First of all, this isn't something new; we all have a dose of minimalism within ourselves and employ it in day-to-day activities and interactions, to a certain extent. It is not a recent discovery, unless for the uneducated and irrational that waste paper and screen estate with their copious gushing. It is nothing more than common sense that helps with self-preservation and avoiding the unnecessary. For instance, you may wish to manifest it when you're supposed to chip in for a gift for a person you don't really like. I choose to employ it whenever boring tasks are being assigned. Or any task that doesn't involve eating some cake. In reasonable amounts, it makes life better and comfortable. Take it to extreme, though, and it ends up doing more harm than good. Just like anything in excess (except for that caramel cake you thought you'd hidden in the back of the fridge behind Janet's salad box before leaving for meetings).
With the risk of sounding like Deepak Chopra, modern minimalists are people for whom enough is not enough, but the other way around. They're boring wasteful nihilist narcissists lacking the afore-mentioned common sense.
Here's how to become one.
Throw away anything that does not bring you joy (their advice). Start with one unnecessary object. Today. Continue with two objects tomorrow. And so on. You get it. For lack of inspiration, start with your boss' umbrella (my advice). Tomorrow chuck one of his gloves and that book you said you'd start reading two years ago. In a four weeks, your life will be less cluttered and you will be happy. If you're married, make it a seven months. Of course, if you were slightly organized when you began you could end up homeless and naked, too. Crass generalization aside, I find some issues with this "logic". It is a narrow view that can only suit people with more money and useless stuff than common sense.
Sooner or later, this approach will incur additional costs.
There are objects that do not bring joy but you should not throw away, for obvious reasons. The snow shovel, for example. It brings me no joy when I use it to clear the driveway and its contribution to the aesthetic outlook of the shed is rather negligible. It beats being hungry and snowed in at home, though. It could even bring some satisfaction, however, if I used to beat the pompous pricks who find it smarter to pay someone else an amount of money to shovel their snow while they're shaking their ass at the gym because they cannot imagine another way to work out a bit. I could also use it to beat the inconsiderate minimalists that find it pointless to spend money on headphones and listen to crap music on the phone speaker on the subway near me. Come to think of it, a shovel would bring me a lot of joy in a lot of scenarios.
Another great example that quickly comes to mind is the toolbox. I sure as hell wouldn't keep it for the joy it brings, save for beating minimalists with a hammer when the shovel is broken. But without it, how could I fix a shelf that's come loose? If it's the shelf where I keep the toolbox, where would I keep the toolbox then?
This is not a very exhaustive list by far, but I hope it helps you understand. Besides, my manager has left for lunch and I can shift my focus away from the keyboard, to the dark quiet conference room I booked for a minimalist afternoon nap.
But before I turn in I would like to end on an optimistic note. Because minimalism is a good thing, that helps you spend less time cleaning up. And if baristas practiced it to get rid of all the joy-killing clutter, the coffee-shops would be more enjoyable without teenagers sporting truck tyre earrings and indoor fake fur jackets whilst hogging the tables all day long with their MacBooks and a coffee with 8 words in the title. And there would be no coffees with 8 words in the title on the menu, either.
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