3 Benefits of Minimalism & Why It Makes You Happier

Can owning less actually make you happier? According to Fumio Sasaki’s Goodbye, Things, minimalism—the practice of keeping only essential possessions—leads to greater clarity, improved focus, and more freedom in your life.

Sasaki argues that decluttering your home does more than create physical space. By eliminating unnecessary belongings, you’re forced to reflect on your values and priorities, which helps you understand what truly matters. Here’s a breakdown of the benefits of minimalism.

Why Minimalism Makes You Happy

According to Fumio Sasaki, in Goodbye, Things, if you have too much stuff, you need to get rid of some of it. You can do this by embracing minimalism—an approach to life where you consciously decide to only own the bare necessities. To do this, you must consider the merit of each item you own—is it essential, or are you merely holding onto it for the emotional reasons outlined above? If it’s not essential, Sasaki encourages you to get rid of it. He elaborates that there isn’t a specific number of possessions someone needs to eliminate to become a minimalist, but that becoming a minimalist means making a personal choice about what you actually need.

Sasaki argues that getting rid of unnecessary belongings not only makes your home less cluttered, but that it leads to a more fulfilling, enjoyable, and purposeful life. He found that his own life transformed as he embraced minimalism. Sasaki achieved greater clarity of purpose, an improved mood, and more time and freedom than he had previously thought possible. Here are the primary three benefits of minimalism.

Benefit #1: Getting Rid of Possessions Gives You Clarity

Sasaki maintains that eliminating unnecessary possessions helps you clarify your values and sense of purpose. This is because choosing which items to eliminate requires you to repeatedly ask yourself what’s essential for your life, forcing you to reflect on your deepest priorities and commitments. For example, let’s say you have a large collection of old DVDs that you no longer watch. In reflecting on whether this is really necessary, you realize that you’re holding onto them to impress your friends with all the classic films you’ve seen. This moment of reflection helps you to realize that impressing other people isn’t as important as you once thought, and you can shift your focus to more meaningful lifelong goals.

(Shortform note: Sasaki suggests that minimalism helps you clarify your values through a process of elimination: As you dispose of some items, you dispense with the outdated values they represent. You can take this a step further by disposing of ideas about what you’ll do with your life—for instance, giving up on past ambitions (like becoming a classic movie buff) that no longer align with who you are now. This frees up time and bandwidth for your most important goals. One famous example of this process is the 25/5 rule: Write down 25 things you want to do with your life, then rank them in order of importance. Commit to avoiding the 20 bottom goals, which will waste your time and energy, and devote your life to achieving the top five.)

Sasaki found that this increased clarity spilled over into many areas of his life. Here, we’ll take a closer look at how his attitudes toward possessions, relationships, and experiences changed as he adopted a minimalist lifestyle.

1) Enjoying Your Possessions More

Sasaki explains that getting rid of most of his possessions caused him to place a greater value on the possessions he still had. Each object he owned was something that he’d personally decided was essential to his life, so he valued it highly. Even though he had fewer possessions, he found that he got more enjoyment out of them than he did before he became a minimalist.

(Shortform note: Having fewer things may cause you to enjoy them more because of what psychologists call “the scarcity principle.” According to this theory, you place more value on something when you believe it’s scarce or rare. Some studies have found that even trivial objects like cookies can seem more valuable if they’re in a jar with two other cookies instead of ten. Psychologists believe that you see rare goods as valuable because they trigger a fear of missing out. If there are only two cookies left but ten people in a room, then eight will have to miss out, and your brain doesn’t want you to be one of them.)

2) Focusing on Quality Relationships

As Sasaki came to value the quality of his possessions over their quantity, this view impacted his relationships as well. Although many people strive to maintain superficial ties with a large number of people, embracing minimalism taught him to focus on maintaining deeper connections with fewer people instead. He explains that this mindset helps you cultivate deeper connections that enrich your life, leading to greater happiness and fulfillment.

3) Living in The Present

Furthermore, minimalism began to change the way Sasaki experienced life from moment to moment. He started living in the present instead of thinking about the future or the past. As he got rid of his possessions, he asked himself if he needed the object right now. If he was only holding onto an object because it might become useful in the future or because it reminded him of the past, he would let it go. This taught him to focus on the current moment. Over time, Sasaki found that living in the present helped him enjoy life more because he was getting more out of each experience by giving it his full attention.

Benefit #2: Getting Rid of Possessions Improves Your Focus

Sasaki also writes that he became calmer and more relaxed when he had fewer possessions. This is because, whether you realize it or not, your possessions make demands on your attention. For example, when you see a houseplant, you remember that you need to water it; when you see a book sitting out, you remember that you intended to read it. Whenever you see cluttered or dirty possessions, you’re reminded of your need to organize or clean them. In this way, a cluttered home is like a noisy space full of distractions. No matter where you try to focus your attention, there will always be other objects competing for it. By eliminating excess possessions, you can enjoy a calming, distraction-free environment.

(Shortform note: Research supports the view that clutter can be a distraction. Some studies have found that clutter creates excess visual information that your brain must then work to filter out when keeping you on track. However, further research suggests that clutter has advantages of its own: Study participants in cluttered environments displayed more creativity than those in orderly surroundings, who were prone to more conventional decision-making.)

Benefit #3: Getting Rid of Possessions Gives You Freedom

Sasaki explains that getting rid of possessions gave him more freedom. He cites three types of freedom he discovered: having more money, having more time, and having more choices for housing.

1) Save Money

Sasaki explains that a minimalist lifestyle allows you to save money—minimalism breaks the cycle of constantly accumulating new things via nonstop purchasing. Furthermore, the more possessions you own, the more things you must buy to organize and manage them. For example, when you have a lot of clutter, you need to buy storage bins, shelves, or other organizers to manage it. Minimalism disrupts this pattern by lessening the amount of things to organize.

(Shortform note: Saving money on material possessions also lets you invest more money into experiences, which can make you happier. Research has shown that people who spend money on experiences such as travel, entertainment, outdoor adventures, and meals out, tend to be happier than those who spend more on objects such as clothing, jewelry, furniture, and technology. Therefore, a lifestyle that lets you spend less on possessions has the added benefit of freeing up money to invest in more life experiences.)

2) Save Time

According to Sasaki, a minimalist lifestyle gives you more free time. This is because the possessions you own create additional work for you to do—such as dusting, washing, sorting, or organizing. When you remove possessions from your home, you acquire more free time that no longer needs to be spent on these tasks. You’ll also spend less time shopping for new items and will be less distracted by ads for new products, since you’ll already be content with what you have. Lastly, Sasaki explains that you’ll save time spent looking for lost objects since it’ll be easier to keep track of your possessions. The time you once put into acquiring and maintaining possessions can now be put toward more meaningful activities or relaxation.

(Shortform note: Some experts say the amount of free time you have matters less than how you approach your free time. They contrast two mindsets that determine your relationship to time: scarcity and abundance. A scarcity mindset views time as a resource that’s constantly slipping away. This view may discourage you from wasting time, but it can lead to high levels of stress and burnout. A scarcity mindset can also lead to “tunnel vision” where priorities are overlooked and forgotten. In contrast, someone with an abundance mindset believes that there is ample time for their priorities in life. An abundance mindset improves your well-being by lowering your stress throughout the day, thereby allowing you to enjoy your free time more.)

3) Choose Your Living Situation

Sasaki explains that having fewer possessions gives you more freedom to choose your lifestyle. This is because your belongings take a lot of time and effort to pack up. With fewer possessions, you will have fewer obstacles to moving and can seek out new housing whenever it’s convenient. Sasaki points out that some minimalists have even chosen a nomadic lifestyle, working remotely amid regular travel. 

(Shortform note: Although Sasaki suggests that having fewer possessions will make it easier to move whenever you want, it’s worth noting that this doesn’t account for the financial challenges of moving. In the US, the average cost of a local move (within 100 miles) is $1,714, while the average cost for long-distance moves is $4,582. Some studies have found that the median American household has only $8,000 in savings, and 59% of Americans would have a hard time covering a $1,000 emergency expense—for many, even those with minimalist lifestyles, moving regularly isn’t financially feasible.)

Furthermore, by owning fewer things, you’ll need less space to store it all and have the option of choosing smaller, less expensive housing that wouldn’t be practical if you had an entire moving truck full of belongings to store.

(Shortform note: According to some financial experts, a smaller house provides a wide range of advantages when choosing to buy a home. Small homes are more energy efficient, which saves you money and benefits the environment. Smaller homes also cost less to maintain and decorate, since there are fewer things that can break and fewer rooms that need decorations. Furthermore, saving money on housing means you can move to a more desirable location without spending as much as you would have for a larger home. Finally, should you decide to resell, you’ll have a wider market of prospective buyers and therefore an easier time selling, since more customers will be able to afford it.)

Learn More About Minimalism

If you want to learn more about minimalism and its benefits, read our full guide to Goodbye, Things.