Add recreation to your calendar

By identifying your core values you become more aware of what pursuits are worth your resources and can better employ them. There will be necessary tasks that don’t align with your core values, but you still have tremendous freedom to make your choices matter.

Prioritizing lets you better choose the content you consume and the opportunities you seek so you can foster your core values more effectively.

Once you start pursuing productivity, efficiency-killers like TV, social media, and mindless consumption are likely to be the first to go.

We spend all day staring at screens, read books on Kindles or iPads, and come home to relax by watching a movie or TV.

Digital technologies lump together the good with the bad.

As Cal Newport defines it, Digital minimalism is:

“A philosophy of technology use in which you focus your online time on a small number of carefully selected and optimized activities that strongly support things you value, and then happily miss out on everything else.”

Clutter has less to do with what you have and more with where it goes.

• Use your given limits.
• Prioritize a place for your important things.

You will then see what doesn't belong in your home simply because it doesn't have a place.

When sprucing up your home, remember the purpose that each room serves. Focusing on your room's purpose will make your home cozier and meaningful. If you work on your living room, ask yourself:

• Will the layout help me entertain my family and friends?
• Will this sofa help me relax after a long day?

The amount of light in your home can promote your well-being by helping your body follow its natural circadian rhythm, making you more active and alert.

Design features like translucent curtains, light wood flooring, and matte surfaces to invite more sunshine into your home.

Spiritual wellness is not about any specific faith, but about fostering a sense of inner peace and harmony, while conducting activities that supports one's beliefs and values.

Minimalism, at its core, is about alignment with our core values, while removing distractions. Minimalism contributes significantly to spiritual wellness by directing our finite resources of time, money and energy towards the things that matter to us the most.

Physical wellness is about developing healthy habits and minimizing any risky behaviors, which can affect our well-being.

Minimalism encourages physical wellness by making healthier eating choices, avoiding any unnecessary eating, focusing on an active lifestyle, and removing physical clutter from our surroundings.

It’s about getting rid of things you do not use or need, leaving an uncluttered, simple environment and an uncluttered, simple life.

It’s living without an obsession with material things or an obsession with doing everything and doing too much. It’s using simple tools, having a simple wardrobe, carrying little and living lightly.

• It’s more sustainable.
• It’s easier to organize.
• It’s lower in stress.
• It’s less expensive and less debt.
• It’s less cleaning and maintaining.
• There’s more room for creating, for loved ones, for peace, for doing the things that give you joy.
• There’s more time for getting healthy.

One approach for recharging leads to balance and recovery. It suggests you use your downtime for something unrelated to your job that will refresh you. Think about it in terms of detachment, relaxation, autonomy, mastery, meaning, and affiliation.

You first have to understand which of your needs are least satisfied by your work, then choose hobbies which fulfill these needs. If your work does not offer enough social interaction, pick a social pastime. If your job is not challenging, choose a hobby where you can learn new skills.

Enrichment Theory offers a perspective from work psychology and points out that the skills and experiences we build in our free time can complement our work performance.

It suggests that you find a hobby that touches on your job in some way. If you want to use your leadership skills, play the role of team captain for your local soccer team.

Instead of trying to find ways to make more money, minimalists contemplate the opposite: They live with less.

Minimalists find that after going through simplifying their lives and their interiors, they feel more at peace and in charge of their surroundings.

Getting started on the road to minimalism can be the hardest. Once you realise how much you own, it can be overwhelming and fill you with guilt about the money wasted.

After decluttering, you may encounter another emotional factor: When you live with just the things you really love, breaking something will feel way more dramatic.

It’s essential to feel confident and comfortable in the clothing you wear. Ditch the seasonal trends and style labels, discover your style and create unique looks you love.

An authentic and timeless wardrobe should reflect your personality and make you feel most like yourself. Ask yourself what your clothing conveys and what fabrics, colors, patterns and fits are you most comfortable wearing.

Quality apparel has a higher price than fast fashion clothing because they use sustainable, lasting fabrics and pay workers fair benefits and wages. Despite the initial cost, over time, you might save money and time as you won’t have to replace clothes too often.

To lessen the financial impact you can shop secondhand (thrift stores also have quality clothing), start small, shop deals and save for the expensive items, such as a winter coat or high-end denim, months in advance.

In 1915, a Danish company for decorative arts launched a magazine to promote local craftsmanship.

It was made to compete against the Art Noveau movement. Social commentary pressed more on the arts, which paved the way for Art Deco - an industrially-driven design philosophy.

• In the 1930s, artists, inspired by the concepts of Constructivism, Functionalism, and Surrealism, paved the way for Nordic design's iconic milestones.
• In the 1950s, the Lunning Prize (an equivalent of Nobel Prize) hailed exemplary designers who have given valuable contributions to Nordic Design from 1951 to 1970.
• In 1954, a traveling exhibition comprised of the region's best designs landed in the United States and Canada and influenced the American culture.
• In Denmark, Danish design thrived during the 1940s to the 1960s and created its own flavor, abandoning grandeur ornamentation in pursuit of form and function.
• After WWII, Danish design has become a democratic movement, where makers turn to mass-producing natural raw materials such as ceramics, wood, and leather.
• While the popularity declined in the 1970s, it had an upturn a decade later.