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Have you gone through some minimalist content and stumbled upon miscellaneous set of words you´re not completely sure what they´re all about? Here we have gathered plenty of them, accompanied with definitions. This resource may also be of value if you´re looking into different perspectives of minimalism as we have covered areas from architecture, productivity, business, philosophy and more.
Affluenza: A worldwide epidemic of overconsumption that can lead to debt, anxiety, feeling of emptiness and environmental destruction, among other things.
Attention Span: Duration a person is able to focus on the task at hand without being distracted to elsewhere.
Bauhaus: Bauhaus was originally a German art school (1919-1933) but has later become more known as a design direction. It emphasizes rationality, simple geometry and paring things down to the essence. Among the Bauhaus icons is an architect and designer Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1886-1969) who famously stated “less is more”.
Benson´s Law of Specifity: A notion that in order to become great at a certain activity, you get there by practicing that given activity.
BIFL: Buy It For Life. A definition for products that last a lifetime, or at least a considerably long time. Furthermore, this term is often connected to products that are highly repairable.
Buyer´s High: An euphoric feeling that can follow after a purchase. However, this high can also turn into a buyer´s remorse.
Buyer´s Remorse: A resentment that can occur after purchasing a product. Typically happens after the realization that the person doesn´t have an actual need for the purchase.
Buy Nothing Day: A single day held each year to encourage people to not buy anything on that day to reflect on overconsumption.
Capsule Wardrobe: A wardrobe where the limited number of different clothing items are highly complementary with each other. Capsule wardrobes typically consist of neutral colors.
Carbon Footprint: An amount of carbon dioxide individual or an organization emits.
Carbon Negative: An organization removes more carbon dioxide than it emits.
Carbon Neutral: An organization emits and removes an equal amount of carbon dioxide.
Carbon-Offsetting: A practice where companies or individuals offset their carbon emissions they have produced.
Circular Economy: A process where the lifecycle of materials is extended to be as lengthy as possible. To do this, aspects such as manufacturing, sharing and recycling are taken into consideration.
Compound Interest: One of the key- and most fruitful concepts of money management. Compound interest is an interest that is added to your principal. Longer the time horizon, more effective the compounding effect becomes. Albert Einstein allegedly once regarded it as the eight wonder of the world.
Consumptive Consumption: A tendency to consume or purchase products in a manner that becomes harmful for the person and/or the environment.
Consumerism: A concept that increasing consumption of goods is desirable.
DEAL Framework: Definition, Elimination, Automation, and Liberation Tim Ferriss introduced in his book, The 4-Hour Workweek. First, you have to define what makes you happy. This is followed by focusing on to eliminating matters that do not move you towards your goal, instead giving attention to the most essential tasks.
Deep Work: As the author behind this definition, Cal Newport puts it: “Deep work is the ability to focus without distraction on a cognitively demanding task.”
Decision Fatigue: A concept that underlines that more decisions along the day you make, the following decisions become increasingly more difficult to make.
Declutter: A process where a person removes unnecessary items from his/her life.
Diderot effect: A phenomenon where a purchase of one thing leads to purchases of items that complement it. This can lead into consumptions spiral. Named after a French philosopher Denis Diderot (1713-1784).
Digital Minimalism: As in the physical world, minimalism can be also applied into the digital counterpart. Digital minimalism can be applied by i.a. unistalling distracting apps and removing unnecessary notifications on a phone.
Digital Nomad: A person who earns income through internet, thus being location-independent and utilizes this benefit by travelling and working around the world.
Direct-to-Consumer: A business model is cut: products are delivered straight from the company to consumer instead of utilizing retailers in between. For a customer, this can show up as a better value products and more cohesive customer experience.
Earth Overshoot Day: A date on which the humanity´s resource usage exceeds what our planet is able to generate in new resources on that year.
EDC: Everyday Carry. Set of items a person carries on a daily basis.
Elevator Pitch: An occurrence where a person or a group introduce their idea in 30 seconds. Most typically referred to a business setting where entrepreneurs are introducing their business idea to investors. Ever heard of Shark Tank?
Entropy: A scientific concept according to which disorder in the universe is ever-increasing. On minimalism, entropy is often used with an analogy on cleaning a person´s room.
Essentialism: As explained by its creator Greg McKeown: “A systematic discipline for discerning what is absolutely essential, then eliminating that is not, so we can meke the highest possible contribution toward the things that really matter.”
Financial Minimalism: Using money on where it matters and cutting off the expenses that do not bring in any real value.
FIRE: Financial Independence, Retire Early. A movement where which focuses on to frugality and aggressive saving and investment rates so that through passive income financial independence and a possibility for early retimerent are achieved.
Fika: A swedish concept that refers to having coffee with friends but is also often considered a more broader state of mind on taking a little time off from the stressors of everyday life.
Frugal: Term for a person who uses one´s financial resources sparingly.
FOMO: Fear Of Missing Out. A psychological tendency of people to that is often exploited to get them to do something, such as make purchases. Examples of methods to boost FOMO include limited edition items and a limited purchase time.
Greenwashing: A practice where companies make a product look or the whole company more environmentally friendly than it actually is.
Hintsa Method: Health and wellbeing concept developed by a Finnish doctor Aki Hintsa. It consists of inner motivation, general health, nutrition, mental energy, biomechanics, sleep & recovery and physical activity. In order for a person to be well, all of these components must exist and be in balance.
Hygge: Originating from Scandinavia, Hygge refers to a feeling of coziness and comfort.
Igikai: Japanese concept that refers to “a reason for being”.
Japandi: A design language that is a hybrid of Japanese and Scandinavian minimalist design characteristics.
Kaizen: Closely tied to lean methodology, this Japanese concept emphasizes how continuous improvement and small changes can make a big difference to efficiency of processes.
KonMari: Organization methodology created by a Japanese organizing consultant Marie Kondo.
Lagom: A saying originating from Sweden: “Not too little, not too much.”
Lean: Business methodology where continual improvements are made, waste is reduced and as a result optimal results are achieved. Can be also adopted to a personal life of an individual.
Minimalism: A movement where a person only owns items that bring value to him/her life. However, this is only a one of multiple definitions for the term.
Minimalist: A person who practices minimalism.
MVP: Minimum Viable Product. A concept introduced by Eric Ries where a product is brought to the market in a state where it only has the essential features so that the users can give feedback and help develop the product into a better, more refined form.
Muda: A Japanese concept for waste.
Net Zero: An organization emits and removes an equal amount of greenhouse gases. Carbon neutrality is a similar type of concept but only considers carbon dioxide.
One Bagging: A method where person travels with a single bag. The aim is to only carry beneficial items which gives more freedom and flexibility.
Pareto Principle: Also known as 80/20 rule. The principle states that often times 80% of the output is derived from 20% of the input. Named after an Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto.
Passive Income: Income that is not tied directly to our time. Income that can be acquired without active work.
Planned Obsolescence: A systematic practice of companies to artificially reduce the lifecycle of their products in order to increase the number of recurring purchases of their customers.
Pomodoro: Time management technique introduced by Fransesco Cirilloin in the late 1980s. Using a timer, work time is divided into prespecified slots which are followed by short breaks.
Project 333: A minimalist challenge introuduced by Courtney Carver where during 30 days, only 33 clothing items can be worn.
Resistance: Important concept in the world of habit forming. We tend to take the path of least resistance. Thus, we should consider how we could increase the resistance to discourage negative habits and decrease it to engourage positive ones.
Right to Repair: A worldwide movement that pushes for long-lasting and easily repairable products.
Spartan Lifestyle: A way of living that originates from Spartans, an ancient Greece community. They valued self-restrainment, simplicity and frugality.
Stoicisism: A school of thought originating from ancient Greece which emphasizes i.a. virtue, all-importance of nature and to the notion that one should only focus things they can do something about.
Sustainability: A practice of meeting our own needs without compromising others´. Can take many forms from environmental to social to economic sustainability.
Swedish Death Cleaning: A process where person clears out his or her home before dying so that there will be less burden for the descendants. Also used in the minimalism movement as a not death related decluttering method.
TPS: Toyota Production System. A system to produce products backed with the philosophy of complete eliminatinon of waste in order to achieve a maximum level of efficiency.
Wabi-Sabi: A Japanese philosophy, derived from Buddhism, that emphasizes the temporary and imperfect nature of our world.
Zero Waste: A movement where people try to live a lifestyle where nothing ends up to a landfill.
30-Day Minimalism Game: A challenge introduced by The Minimalists where on day one a person get rid of one item, on day 2 two items and so on until the day 30.
5 Second Rule: A productivity hack popularized by Mel Robbins. You start to commit a task within 5 seconds it comes to mind so that your brain will not have time to talk you out of it.
80/20 Rule: Check Pareto principle above.
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