Only Do This If You Want To Be Happy!
The #1 Thing I've Started Doing More and More that has made me happier and happier in the past 3 years is Minimalising.
Watch the 1 minute video or read the blog, or even better: do both!
Important:
The examples and simple explanation I use in this post is a very basic introduction. In order to apply minimalism in a way that it is effective we need to dive in deep. I could write a book about it, and maybe one day I well.
Physical Things
So the first thing to minimalise on is stuff. Basically the idea is that we all possess a lot of things that we hardly ever use, or wouldn't have to use if we use other things more efficiently. A nice example might be an 'apple-cutter' yes we can cut a whole apple in 8 slices with one motion which is nice, but with a knife it takes 2 seconds longer, yet we don't have to spend $10 on a device that we only use to cut apples. Also and this is more important, we don't have that device laying around in the kitchen for no reason like 99% of the time.
By getting rid of these unnecessary things we create 'space' in our lives and mind , and literally space in our house. It also means we spend less money on stuff we don't really need and we don't have to worry about things breaking down as much. Another step could be to be less up-tight about other people using our things. At the end of the day, it's just stuff.
Activities
Another thing you can minimalise on is activities. My favourite example: family birthdays. Bleh I just don't like sitting around all day with people I hardly know and are 30 years older than me. I would much rather spend my time somewhere else actually adding value to someone's life because let's honest here. You hardly ever get time to talk to the birthday boy or girl, you don't really care about the other people and everybody is just pretending to have fun, whilst eating way more cake than they should. So pick your activities carefully you only get to spend your time once.
Conclusion
By 'cutting out' the stuff that's not important to us, or that simply doesn't add value to our lives we get to be so much happier. It's like getting rid of weeds so that there is more space for the roots of our crops ;)