The Simple Guide to a Minimalist Life
Laurie and Presley | Photo by Laurie Blundell
Wednesday we talked about The Simple Living Manifesto by Zen Habbits (aka Leo Babauta).
If you recall, the Simple Living Manifesto begins with two goals:
- Identify what’s most important to you.
- Eliminate everything else.
In The Simple Guide to a Minimalist Life, Babauta takes those basic ideas and adds three more to it:
- Omit needless things. Notice this doesn’t say to omit everything. Just needless things.
- Identify the essential. What’s most important to you? What makes you happy? What will have the highest impact on your life, your career?
- Make everything count. Whatever you do or keep in your life, make it worthy of keeping. Make it really count.
- Fill your life with joy. Don’t just empty your life. Put something wonderful in it.
- Edit, edit. Minimalism isn’t an end point. It’s a constant process of editing, revisiting, editing some more.
He expands on each of these areas throughout the e-book and gives some great practical pointers on how to cut back on all those unnecessary things in life — like material goods, to-do lists, budgets and more.
And as for the take home idea for me…
You should want to say “Hell yes” to new commitments — or say no.
Don’t just say yes.
I’m a yes-man 99% of the time — especially when it comes to helping others — but that also leaves less time for me to focus on my own creative outlets and the things I’m most passionate about.
While I totally agree with Babauta and understand his point — you have to be passionate about what you’re doing and leave time for yourself — I also know too many people that refuse to step out of their comfort zone or their own space to help others.
They’re so caught up in protecting “me” time that they refuse to give help to others.
For me, living simply is about minimizing and consuming less so that I can be of greater benefit to those around me — including my family, my tribe, my friends — and the stranger.
I know there’s a balance there — just trying to find it.
And here are a couple other thoughts that really hit home…
Things aren’t valuable if they’re not used. So by holding onto things, you are preventing them from actually being used by someone who needs them.
Organizing is only necessary when you have too many things to easily find what you’re looking for.
Those ideas made me get up and start sorting through my bookshelf and closet right away. Do I really need all those books? Am I really going back and referencing them like I’ve suggested. Do I really need ALL these T-shirts? Or all these pairs of socks? Probably not.
And I’m pretty sure my wife is happy to see that I’m now getting rid of 40+ books on my bookshelf as well as a trash bag full of T-shirts and other clothes I haven’t worn anytime recently. It’s definitely reduced some of the “clutter” in our guest room and closet.
Of course, there’s a lot more in the 105 pages of the book, including tips on minimalist eating, fitness, finance, raising kids with a minimalist mindset (he has six) and more but these were the thoughts that nailed me as soon as I read them.
I’m glad the book came in e-book format too. Not only does it save room on my bookshelf, but as Babauta suggests, having things digitized makes searching so much easier — and this IS a book I plan to refer back to numerous times.
You’ll be able to read through it in a couple hours at most but it’s also a resource you can save on your computer and refer back to over time as you continue on the simple living journey.
Find out more information and order your own copy at zenhabits.com.
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