More than just materialistic minimalism, there's a whole other life minimalism strategy focused on mental heath, based on the concept that your brain is a fatiguable muscle.
Every notice that Steve Jobs wore the same outfit every day? Every notice Mark Zuckerberg does the same? I recently got some possible insight into this fact through author Michael Lewis' recent interview of President Obama for Vanity Fair.
"I'm trying to pare down decisions. I don't want to make decisions about what I'm eating or wearing. Because I have too many other decisions to make." He mentioned research that shows the simple act of making decisions degrades one's ability to make further decisions. It's why shopping is so exhausting. "You need to focus your decision-making energy. You need to routinize yourself. You can't be going through the day distracted by trivia."Think about it. The days when you get home from work with big plans to get something done, and you just can't? You collapse on the couch. And it's not always as if you've spent the day conducting heart surgery in the E.R. Your mind is simply tired from the junk of the day.
So what if we try to automate the unimportant decisions in our life, so we can focus our full attention on the things worthy of it?