Getting rid of life's excess can completely transform your life, but it can also be overwhelming and strenuous. I know, it took me over two years to do.

But now that I've been living minimally for a year and continue to help others on their journeys everyday - I wanted to share 7 lessons to speed your journey into a minimalized life - with more room for what's important.

1. What is your end goal for minimizing?

This is critical. Be specific. Do you want to be cleaner? To live tiny? How tiny? (A van? Trailer? Tiny Home?) Do you want live simpler? Or make more room in your life? By defining your end goal, you'll develop a clearer picture on what you are working to minimize to.

2. Target zones and categorize into groups

Minimizing a whole house, apartment... a life - is alot. So start with zones, like a closet, or cabinet. As you go through these areas, categorize posessions for sorting. For example: If you find a rogue book in your closet - move it to the same spot as the rest of your books. By solidifying categories, you will better understand what you have - so you can begin to eliminate excess and unnecessary.

3. Start with the basic categories and work towards sentimental items

While eliminating, the sentimental items are the hardest to get rid of. So - when it comes time to start, beginwith basics - like clothes, books, kitchenware...etc. As you continue, your decision making process will improve - which will make harder decisions easier.

4. For clothing: Understand your daily rituals, temperatures you'll encounter and define how often you want to do laundry.

How does your day flow? Do you work at a business setting and then go to gym? Or do you surf in the morning and then work outside? Do you spend your weekends in the water or the mountains?

Plan your wardrobe by what you encounter regularly, and then eliminate excess and unecessary. Also consider what temperatures you will encounter while doing each - and what you will need to stay warm, or cool. If you want to push yourself to your most minimal - outline how often you want to do laundry and build your wardrobe to that (This is what I did).

5. What passions bring you joy?

Since a large part of the goal of minimizing is to free up space for more important things in life, you must identify your passions and keep posessions that aid you in acheiving them. This does not mean that you have a ticket to be excessive - but it does mean you need to make space for the tools to get keep your stoke alive. (For example, I went from owning 8 surfboards to 2 that covers all the different types of waves I surf and they both fit in my van).

6. Get it out.

After deciding what you will get rid of - get it out of the house. If it sits there, you may look through it again and decide to keep things. When you get rid of it right then and there, you will forget what was there and continue on your mission making progress.

7. Influence others by leading

Once you get rolling on your own minimizing project, you likely will get excited about it and want to influence others. I've found the best way to do so is to just live - because once you start displaying the benefits of your minimizing,, others will take notice.

I hope these lessons help you on your journey as you - Reform Life.