Minimalism

Key Concepts

“Minimalism looks different for everyone because it’s about finding what is essential to you.” (p. 25)

Exercise: Identifying Anchors

“The exercise we performed was simple: over the course of one week, each of us wrote down anything we thought might be an anchor (the first step to solving a problem is to identify the problem, right?).” (p. 17)

“Our next step was to identify our priorities. We started prioritizing by dividing our anchors into two categories: major anchors and minor anchors.  Major anchors were the most obvious things keeping us from feeling free, including our houses (namely the large mortgage payments that went with them), certain relationships with people (namely unhealthy relationships that didn’t add value to our lives), car payments and other large bills, major debts, our careers, and anything else that demanded an inordinate amount of time without returning commensurate value to our lives. Minor anchors made up the bulk of our lists and included cable bills, Internet bills, other bills, smaller debts, unused clothes, unused household items, household clutter, certain unproductive peripheral relationships, daily drive time, and other small things that consumed small amounts of our time, attention, and focus.” (p. 17)

“We decided that ridding ourselves of many of these anchors over a period of time would let us reclaim much of our own time, which could then be spent in more meaningful ways.” (p. 18)

Exercise: Relationship Analysis

• “Try this: make a three-column list of every relationship—big or small—in which you are involved…” (p. 53)

• Columns: Name, Signifiers (primary, secondary, or peripheral), Effect on Your Life (positive, negative, or neutral)

• “Once your list is complete, review it and answer some important questions: 

  • How many relationships do you have?  

  • Why so many (or so few)?  

  • What percentage are primary relationships?  What percentage are secondary relationships?  What percentage are peripheral relationships?  

  • What percentage are positive relationships?  What percentage are negative relationships? What percentage are neutral relationships?” (p. 55)

Quotables

“Leo Babauta and Joshua Becker proved to us minimalism wasn’t only for single guys who didn’t want to work a nine-to-five: it was for anyone interested in living a simpler, more intentional life. It was for anyone who wanted to focus on the important aspects in life, rather than the material possessions so heavily linked to success and happiness by our culture.” (p. 24)

You can’t change the people around you, but you can change the people around you.” (p. 58)

“But the aforementioned cycle—what we’ve been sold as the “American Dream”—is devoid of meaning. The American Dream will not make you happy.” (p. 72)

“In fact, having a career is one of the most dangerous things you can do if you want to find meaning in your life. Careers are dangerous because people invest so much of themselves into their careers that they establish an identity and a social status based upon their job title.” (p. 73)

“No, minimalism is not about deprivation—we don’t want anyone to ‘live without’ in the name of minimalism—but sometimes it makes sense to temporarily deprive ourselves of temporary satisfactions when we are attempting to move our lives in a better direction.” (p. 88)

“The first question we typically ask people is a fairly standard question: What would you do with your life if money wasn’t an object? Most people who are searching for their passions are still deeply anchored to some (if not all) of the four anchors mentioned above, which causes them to articulate a fairly common response: I don’t know.” (p. 90)

“The truth is someone is earning a living doing the thing you’re passionate about—doing the thing you obsessively love.” (p. 92)

“While you continue to raise your standards, it’s important to focus on consistent action. Said another way, it’s easier to raise the bar a little each day than raise it seven times as much each week or 30 times as much each month.” (p. 100)

“When you think in terms of adding value, you’ll start to notice everything you do begins to add value in various ways. That’s because over time you’ll begin to weed out anything that doesn’t add value to your own life or to other people’s lives.” (p. 103)

“Success = Happiness + Constant Improvement” (p. 120)