A Day in the Life of a Minimalist: How I Do Less & Stay Productive
Hey guys, today I want to share a day in the life of a minimalist, or, in other words, my day. I work from home and am currently working on several projects. I experiment quite a lot in my minimalist life to find the habits that work best for me, so here is what I have found ideal for me so far.
5.30-6 a.m.
I wake up anywhere from 5 to 6 a.m. I started doing this because I noticed how productive I was in the first couple of hours of the day, and I wanted to play on that.
Normally the last thing I do at the end of the day is write down what I want to get done for the next day. I always have one thing that is essential, and I try to make it attainable, and a few other things that are nice to achieve.
I have tried different digital calendars, even things like Google Calendar, but I really do prefer to physically write these out on paper.
I always start off by checking and answering emails. This can take anywhere from five to 30 minutes, and then I write the script for my next video.
I found that I am absolutely the most creative and the clearest in my thought process first thing in the morning, so now this is when I do all of my writing or planning.
The main thing that I am doing today is shooting a commercial. Acting and shooting commercials are one of my side hustles. This is my big goal for today, and honestly, the rest of this is not as important, but I still like to have everything written out, even if those are small things.
I am going to go to the gym or go for a walk, it is going to be 30 minutes of either one. Answering emails will take me around 10 minutes. Next on my list are reviewing last week's video that my editor sent, and then running a sale on my course on financial minimalism.
On the side of the page, I have my two spots where I am checking my phone. This is something new that I am experimenting with. I try not to use my phone first thing in the morning and only check it twice a day.
I have only done this a few times so far, but I have been way more productive on those days. And honestly, I don't have any friends, so nobody contacts me anyways.
7 a.m.
At 7 a.m. I went to the gym for around 40 minutes. I try to keep it a little shorter so that it is easier to go and less of a commitment. When I came back, my wife and baby were up, so I hung out with them for a bit.
8.30 a.m.
At 8.30, Meredith put Laura down for a nap. I usually try to work upstairs in my office, to separate living from work, but my office is right next to where she was napping, and I did not want to wake her up, so I sat down in the kitchen.
I gave myself 15 minutes to review a video, send some footage to my editor, and send a couple of emails to clients. Then I am also going to check my phone, answer anything that is on there, and upload a video to Instagram.
I have been trying to be a lot more conscious of my social media consumption and to produce more than I consume. Still, I think checking Instagram and YouTube once or twice a day is actually good for you since you can look at your friends and family and see what they are up to.
Doing it too much is a problem, however, and I do have that habit that is very distracting, so I am really trying to focus on doing it once or twice a day, and also uploading something at the same time.
Let’s talk about productivity. I love having constraints on my time. Not only with time, I like having a challenge and boundaries that I have to work inside of. If I give myself a couple of days to do it, it takes me a couple of days. That is why I am setting a timer for 2 hours to finish all of my work.
Funnily enough, it took me an hour and 58 minutes. The last 2 minutes I used to clean up. I do not know how this happens, but it always does.
I have the exact same thing for breakfast every day: a bowl of oatmeal and eggs. I am very much a routine person, so this is how I break my fast every single day. For some reason, we always end up eating on the floor, even though there is a table.
For the next hour or so until my phone call, I cleaned up around the house a little bit and put all my camera stuff away, and then I had the phone call.
As a minimalist, whatever I do, I always come at it from this approach of “less, but better”. Can I do less in order to achieve more? What is the least amount I can do? If I have a checklist with ten things on it, what happens if I don't do five of them?
And that is why I try to do very few things every day. This connects to the idea of frugal living and not buying as much.
1 p.m.
At 1 p.m. I was done with my work. For the rest of the day, I normally play video games, hang out with Meredith, go for a walk and then cook something.
A day in the life of a minimalist
Living a minimalist life has made me more productive and creative. I work a few hours but get a lot done, and I still get to spend time with my family every day.
If you are wondering how to live a minimalist life, I hope this article has been useful. If you are a minimalist, what does your day look like?
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I am taking care of my mother and helping my neighbors, which are like family. I start with breakfast in the morning, take my medicine, and get hers ready for her when she gets up. Then I take her to therapy for her fractured hip two days out of the week. My neighbor I take 3 times a week until Christmas. I will clean up the kitchen and load the dishwasher between appointments or after the appointments. By that time it is almost lunch time. I will get me and mother some lunch. Have her afternoon medicine ready for her. The afternoons I will take care of business whatever it may be. For example, running errands, going to the bank, cleaning house, checking e-mail, paying bills, making my appointments for me, making phone calls, or anything else that may come up. Sometimes it may be 5pm by the time I can even start on making dinner. If possible, we might go out for dinner, or at least get dinner and bring it home. My husband will come home and be on the phone for at least an hour or two to catch up on business work. I will let him know how the day went and what we need to do before we go to bed. We run some errands if we need to. Then we will watch some TV before going to bed. As with most everyone, all of us have our own schedule. My kids have their schedule which does not always mesh with ours. But they have been great about helping us out when we need them. We are helping them out in our way. On weekends we do our shopping with our neighbor unless we are out of town for some reason. I also take our neighbors to their doctor's appointments too. If for some reason we can't take them, our other neighbor steps in for us. This is how my weeks have been for a while now. This too may change next year.