Minimalism and Uncluttering

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With information overload and proliferation of choice in the last few years - in developed and developing economies, businesses are working round the clock to ensure you part ways with that hard earned buck at the end of every month. Advancement in mobile ads has left no medium of interaction untouched, making it hard to avoid some brand shouting it's existence and how it's products could potentially improve your life. 

Residing in a place far away from the centre of a city teaches you how important those 'materialistic' experiences are. Believe me, studying in a campus which is not quite accessible and has little to no luxuries can get to you more often than you think. The need for instant gratification makes you use that app on your phone to either call a cab or buy something that you might not really need.

The following story is one where I personally understood the importance of holding my impulse and avoiding swiping away my card without hesitation. As with most processes, I still am in the learning phase and hopefully these experiences can help you now or some time in the future.

At some point in everyone's life, we have all been victims of marketing exercises. No matter how pragmatic we think we are, there are usually a few things around us that we can definitely live without. A self confessed shop-o-holic, I tend to find plenty of solace in retail therapy or a fancy lunch/dinner/coffee. To get out of the zone of being owned by my possessions, I started the process of stripping life off luxuries and living with essentials. In other words, I took my baby steps towards a minimalism. The initial findings were positive, letting me focus on things that really matter and rather than trying to keep up with a fast paced world, where there are shiny new products every waking minute. Such was my story, where I went all out to buy gadgets, clothes, accessories, accessories for my gadgets, clothes, gadgets, clothes, well you get the drift. Upon stepping into a student life which did not demand so much in terms of fashion or technology, I was left with such excess that I wanted to clear the clutter and rid my mind of the feeling of not using something I have spent a lot of money on.

I have always believed that we feel obligated to use the things that we have bought leading to a scenario where we are being owned by them, when in reality it should be the other way around. For example, a phone when used for basic purposes like phone calls, e-mails and messages hardly needs to be cutting edge, which does not warrant repeat purchases or breaking your bank to get the latest. In such a case where we have indeed made the choice of buying something high end, the general upkeep of that would occupy such a significant chunk of our awake time, that it leaves us wishing we never bought it in the first place. To further strengthen my belief, I came across how changing trends, fashion and style are leading to overall accumulation of unused clothes, more manufacturing and overall environmental damage.

The best part about experimenting is that you constantly learn from success and failure alike and the past few weeks have been a great experience for me. I started the process of minimising my screen time, switched off one of my phones, ditched my iPod and iPad to ensure more time for reading and guess what - I finished all the reading I wanted to and got back to a sane routine.

This article might sound a little similar to one of those first world problems, where they learn how to deal with excess, but believe me, as average Indians, we deal with plenty of clutter ourselves. It just takes time to prioritize and let go.

P.S : Relating these findings to business, I find that companies that try to do everything eventually tend to fail or at least not be profitable. Being popular is one thing, but when the basic idea of a business is to make money, they find themselves asking where it all went wrong. Look at Sony for instance. Once the king of electronics, they set industry standards and are now struggling to even compete with home grown brands everywhere. Rather than sticking to core product lines, Sony ended up making AA sized batteries for their gaming consoles even! While it's one thing to say that business growth, brand image etc., are cyclical in nature, I wrote my thoughts on how companies find it hard to sustain great ideas and be relevant in today's super competitive marketplace. Lean is the new in I suppose. Thank you skinny and carrot fitting trousers! 

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