Evertett bogue the art of being minimalist

You’ve been convinced you need all of these things in your life, but you don’t.. I almost guarantee that you’re spending outrageous amounts of money on something in your life that you do

THE ART OF BEING

EVERETT BOGUE

BY

Imagine a world where your life isn’t dominated by the things you carry

The freedom that comes from a closet that contains a handful of stylish clothes

One nice pair of shoes

You have the freedom of an uncluttered schedule So you can pursue your dreams

Imagine if you could work from anywhere, and move whenever you pleased

Imagine if you didn’t have to do housework every single weekend You would never forget where your glasses are, because you know where everything is instictively

This world exists, you just have to go find it

I firmly believe that being minimalist is the answer to many of your questions

I know this because it is the life I live every day

This e-book is my minimalist story

I hope that it helps you find the answers

In July 2009, I quit my job and moved across the country to Portland I had everything I owned on

my back and $3000 in my bank account

I had no plan, no job lined up It was the middle of the Great Recession Everyone told me that I shouldn’t do it, that it’d be impossible I’d fail and end up bankrupt, hanging out under the Inter-state with Portland’s large, hippy homeless community

But I didn’t fail, I thrived This is the story of my minimalist success It wasn’t easy, but it was sible

pos-Since then, I’ve found that I can live wherever I want I’ve been to Seattle, Chicago, and back to Brooklyn I’m planning to head out to Berkeley in May

This e-book is about how I live this life

The secret is that being minimalist opens a lot of doors automatically

You just have to free up the mind-space from sorting your stamp collection and hauling around the boxes full of books you’ve already read When you do, you start to realize that every person on this planet can be much freer than they are, they just have to let themselves take the journey

There were only three primary choices I made to leave my job

1, I had to have less than 100 things

2, I had to give up consumerism and cook all of my own food

3, I had to learn to work on the Internet

The first two are covered comprehensively in this e-book The 3rd is another story completely, and perhaps my next e-book will be on the topic

This e-book is a chronicle of my minimalist philosophy for success Within, I go over in great detail

my minimalist philosophy towards life I hope you’ll give it a read

HOW THIS ALL

STARTED

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

EVERETT

BOGUE

Everett Bogue is the blogger behind Far Beyond The Stars, where he

writes about being minimalist and living a creative life

He was the photo editor of New York Magazine’s blogs from

2006-2009

He has lived in Brooklyn, NY; Portland, OR, and Chicago, IL over the

last four months He’s he’s holed up for the winter in Brooklyn with his

cute girlfriend and her special cat, Lola He’ll be in SF Bay in May

He has less than 75 things

There are many reasons, and not everyone follows the same path or ends up with the

same outcome

If you’re reading this, there’s probably a good chance you’ve answered some of these

questions for yourself already

Here are a few reasons that you might decide to become a minimalist

• You’re unhappy with your job

• You want to travel

• You’re stressed and can’t find time

• You want to follow your passion

• You’ve bought everything you ever needed, but you’re still not happy

There are of course more reasons, these are just some of the most common ones I

became a minimalist for a combination of these reasons

Being minimalist helped me leave my unsatisfying job It helped me move across the

country with very little money It helped me lose 20 pounds I’m calmer now, and

more in control of my destiny

WHY BECOME A

MINIMALIST?

Being minimalist is having the flexibility to do what you want, when you wish to

do it.

Think about it If you wanted to, could you do these things:

• Could you fly to Peru next Friday?

• Could you start your own company?

• Could you relocate to Vancouver next week?

• Could you cope if you lost your job?

There are people who are free to do these things When these people want to make

change, they do

You can be one of them by becoming minimalist

I don’t believe you should just be minimalist for the sake of being minimalist The

philosophy has to have another reason, and it’s important to write that down

Think of something impossible, an objective that you’ve always wanted to achieve,

but that everyone told you was impractical Make that your goal for next year

Write that goal down.

When I quit my job and flew to Portland, OR, it was easy because I could carry

all of my stuff I lived a sustainable life, so surviving on $3,000 for three months

wasn’t difficult

Many people are trapped in their own lives by their stuff But the reality is, we don’t

need most of it anymore

Despite what they might tell you on television news, we live in an age of

abun-dance

You can have everything you ever wanted, it’s down at the corner store It’s

im-portant to recognize that you can have everything that you want, but if you limit

yourself to the essentials you will open a world of possibilities for yourself You can

live anywhere, you can work anywhere

WHAT IS YOUR MINIMALIST

DESTINATION?

We all know the world is dying, Al Gore made that clear enough We all hope

for a legislative change from our governments to cap carbon emissions, but it’s

just not coming If we don’t do something, our children will inherit a

danger-ous world without ice caps

I’m not sure what the world will look like in 50 to 100 years, but I do know it’s

not going to look like the one we have now It’s going to be much warmer and

it will be much harder to grow food or go to the beach

We can sit back on our couches and do nothing or we can choose to adopt a

lifestyle which is sustainable Being minimalist is one way you can do it I’m

not claiming it’s the only way, and I know this lifestyle isn’t for everyone, but by

adopting it, you will fundamentally change the impact you have on this earth

Balance

Many people are frantically running around the streets of America trying to get things done These people are Tweeting and phoning, they’re stressed out and con-suming They’re fat and they’re sad, and they don’t know what the problem is.Balance is an element that we’ve lost in the modern age I believe one of the pri-mary keys to a happy human being is living a balanced lifestyle This is a lifestyle without sacrifices, without compromises It’s a life where you aren’t forced, obli-gated, or otherwise enticed to work 70 hours a week

Being minimalist is a way to achieve balance in your life By limiting yourself in life

to what is absolutely essential to your existence, you’ll have more time for yourself You’ll have more time to exercise and cook beautiful dinners again You’ll be able to focus on career goals that matter and not simply banging out the next widget

BEING MINIMALIST IS

ABOUT

There are a number of reasons that being minimalist is an advantageous

lifestyle to adopt and we’ll go over many of those in the coming pages For

the moment I’d like to explain the three pillars of being minimalist

These are the three primary reasons that I adopted a minimalist lifestyle

They all have far reaching implications in your life, as well as to the planet

itself

Many people in this world are being told to sit down, shut up, and pay their

mortgages This is no way to live What happened to freedom for all? You might be

asking this question Well, the answer is simple

You’ve been convinced you need all of these things in your life, but you don’t

It’s a big conspiracy to keep the factories churning That flat screen TV you bought?

There’s a 3D version coming out that’s better You have a choice, you can rush out and

buy a 3D flat screen, or you can opt out Destroy your television, have more time

Maybe you don’t buy flat screen TVs, I know I don’t Transpose this theory to any

consumption that you regularly do I almost guarantee that you’re spending

outrageous amounts of money on something in your life that you don’t need

I used to spend tons of money on two things, alcohol and clothes I was a New Yorker,

I had to act the part I’d go out to bars and do the sweet talk with B-list celebrity

jour-nalists and friends who were trying to get laid At times in my life I would spend three

or four nights a week out on the town, racking up $80 bar bills

Finally, I said enough I want freedom Maybe you do, too?

So stop spending Take a serious look at your finances and see what you can cut

Start setting goals The best way to stop spending is to realize that you want to do

something with your life I wanted to work for myself and live anywhere I wanted So I

set goals I would stop spending, and start thinking about my plans

And then I jumped I just quit one day, with $3000 in the bank I said enough with

this system, I want out I want to live a free life and I want to work for myself

And you know what, it wasn’t that hard I flew halfway across the country, embraced

being minimalist fully, and started living

In my first couple of weeks in Portland, I did a lot of reading I didn’t have much

of a schedule, so I felt the best use of my brain was to read as many books as

possible

One of the books I read during this time was Leo Babauta’s A Simple Guide to A

Minimalist Life

While this e-book owes a great debt to Leo’s many years of minimalist practice,

I hope these two books can complement each other

Leo’s book is simply brilliant In it he lays down the terms of becoming a

minimalist in his signature, uncomplicated prose He covers the fundamentals

of living without tons of crap in your life in a very basic way

Because of this reason, I chose to leave out many of the more basic decisions

that you need to have more freedom in your life

If you haven’t read Leo’s book yet, and are very new to the idea of being

minimalist, I hope that you’ll choose to read it now

A Simple Guide to a Minimalist Life is the fundamental text regarding

minimalist philosophy It’s only $9.95 and 50% of that goes to support my own

I’ve always had very few possessions, but being a minimalist isn’t just about

what you carry with you It’s your entire engagement with the world I spent

the last three years in New York living with very few possessions, but I

admit-tedly did spend a lot of money New York is like that, it sucks you in and spits

you out without your wallet

There’s a moment when everything changes, when you can’t turn back.

I think there was a tipping point, when I figured out just how rewarding this

life would be Living day to day, place to place, consuming the minimum,

exist-ing a little bit on the frexist-inges I enjoy watchexist-ing the busy people runnexist-ing around,

frantically trying to support their overextended lifestyles, smiling, and then

going back home and writing a little Trying to help spread a little more

knowl-edge about where I’ve been, where you can go

by with little, and I started to realize that I didn’t need to be making as much money (and spending as much money) as I was in New York I hope by writing this I can help a few more people achieve this state of being

I gradually began to stop consuming and started living.

Minimalism is like the secret room that no one wants you to know about, and how peaceful it is We’re all bombarded by advertising every day, claiming that we need one more thing, that we’ll be happier if we just buy more It’s not hard to understand how we’re conditioned to want to spend, but it’s hard reversing the work of (rough estima-tion) hundreds of billions of dollars of corporate spending to make us want just one more thing

The rewards are infinite though Freedom can’t be bought, it can only be found.

HOW I MADE THE DECISION TO

LIBERATE MYSELF

MEET THE

MINIMALISTS

I’m not the only minimalist in the world There’s a growing community

of amazing individuals who subscribe to the idea of living with less

Leo Babauta is the blogger behind Zen Habits and Mnmlist He’s the author of

The Power of Less and A Simple Guide to a Minimalist Life

Tammy Strobel is the blogger behind Rowdy Kittens She’s self-employed and lives a

simple car-free life in Portland, OR She’s the author of Simply Car-free: How to Pedel

Towards Financial Freedom and a Healthier Life

Colin Wright is the blogger behind Exile Lifestyle and runs a sustainable design

com-pany He has less than 70 things and moves to a new country every 4 months

David Damron is the blogger behind The Minimalist Path and Life Excursion He’s

the author of two e-books, Project M-31: Simplify Your Life in 31 Days and 7 Steps to

a Minimalist Life

Adam Baker is the blogger behind Man Vs Debt He moved from Indiana all the way

to Thailand, via New Zealand, with his wife and daughter, and got rid of all his crap

while paying off his debt

Chris Baskind is an eco-writer and blogger behind More Minimal He bikes all over

Pensacola, FL

Karol Gajda is a perpetual traveler and blogger behind Ridiculously Extraordinary

He lives out of a single bag while working from anywhere

Jules Clancy is a minimalist chef, and the blogger behind Stone Soup: Minimalist

Home Cooking

Joshua Becker is the blogger behind Becoming Minimalist He’s the author of

Sim-plify: 7 Guiding Principles to Help Anyone Declutter Their Home and Life

We spend so much of our lives buying stuff

Why do we need to? What is this really accomplishing?

By relinquishing consumerism, we’ll discover peace, happiness, and freedom

100 THINGS

People can’t relate to a group larger than 150 individuals Beyond that

point, you start to see heads shaking and “Oh! I remember your face,

but your name escapes me.” This is called Dunbar’s law

I believe this number also applies to stuff

Once you get past 150 things, you start to lose your glasses You don’t

remember what is in that box anymore, unless it’s labeled and you

look at it

I put this theory into practice in July of last year I simply gave away

everything I owned, until I had 100 things

I noticed the changes immediately I not only knew where everything

was (my second pair of red underwear, dirty; underneath my grey

v-neck, also dirty), I also noticed I didn’t have to worry anymore

Because I could associate properly with all of my objects, I wasn’t

constantly expending effort cleaning them, or trying not to lose them

I also could fit everything into a backpack, changing my definition of

home My home was anywhere me and my stuff at any given time

When I flew to Portland in August ‘09, home was with me When I got on the train to Chicago, home was with me

100 things makes a lot of sense when you think about the evolution

of the human race Up until 100 years ago, most of us couldn’t afford more than 100 things, so we never developed the mental capacity to handle owning that many objects

We developed the need to have massive houses full of stuff when ries began to overproduce — they needed us to buy more, so we did.Imagine how many objects a hunter/gatherer in the bush has to deal with? A lot less This leaves valuable brain power for getting the work done

facto-When you have 100 things, you no longer spend every weekend ing housework Instead, you can spend that time educating yourself, launching new business strategies, reading a good book, or lying in the grass at the park

do-The possibilities are limitless You only have to stop buying and give most of it away

I have a solid one-month rule for everything I own In addition to the

100-things rule, this means that I have to use everything I own at least

once a month

If it doesn’t get used at least once a month, it goes in an ‘outbox’

Depending on how much stuff I have at any given time, the outbox is

either a real box or a mental list that I have

When I have time, I take a look at the box and I ask myself some serious

questions:

• Will I use this next month?

• What purpose does it serve in my life?

• Do I need this professionally?

• Does anyone I know need this more than me?

• Can I get another one of these in three years if I discover I need

one again?

• Do I use this seasonally?

• After 30 seconds of deliberation They either stay or they go

They’re either useful or they are not

THE ONE-MONTH RULE

I then give the items to someone who would find them useful, I donate them to an organization who can use the items If all else fails, I recycle or discard the item

This is a little extreme for some people, but I think it’s worth ing What would pass this test if you were to ask this of every object you own?

contemplat-I know some people who have a piano in their living room that they haven’t used in 10 years In fact, they never learned how to play the piano How much freer would their lives have been if they had decided they didn’t need it?

I know some people who have three non-functional cars in their backyards

I know some people who keep all of their college textbooks, even though they are never going to pick them up again

IF YOU DON’T USE IT,

LOSE IT

Here’s one sure-fire way to stop spending money

Put every single purchase that you make on a 30-day waiting list Put

anything that costs more than $20 on this list

You can do this for everything but food, because you’ll be dead in 30

days if you do

Most people buy things because they think they need it now, when

usually the need has more to do with the environment that they’re in

They’ve succumbed to what the advertisers want them to buy in that

moment

By adopting a 30-day waiting list, you’ll realize what you actually need

(which isn’t much)

You’ll defeat the advertisers once and for all

30-DAY

WAITLIST

Many people have too much stuff We’re faced with endless choices in modern

society and the most common choice is ‘yes, let’s have another.’ Another plastic

knickknack, another candle holder, another footrest, another little, cute bowl to

put your keys in

Take a break from this e-book for a second and look around whatever room in

your house you’re in What do you see that you haven’t used in a month? In six

months? In a year?

If you’re in a coffee shop, take a look inside your bag What have you been

carry-ing around for a month that you haven’t used?

I’ve known people who bring back a bag of little useless objects every day when

they come home “Why did you buy these things?” I asked them “For someday,”

they replied What use is someday if you’ve forgotten you even purchased the

3, They get a few made at a factory in the U.S They seem to look good! They work perfectly at doing the useless thing that they do Good!

4, They send their sample over to a factory in China, or another Asian try, and the factory sends a note back Yes, we’ll make that for ten cents per Useless Object! They make five million of them

coun-5, Stores in America spend endless amounts of money and resources ing these Useless Objects into American stores, where American consumers spend their hard-earned cash buying these Useless Objects because they think they will make them happy Either that or an American consumer buys it for their friend because they think that it’ll make them happy.That’s the basic life cycle of the thing you haven’t used in a month’s life Insert the real name of your object where I put ‘Useless Object.’

bring-The only solution to this is to stop buying Stop indulging that little voice

in the back of your head saying to you that one more object will make you

THE LIFECYCLE OF

STUFF

People feel that just because they spent money on an object, they have to keep carrying it with them The problem is that over time the cost of an item becomes greater

The longer you live with an item, the longer you have to provide for it

If you have 1,000 items, you need a big house If you have 10,000 items, you need an even bigger house, and probably some storage, too What if you only needed a house with one room, how much less would you spend on your living situation?

Considering the true cost of every item in your life can make you realize just how much you’re responsible for and just how much you are holding back your life by not taking this opportunity to slim down your belongings.Imagine if you had a life where you could put everything you own on your back and just leave

You would have many more options than you do now

You could live anywhere You could work from anywhere

The possibilities are infinite, why not try it? Or at least think about it

REFLECT ON THE TRUE

COST OF

STUFF

There are infinite options for the modern consumer As a minimalist, how do you decide who

to support?

We’ve all been to a Walmart or a Target, a dollar store, or visited Amazon.com

We can buy whatever we want, and much of what I write about is how to avoid buying But the truth is that sometimes we need to buy things We need clothes, we need to live some-where, we need to eat

I’ve contemplated this topic endlessly, as it has many complexities, many of which I will have

to leave to you to debate with yourself

There will be exceptions In some cases you may not have a choice as to what to buy (toilet paper)

But with a little consideration, I believe a minimalist can stick with their values and support the right people when it is necessary to consume

The secret to minimalist consumption is simple; support the artists

Now, I’m not speaking about artists as painters or sculptors There are artists who do these things and for those of us who buy paintings, we would like them to come from an artist You can also get a painting from a non-artist—it’s said that 60% of the world’s paintings come from a single village in China These people aren’t artists, they are factory workers

I’d like to argue that there are artists all around us creating many fine things An artist is someone who is creating something that they are passionate about

You vote with every dollar you spend Do you vote mega-corporation or independant artist?

WHO DO YOU

SUPPORT?

I buy my produce at an organic market instead of a generic grocery store chain,

because I know they care about their product Even if the costs are higher

I purchased my computer from Apple because I know they’ve designed a product

that works best for what I do Even though it costs more

I buy from indie writers like Leo Babauta because I know he is passionate about his

writing and he actually knows what he is talking about

Do you think Coca-Cola or Ikea has artists working for them? Probably But most of

their stuff is cheaply made in another country by machine

That bookcase is $24, but does it have a soul behind it? No

I realize this makes the decision to purchase anything infinitely harder, but that’s

the decision we need to make if we’re going to support what really matters

Artists give something that matters That art might be a muffin that the lady at the

coffee shop woke up early that morning to bake That art might be the blog post

that you read this morning that you know the writer put some thought into—so

that he was creating art that made a difference

You probably think finding art is hard, but it’s becoming so much easier Have you

been to Etsy.com?

Next time you buy a new coffee cup, consider buying one that was handmade

Con-sider passing on Bed, Bath and Beyond and getting a hand-knit blanket from the

woman with the shop down the street

Next time you think about buying another bottle of Yellowtail wine, consider

in-stead supporting a small wine seller from the Columbia or Willamette Valleys

ARTISTS CREATE

WHAT WE CAN

BELIEVE IN

Next time you consider buying stock imagery from a micro agency, consider instead porting an artist on Flickr

sup-Next time you need to buy a dress, don’t go to Forever 21 Have Brooklyn fashion signer Anjia Jalac hand-make one for you

de-Next time you buy a bike, don’t get one from Schwinn Consider having one made for you by Fast Boy Cycles

Next time you buy coffee, skip Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts and order beans from Intelligencia or Stumptown roasteries

The options are available But if you vote with the few dollars you minimalists spend this year, I promise they’ll become more common

Imagine how amazing it would be to tell the story behind everything you owned if it was created by an artist

We’re just coming off of two centuries of a factory dominated society, it’s only natural that the options might be harder to find

The point is that it doesn’t have to be that way forever

You can support an artist with every purchase you make, you just have to make the choice to do it

We can support each other by buying from each other and not from a corporate chine The tools exist to make this happen, we just have to learn to use them

ma-By purchasing this e-book, you’re supporting an independant artist Thank you

The time to support artists is now

Despite recession, the national deficit, and everything else you can imagine, we still have access

to a lot

We have running water In most places you can buy bulk quantities of everything that you need

at the corner Costco

And yet we’re still complaining “One throw rug isn’t enough! I want seventeen for $3.99!” Therein lies the problem

We can have everything, so people buy everything They get addicted to another $2.99 or

$159.99 gadget every month It doesn’t matter which income demographic you’re in There is a scalable economy to match your desire to buy more crap

In Portland, there’s a Salvation Army outlet store referred to by the local thrifters called “the bins.” You can buy anything you want for $1.49 a pound They’ll even weigh your cart

I went twice, while I was in Portland, and every time there were hordes of low-income people piling their carts high with junk A lot of the stuff at the bins is garbage These people have ac-cess to it, so rather than buy a nice towel at Target for $10, they’re buying seventeen disgusting third hand towels for $20 It’s not logical, but they still do it

I bought a scarf that I found, it was nice and only ended up costing 49 cents

This same situation also applies to 5th Avenue in Manhattan For a very short time, I worked

at the Apple Store on 59th Street Rich old ladies would walk in from the Upper East Side and purchase twelve MacBook Pros Just because they had the money, not because they needed all

of those computers

Absurd, but true

We need to realize that we have access to everything instantaneously If we need something, we can go out and get it We don’t need seventeen third-hand towels in our closet We don’t need twelve MacBook Pros, just in case we happen to need them

I know you’re not doing absurd things like this, but think about it on a smaller scale Buy things you need for now, for the important projects that you’re working on Don’t buy things for some-day just because you happen to have just received a paycheck

It doesn’t matter whether your paycheck was $120,000 or $350 The same over-consumption binge can apply, if you let it

THE AGE OF

ABUNDANCE

Can you imagine what it would be like to simply fly from New York to

Chicago with just a satchel bag?

I think it’s important to regularly reflect about which of the things you

carry with you are essential Which possessions do you absolutely need?

Think about how easy it would be to move if you had only the essentials

How easy it would be to go on vacation How easy it would be to change

your job, because you wouldn’t need to pay for a huge house or rent a

large apartment anymore

I’m living this life, and I think you can too

What would you bring with you, if you had to leave now?

Say, in a hypothetical situation, you wanted or needed to leave your house

at this exact moment What would you bring with you? You have to go

right now! There’s no time to sit around and mull over the decision

Here’s my list:

5 shirts, 5 pairs of underwear, 5 pairs of socks, 1 pair of jeans Suitable

WHAT IF YOU TRAVELED WITH

NOTHING?

If it was an emergency; sleeping bag, tent, any food available in my area, water bottle

Less urgent situations; I’d bring my laptop

Obviously this is a rather small list, but I actually don’t own many more things than this

Think about what you would bring with you if you had to leave now Make a list Maybe even pack a bag and see how heavy it would be Consider if you had to walk 50 to 100 miles with that bag Does it still seem doable?

This is a good mental list to have ready to go, you never know You also never know when you might want to set off on an adven-ture, and these are always more fun when you’re not dragging two rolling suitcases and a backpack with you

What would you bring with you? Think about it.

From an early age you’ve been indoctrinated into a society that values things above people.

We are what we own, or so you’ve been told

They all told you that you wanted the two-car garage They told you to fill one side with

stuff you couldn’t fit inside your house Indeed, one-quarter of all Americans have a

two-car garage in this condition

The stuff just sits there You walk by it and wish that it would disappear Secretly you wish

someone would burn your two-car garage down, so you won’t have to make the decision to

get rid of that clutter

We find so many ways to keep us from reaching our potential Stuff is just one of those

ways We don’t want to deal with the harsh reality of our lives, the fact that we haven’t

re-ally done anything important

So we refocus all of our attention on the endless burden of re-sorting our stamp collection

A friend of mine, the Brooklyn hip-hop artist D.O.V of Verbal Graffiti, repeatedly loses his

life work every couple of years In 2003, his house burned down In 2009, his laptop was

stolen from his living room without a trace, containing years of un-backed-up recordings

The loss is always devastating to him He tells himself that this is the end of his career and

he’ll never make another beat again

But this wasn’t the case, there were no devastating repercussions Six months after the

loss of his computer he had a new album on the streets He has another one half finished

already

The beats weren’t on his computer, they were in him By clearing away all the years of junk

on his computer—all of the beats that never had any potential, but he continued to mess

with—he was able to free himself to create a new album

A clean slate can be a powerful drive to create

What if you were able to harness this ability for a lifetime?

YOU’RE HINDERING YOUR

POTENTIAL

(WITH YOUR STUFF)

Many people make two very big purchases in their lives that are incredibly sive, and completely unnecessary, if you position yourself correctly in the world.

expen-1, a house

2, a car

You might have one or the other, or both

In many places you need a car to get around That’s understandable

But consider this; what if you lived in a place where a car isn’t necessary? friendly cities are becoming easier to find Brooklyn and Portland are both covered with bike lanes A bike can cost around $150 A helmet is a little extra, but necessary

Biker-If you buy a bike, you’ll be healthier, live longer, and people will instantly think you’re cooler

Houses are another problem entirely They’re very expensive and can tie an owner down for their entire life if not purchased properly—like if you don’t have enough money to afford one—which is most of us

The housing bust has proven that a house isn’t necessarily the best investment I know many people who are trapped by their mortgages in terrible areas where they need a car to get around This is a very expensive way to live

The alternative is a small apartment Most cities have these for a fraction of the price

of a home If you live in a nice apartment, you can move whenever you wish, your costs are minimal, and your landlord will fix most of problems for you

Never buy a McMansion or a Hummer

FORGO THE BIGGEST

ExPENSES

This is the minimalist secret

You probably already knew this, deep down in your heart somewhere, but

society makes every effort to bang this one out of you They tell you to sit

down, shut up and buy these two things

Almost everyone in society makes this fatal choice They spend the rest of

their lives paying for making it

This choice infinitely restricts their freedom for either their immediate

future, or for at least long enough that they can’t recover before they’re too

old to have any hope

(THE MINIMALIST SECRET)

The path to a minimalist life is not an easy one I’ve found that my own life, my journey through ist living has a cyclical pattern Some years I have more stuff, others I’ve purged everything.

minimal-Not everyone needs to take being minimalist to the extreme that I am right now You’ll find that some areas of your life really could use some simplification, while others may need to just be left alone

Paring down my life to just the basic essentials for my own survival didn’t happen overnight though, it took a concerted effort to keep from gathering more stuff I also have had to let some things go

Being minimalist has its rewards.

1, Less organizing If you have no things, you don’t have to move them around

2, Less expensive When I wanted to move to Portland, all I did was hop on a plane

3, I can live a more organic life I can spend each day doing exactly what I want, without having to feed the junk that surrounds me

4, I need less space I can basically live anywhere My room right now costs mostly nothing and it doubles as a yoga studio because I have nothing in it except a newly acquired bed

But for those readers who are investigating the possibility of becoming more minimal, how can you go about making these changes?

THE MINIMALIST

PATH

1, Clear one surface

Whether it’s your kitchen counter-top, your sofa, or your living-room floor Pick

one surface and clear it! Take every miscellaneous item off that surface and find

it a home—a home is a place where an object is supposed to be, like a drawer, or

a closet The best place for homes is out of sight

Ask yourself, when you pick up each object individually, “Do I need this?” If the

answer is yes, put it away somewhere If the answer is no, find out a way to get

that object out of your life Recycle it, donate it, gift it, throw it out

2, Eliminate one obligation

Take a look at your schedule, is there anything that you absolutely hate doing

but you continue to do? This can be anything for many different people

Maybe you’re watching a television show that you really don’t like anymore This

show is eating an hour of your life right there, for nothing Cut it out of your

life Or maybe you’re helping your friends with all of their computer problems

Make it known that you don’t enjoy installing printer drivers and helping people

remove their viruses anymore

By eliminating obligations, you free up your time to accomplish things that are

actually important to you I use my free time these days to study yoga and read

books on yoga

3, Walk slower

Buddhists call this practice walking meditation I’ve become a huge fan of

walking everywhere slower Everyone in modern society is rushing somewhere,

but where are they rushing to? I’d love it if I had the answer

Rushing does the opposite of getting you to your destination faster In fact, by

10 SIMPLE

WAYS TO BE MORE

MINIMALIST

4, Remove five things from your life.

Identify five objects that you don’t use, or don’t need, or are just cating your life, and get rid of them! So many people keep things around ‘just

over-compli-in case’, and over-compli-in most cases they never use them for anythover-compli-ing For myself I keep a one-month rule If I don’t use an object at least once a month, I don’t need it at all

5, Clear your email box

Inbox Zero is a powerful state to achieve If you have tons of unread messages, they’ll weigh heavily on your mind Take a moment and clear out that inbox Here’s what I usually do: throw anything that you haven’t read that’s at least a week old People will email again if it’s important Now, delete anything that

is junk, or useless, like newsletters Unsubscribe from as many newsletters of these as possible Everyone signs you up for their newsletter, but do you actually read any of them? If it’s not important it shouldn’t be coming to your email box Next, deal with any important emails from this week, one at a time until they’re all taken care of

6, Un-friend one person

People can be bothersome, and everyone has that one friend that they wish they never had to talk to again—whether this person is constantly asking for advice,

or asking for favors, or just being annoying Take a moment to block this person

on every service that you have Un-friend on Facebook, remove from Linkedin, block their g-chat name, send their emails to the trash, make a

commitment not to answer if they call

Good, now you don’t have to deal with this person anymore

For some people this will be really hard, but you have to understand that your time is valuable, and there will always be people who want to take up most of yours If you surround yourself with people you love, you’ll love being surround-

ed by people

7, Make one important decision.

You’ve been putting it off, I know There’s got to be one thing that you’ve yet to

say yes or no to Whether it’s dinner on Friday with your best friend, or finishing

a project at work Make the decision now to either do it or not Call and cancel

with your friend, or bang through that project

8, Spend an hour in silence

Silence is important, it gives you time to reflect on your life, what you’re doing

right, what you’re doing wrong Important answers can come to you in the space

between doing Lock yourself in a room, step out on the front porch, or go sit

in a coffee shop and stare out the window Answers will come to you The most

important thing is to not do anything

9, Get yourself off one online social network

People think they need to be a part of everything, but it’s important that you

maintain your connection with the service that’s connecting you with people If

Facebook is eating up too much of your time, get off of it! If you haven’t checked

your profile on Yelp in awhile, consider getting off that service The less social

networking you do on the Internet, the more time you’ll have to accomplish

important things

10, Do one thing that you really love

Being minimalist isn’t about doing nothing, it’s about finding time to do what’s

important to you By getting rid of all your clutter, you’ll find that you spend less

time maintaining your existence and you’ll have more time to do what you really

enjoy doing So ask yourself now; what’s the most important thing to me? Now

I used to live in Bushwick, Brooklyn, in an old red school house with 10 artists.

We had one of those free-standing fire pits made of metal We burned a lot of scrap wood and a couch once We’d sit around the fire pit and tell stories This was our moment to check in, drink wine and whiskey, and see how everyone was doing.One of my roommates was moving out She had two black garbage bags full of a diary she had printed years ago

This was material that pained her every time she read it Every word self-absorbed, and yet meaningless to everyone but herself

Yet it all seemed so permanent to her She had to carry this diary with her everywhere she went She couldn’t let go

I said burn it.

We took it out on the roof one snowy day last January; we threw a few boards on top

of it and lit a match It took thirty minutes to burn through all of the pages slowly The ash mixed with the snow The diary that seemed so permanent, was instead so fragile

Everything is fragile Every decision you make is a matter of life and death of an outcome The thing is, you can choose which destination you want to arrive at Do you want to continue to haul 30 pounds of paper through your life—a painful diary recording a breakup you had years ago?

I said no You don’t want to carry that You can certainly choose to, but that’s like a duckling choosing to have her wings amputated You’ll never fly south for the winter You’ll never be able to move on to the next relationship because you’re still hauling your old one along with you in two black garbage bags

Consider burning it all, you might just enjoy it

HAVE A

BONFIRE

Sometimes you’re sitting in a job you hate, living in a place you hate, and you can’t

figure out why you’re so impossibly miserable

In these moments, it’s time to just jump Save up $1500 to $3000, and go

hang-glid-ing

I know to some of you the thought of leaving everything behind is terrifying, you’ve

worked so hard to get entrenched in your job You spent so long making your

apart-ment look just perfect

But you’re still unhappy

What you’re missing is the sense of adventure

What you’re giving into is an unjustified fear that won’t go away

You have to prove to yourself that that fear is unjustified Because it really is The world

isn’t as hard as they make it seem on TV One of the easiest ways you can waste your life

is by spending it in mediocrity Not moving, unchanging, settled down and waiting for

something to happen

In these moments you have to jump Don’t think about it, just leave it all behind These

moments are rare, but they are exceptional

Leave it all behind and see what comes next

WHY YOU NEED TO

jUST jUMP

Sometimes it isn’t enough to just get rid of one thing at a time.

There’s just too much stuff and you will spend the next 15 years making sure it all gets dealt with

In this case you need to burn it all You really do

I’m a big fan of simple little steps, I’ve said that before many times But sometimes 15,000 simple little steps is going to keep you from ever finishing

There are moments when destroying your life’s work can be the best thing you ever did

When burning the contents of your closet will liberate you

When dumping all of your friends and finding new ones is the best decision you ever could make

This is a last resort and not a decision to take lightly But if you’re stuck so hard in a place where you can’t even breathe, this might be the only option The last resort

It might take you 100 years to clear a path up this cliff and progress to the next level— or you can just jump and soar

THROW

EVERYTHING

AWAY

The most successful people find ways to optimize their time

They don’t get distracted by the unimportant

This chapter will train you in the skills necessary to achieve minimalist success

Face it, there are too many people

Across the world there are highways jam-packed with commuters

Whenever I take the subway when I’m in New York, I’m frightened by

the thousands of sad faces all rushing from one job to the next Gas

costs nearly $3 a gallon as I’m writing this and it’s not getting any

cheaper Global warming is another problem all together

Becoming minimalist is one solution to these problems We’ve decided

to opt out, to say enough We’ve decided to become the model citizens

of a sustainable generation

Some minimalists grow their own food, others refuse to own a car,

others have less than 100 possessions

Many minimalists, including myself, have chosen to opt out of the

factory system that has dominated our culture for the last 200 years

These people work for themselves, and the Internet makes it all

possible

We need a new American Dream

In the middle of the last century, there was a huge movement for

everyone to adopt this idea of the American family The single-family

home The station wagon The drive-in movie The take-out burger

Dad went to work at the factory and Mom made little Joey a peanut

butter and jelly sandwich

The Great Recession has destroyed the last remnants of that dream

Society watched in horror as both parents began working 60 hours a week and Joey started smoking pot in the livingroom and playing Wii

This wasn’t the dream we asked for

With the fall of Detroit, many people are asking, what now? Our schools are still teaching our kids that the right thing to do is to sit down and shut

up, their cushy factory job is coming

These jobs are not coming For many of us, there are no jobs anymore, at least as they were defined by the last couple of generations

Over the last few years, I’ve watched as many of my friends have struggled with this question Many are frustrated They send hundreds of resumes to anonymous Career Builder and Craigslist listings and no one hears back This leads to a lot of pain and more frustration

The first reaction, for many, is to sit back and wait for the government to fix this problem This is one answer, but Obama has his hands full just trying

to get us healthcare, juggle two wars, and bail out the banks

Some people want the government to make them stop eating junk food, but is that really their responsibility? No

We have to take matters into our own hands and change society from the ground up

Becoming minimalist is one way to accomplish this

BEING MINIMALIST IS ABOUT

ADAPTION

Tick tock tick tock

You’re getting older; I know I am

The sense of self-preservation is in direct defiance of our true meaning; to do great work at some point in our lives

To create a legacy project

Something worth remembering

The only problem is that you haven’t started yet Instead you’re shopping, you’re making one more payment on your student loan You would have moved, but you have the destinct impression that it’s just too late

Well, I’m here to tell you it’s not too late

But you have to start somewhere, and the best way to start is to begin clearing

WHY YOU HAVEN’T DONE

ANYTHING

WITH YOUR

LIFE (YET)

Americans work too much Did you know that the average American worker spends 47.1 hours

at the office per week? Some even work up to 70 hours That’s insane, we’re killing ourselves No wonder we never have time to cook breakfast and dinner, let alone exercise and spend time with our families

The Great Recession has exacerbated this problem because people are afraid they’ll be laid off if they don’t spend extra hours on the job

The problem with the delayed gratification of retirement.

The worst part about this whole equation is that we’re expected to slave away our youth for a off goal of someday retiring to a nice beach somewhere when we hit our 70s

far-I’ve got some news; you probably won’t make it to 70 working 70 hours a week

Now, I’m not saying you should quit working Everyone needs to work in order to make money to survive But an outrageous amount of time at the office is a good sign that you are working in a fear-based environment

It’s time to start working less.

The best time to start working less was five years ago, if you missed that opportunity the time to start is now

You’re afraid you’re not good enough, so you end up working long hours to prove to yourself and your employer that you’re being useful This is the opposite of what your approach to work should

be You need to prove to yourself and your employer that you’re so useful that they can’t survive without you, and in order to do that, you and they need to value yourself enough to let you go home at a decent time of day

But the truth is, you are good enough Your employer needs you to do your job because what you

do is valuable If what you do isn’t valuable, then you need to go work for a company that you’re passionate about

THE ULTIMATE GUIDE

TO THE MINIMALIST

WORKWEEK