How do you feel when you see the house full of clutter? Whenever city people get stressed, they start buying a lot of unnecessary things. Nonetheless, our productivity and mood are greatly affected by our working environment. When you look at a person's home, you can probably tell their personality traits.

Minimalism, which has become popular in Japan in recent years, has become the belief of many people. They believe that freedom of mind and body begins with getting rid of materialistic desires, discarding superfluous objects and leaving only what truly serves them. It is an attitude of life that helps us to create not only a comfortable environment, but also to reorganize our minds and souls. In the following, we offer tips for minimalism in the areas of clothing, food, housing, and transportation:

Keep your usual clothes only

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• Think about how often you will use the item before purchase. If you are unable to control yourself, leave the store for a while. If it's still on your mind a few days later, you really do like the commodity. You can then consider getting it and avoid impulsive spending.
• Only buy colours that can be easily mixed and matched. Minimalism doesn't mean boring, but rather it challenges us to create different combinations within a limited selection. Therefore, we can focus on buying colours and outfits that can be easily mixed and matched, such as a white shirt that can be worn with a skirt or a pair of jeans.
• Discard clothing you can no longer wear regularly. Most of the time, we only wear pieces placed on the top of our drawer, but the rest of the bottom layers are almost dusty and no longer fit. However, they take up quite some space in our house. We often need to review the clothes we don't need in every season.
• The way we organize things affects how they are used. How often would you wear your clothes if they were lying around and hard to find? For easy access to your favourite clothes, you can refer to Marie Kondo's Folding Method. Fold your clothes until they can stand on their own and arrange them by colour in your closet.

Consume nutritious food at the right time

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• Avoid eating excessive canned or processed foods and prevent MSG-induced chronic diseases such as cancer, obesity or diabetes.
• Stick to the original foods such as salads, baked vegetables, friend salmon, etc. to get the most nutrients, freshness and flavour.
• Buy the portions you need instead of storing large amounts of expired food, which leads to food wastage.
• Eat only when you really need it to cultivate an attitude of food appreciation and appetite control, allowing you to be more focused. If you want to eat whenever feeling bored or stressed, try other activities to distract yourself, such as stretching or playing fidget cubes.

See what you really need in the house

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• Clean your house regularly to make more space. According to Japanese organizing consultant Marie Kondo, we need to express our gratitude to items for their services before throwing them away. It makes us realize the sense of value each item we bought, rather than just throwing them away as we go.
• Categorize items well, such as dividing them into books, clothing, personal collections, miscellaneous items and documents. We can assemble them in different boxes or drawers and put them back in their dedicated places one by one.

Simplify your travel gear

• Pack for what you truly need. Quite often, we overload our bags with things we don't want to miss or have no time to pack. However, we cannot be lazy on tidying up our bags. It is a good opportunity to practise letting go.
• Cultivate the habit of using 1-2 bags to avoid leaving things in other bags, which assist in simplifying the packing process.

*Moral and Operation Smile present a combination of red, white and blue Tait backpack with special seals. It's spacious with distinctive compartments, while its unique colours enlightening your school days and holiday outings.

• Choose a versatile, easy-to-wear day bag to match your look with a variety of styles!

Napier Crossbody Operation Smile series has 3 multiple uses - as a shoulder bag, a crossbody and a pouch, making it the perfect day bag that fits your need.

*For every bag you buy from this collection, we will donate one bag to the underprivileged kids. In addition, we will donate HK$60 for every bag sold from the Moral X Operation Smile Collection to fund surgeries for children with cleft lips.

Minimalism is an attitude of life - reminding us not to cling to material satisfaction, but to think about how to treat our bodies well, letting go of the clutter and thoughts. It teaches us to keep things simple and to concentrate on meaningful things. What have you let go of today?

Visit Moral x Operation Smile's Charity Series now!