a clear and open calendar, spending most days how I wish. I just took a few steps to get from there to here:

How To Declutter Your Schedule Free Time

1. Clarify Your Priorities

The first step in figuring out how to clear your schedule is to clarify what is most important in your life. To me, family, time in nature, down time for things like reading, hiking, etc, were my top priorities. When I looked at my schedule, it was filled with tasks like happy hour, networking events, and weekends stuffed with housework. Once I decided to make a change, I stopped going to all of those events, halved my wardrobe (no more days spent doing laundry!), and all of a sudden had free time to do things like go for day-long hikes or spend the day at my parents house.

2. Learn How To Say No

There is still only so much time in the day. We must acknowledge that although there are so many things we can do, we don’t have to do all of them. Learning how to say no to the things that aren’t a priority was difficult to me at first. Eventually I created a massive goal (save money to travel the world), which made my priorities much more clear and made it much easier to say no to happy hour or events that didn’t help me get to this goal.

3. Reignite Your Passions

How To Declutter Your Life Calendar Once I had all of this free time, I had to figure out what I really loved and wanted to spend my time doing. I had gotten rid of the tasks that were stopping me from doing what I loved – but I didn’t know what that was. After 27 years of being uber busy with school, work, family, a social life, I had no idea what my true passions were. It wasn’t until I had the free time to try new things (I got a camera, started a website, checked out books from the library), that I found out what I really loved. I love photography. I love learning about websites and writing. Now that I have time, I can do these things, when I want to.

4. Find Something Deeper

The thought of world travel was really exciting to me at first. Once I actually started doing it, I found that it was much more fulfilling when I could share my experiences. I started writing about what I had learned, and how minimalism changed my life and led me to follow my dreams that I’d pushed so far away. I now live my life happy and fulfilled, knowing that I create something regularly to enhance the lives of others.

How To Declutter Your Schedule

Decluttering my schedule was just one of the many benefits of minimalism for me. Minimalism has completely enhanced my life for the better, leading me to where I am now – traveling the world and living a happy, fulfilled life.

Your Turn!

  • What do you want to take out of your schedule?
  • What would you like to spend more of your time doing?
3 Comments
  1. Nice one. I’m currently back home from a spell living abroad and am clearing out a lot of stuff I had at home. One of the big shifts that simple living has taught me is to shift from consuming to producing. In the broadest sense of the word. So many simple choices become far more conscious decisions. As you say, ‘learning to say no’ is a big one too!

  2. I need to learn to stop trying to accommodate everyone all the time and take time to myself. Get back to enjoying what I love to do sewing and hopefully soon get back into the outdoors and get the garden going.

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