The Danger of Minimalism

Simple living has been a lifestyle choice for humans effectively since the concept of ownership was first conceived. Though, in the last decade, we’ve seen a rapid resurgence of the minimalist lifestyle. This growth has been propelled by many things, some are quite legitimate. Be it environmental concerns, stagnant wages, or combating compulsive hoarding. Other times, it’s for a much simpler reason. In particular, social media clout; bragging points.

But this modern minimalism moment has never truly been challenged. Here’s what I mean. The Minimalists, known for their documentary, Minimalism: A Documentary About the Important Things, released in 2016, started their path to notoriety in Fall 2009. In one of their earliest blog entries, they give credit to blogger Colin Wright, who first posted in Spring 2009. The filmmaker that created The Minimalists’ documentary, Matt D’Avella, started uploading minimalism-focused videos to YouTube in early 2017, shortly after the film’s theatrical release. The popular #vanlife hashtag has been credited to Foster Huntington, a former fashion designer that moved into a Volkswagen Synchro and started using the ubiquitous hashtag in 2011. Very recently, minimalism has received a boost from Marie Kondo. Her book, first published in Japan in 2011, then in the US in 2014, has had an outsized impact on modern minimalism, even gaining her own virally popular Netflix series in 2019.

What do these popular names in minimalism all have in common? They all got their start after the 2008 financial crisis, during a decade of some of the greatest economic growth the world has ever seen. A time when taking risks, such as quitting your job to run a blog, donating 90% of your belongings, or downsizing to a tiny house, are all safe things to do.

(Author’s note: Full transparency, there is a bit of cherry-picking in the names I chose. For example, Tynan, who did an AMA in the OWM community, first posted to his blog 16 years ago. Though I maintain that to the average person that doesn’t actively follow minimalism, at least one of the names listed above are most likely to ring a bell.)

The question I can’t help but ask now is: Was this all a mistake?

We’ve jumped straight from the best of times to the worst of times, and as of writing this, over 14% of the American workforce finds themselves unemployed. The unemployment system in the United States is trying to keep up, but it simply wasn’t designed to handle a load like this. An individual with a well-paying job three months ago could have stumbled across The Minimalist’s documentary, felt inspired, and ditched the majority of their belongings. And… now what?

Where the opposite of minimalism is consumerism, the former has plenty of pros over the latter. But it unquestionably has numerous cons. I think we should start talking about both. The potential realities need to be discussed more if minimalism is ever going to survive crises such as the one we’re facing today. Up until now, minimalism has seen two representations online: Criticism and romanticism. Black and white.

While it’s natural to feel compelled to combat one with the other, this makes it impossible for the average person to see which is more closely based in reality. What this often leads to is said person making an uninformed choice for the story that makes them the least uncomfortable. This is what we should be trying to avoid. More reality, less extremity.

Let’s explore a bit of the reality of minimalism.

The Minimalists have a rule that they love to bring up from time to time known as the 20/20 rule. It’s meant primarily as a way to shed some of the items that you keep around “just in case.” Already, I’m sure you can already start to discern the position of privilege that this rule is founded on, but let’s take a closer look anyway.

The 20/20 rule states that any item you’re on the fence about that can be replaced with less than 20 minutes of effort and $20 spent should be disposed of without a second thought. While that seems like a reasonable thing to ask of people during normal times, “just in case” has just become a grotesque reality for tens of millions of Americans (not to mention hundreds of millions of people around the world).

In good times, twenty dollars times dozens of items is a massive risk for lower-income families to take in the name of “decluttering.” If you’re unemployed, twenty dollars could be what it takes to send your kids to school with a healthy, homemade meal or lunch money. In a global pandemic, though, twenty dollars is an impossible amount of money to gamble on simplifying one’s life.

Similarly, twenty minutes in a store is reasonable to ask of someone, unless paying for gas is a burden on the family finances. Now, in the age of social distancing, twenty minutes in the store is a potential hazard to your health and the health of your family.

Obviously, The Minimalists could not have predicted a global pandemic that would hurl the planet into a paradoxical state of simultaneous calm and chaos, but one thing COVID-19 has done well is shine a light on the failures and inequalities of our systems during normal times. Minimalism is a system like any other and, left unchecked, is dangerous like any other.

(Author’s note: It may seem like I’m picking on The Minimalists, but truthfully they just happen to be the ones with the most content on the subject of minimalism and largest following. As of writing, they have 165,700+ followers on Twitter, edging out Marie Kondo by only 300. Additionally, as content-creators selling a lifestyle as a product, they have the most to gain by romanticizing minimalism and downplaying its negatives.)

Anecdotally, I’m very fortunate that I still have my job, though in the past month and certainly in the months ahead I have and will come closer to confronting the notion of unemployment then I ever thought I would come. With that, I’ve started to think about what my backup plan would be. If I needed to do something else tomorrow, what would I do?

I settled on photography as my backup plan, though I only have this expensive, professional camera equipment and digital editing tools because I practiced photography professionally in college. Once I graduated, I was debating selling the cameras because they were collecting dust. That is until a friend of mine asked me to photograph his proposal. After doing that, I figured I’d keep the cameras for events such as this... until they began collecting dust again... at which point I again considered selling them. Now they’re my primary lifeline, one that I nearly cut off in a blind pursuit of pruning the inessential.

I can’t help but look back at all of the things I’ve donated or sold in the past that could help me if I needed them today. In addition, I think about the money I’ve spent on expensive, multi-functional items, each meant to replace multiple cheaper items I already owned, all in the name of decreasing the total number of items I own in a frivolous race to the bottom.

And here’s the thing, I’m not an aggressive minimalist. In the Only What Matters community, I’ve had the good fortune to be able to interact with a wide variety of minimalists, all of whom have a different definition of what minimalism is and how they apply it to their daily lives. While I have an apartment furnished with goods, some only have a laptop and enough clothes to fill a backpack. They might work for themselves or they might work remotely for a company. They are one economic disaster away from being stuck literally with the clothes on their backs, left to hunt for employment in a market in which nobody is hiring.

For many of these people, they’re financially independent and/or have a very comfortable safety cushion. But for many others, they got sucked into the romanticized image they saw on social media or read about on a blog similar to this one. And now they’re stuck.

Let the main takeaway of this whole story be that the be-all and end-all romanticization of minimalism has the potential to be incredibly harmful.

All of that being said, as I mentioned, this crisis has shined a light on major flaws with the systems we consider to be fundamental in society today. And, now that everything is paused, many of us are taking the time to reconsider if those same systems could be replaced. Consumerism, like minimalism, is an imperfect system. It’s my opinion that minimalism can be a solution — a counterbalance, if you will — if applied intentionally and responsibly.

We have now seen that capitalism, the predominant driver of consumerism, is fragile. A century of nearly uninterrupted growth is no match for a month of pause. While a system as vast and complex as the world economy will be able to recover from this hiatus, one’s personal finances don’t have the same luxury of elasticity. A lifetime of financial growth and the limitless accumulation of newer, shinier things (and worse yet, debt) is worthless when everything comes to a halt; when the paychecks stop arriving, when the companies stop hiring.

If you find yourself stuck right now, use this moment to take a mental inventory of everything you own. What’s missing? What would make you unstuck? I certainly can’t speak for everyone, but I imagine the answer is rarely — if ever — a thing at all. We wish we had more money in savings, we wish we had this amount of time with our children all the time, we wish we read more books, developed new skills, learned new languages, baked more bread. All of the “things” we find ourselves trending toward now were available to us before, but we were all blinded by a perpetual grind that only every led to more grind.

And now we, collectively, pause.

In this day of solitude, and the day that follows tomorrow, and the next day, and until we return to a life that resembles the life we lived a few months ago: Pay close attention to the things you want to do, and realize it’s rarely the things you want to own that are driving you forward in this quarantinable epoch. Life will eventually return to normal, and the desire to own more things will come back in full force (advertisers will make sure of it). At that time, remember the things that brought you joy in the months prior. Remember the things that weren’t physical things, and the feelings of delight, comfort, and/or freedom that came with them.

Life, like the financial market, fluctuates. There are more dips ahead; unforeseen bends in the road. The best thing you can do today is establish a lifestyle that preserves your optionality for when that moment inevitably comes. Minimalism is an imperfect means to an end. The end it aims for is a lifestyle that is flexible, sustainable, and that guides you toward having the freedom to do what fills you with a sense of purpose.

But it bears repeating, minimalism is an imperfect means to an end.

The bumps in the road of life are not going to disappear and it’s still important to plan for them to the fullest extent possible. A minimalist lifestyle can help you to plan and be prepared for those bumps, so long as you always keep in mind that they are still — and always will be — looming on the horizon.

As a closing aside, there are plenty of opinions online of how you should treat money and handle your personal finances, including on this blog. I don’t want to use this post to instruct you how to handle your money, but I do want to acknowledge that money is tight for millions of people right now. While living lavishly in the good times is fun, it’s worth taking a moment every once in a while to consider the worst case scenario and plan for it. For many, it’s easy to visualize: This is it; right now.

The shiny, new thing will make you happier today, but I promise the dusty, old thing will make you happier tomorrow.

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How has the COVID-19 pandemic affected you and your lifestyle? We’d love to hear your story.

My Watch Tells Time... Among Other Things

Apple has a knack for shifting the technological tides toward their vision of an ideal future. This was no more apparent than with the release of Apple Watch in April 2015. Now in its fifth iteration, Apple Watch almost immediately cemented itself as an archetype of modern life. That’s why my decision to trade mine in for wrist accessory with internal technology dating back to the 18th century might look like a monumental leap backwards.

One of the longest running threads in the Only What Matters community is titled, “Do you wear a watch?” In it, members fall primarily into one of three camps:

1. I wear a traditional watch

2. I wear a smartwatch

3. My phone tells time, I have no need for a watch

With the release of Apple Watch Series 5, Apple shared a video that opens with the line, “This watch tells time,” before proceeding to run through the exhausting list of things Apple Watch is capable of.

My watch, on the other hand, tells time, displays the date, and has a countdown scale. I picked this watch specifically for the countdown scale (for those unfamiliar, it’s a rotating bezel that counts backwards in 5 minute intervals so you can quickly tell how many minutes you have before the time you marked). As a regional airline pilot, I have to conduct 4 flights per day. Airline flights in the US are considered delayed if they leave the gate just one second late, so having a glanceable countdown on my wrist at all times is invaluable.

Similar to my watch selection, a diver might choose a watch with a count-up bezel to keep track of how much oxygen they have left; a ship captain might choose a watch with a tachymeter to easily calculate their speed over ground; a doctor, a watch with a pulsometer to easily count out a patient’s pulse; a storm chaser, a watch with a telemeter to measure the distance of an approaching storm; etc. Time is at the center of so many professions, so it’s obvious why watches have evolved features, or “complications,” that are purpose-built to serve those that rely on accurate time measurement the most.

In my opinion, this makes Apple Watch a worthy addition to this extensive lineage of time-telling devices. Fundamentally, it’s a device, worn on the wrist, that tells time and that has additions that allow the wearer to glean more information than just the time. It just comes with the biggest complication of all: having to plug it in every night. Especially while traveling.

I started to feel like my decision to wear Apple Watch was a mistake, a waste of money. After all, I could have spent the same money on a mechanical watch and not only would it have none of the distractions but it would also last a lifetime instead of only a few years. Though what I came to realize, largely by reading responses from the community, is that Apple Watch provides immense value to others that I just don’t require. There are undoubtedly plenty of people that will benefit appreciably from having email on their wrist, or texts, or music, or workout tracking, I’m just not one of them.

Watches are not necessarily expensive luxuries, smart or dumb. A well-chosen watch should serve as an extension of oneself that proves invaluable to the wearer. It should easily earn its spot on the every day carry list.

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Care to share what adorns your wrist and why? You can do so in the Only What Matters member community.

The Yearlong Shopping Ban

2019 was the year of “No.” Back in November 2018 I planned out the challenge that would come to be known as the Yearlong Shopping Ban. For the entirety of 2019, I was not to buy anything new (with a few exceptions). The idea being that everything I own is completely sufficient to continue a happy and comfortable life, and that no amount of new things are going to increase my happiness. It was marketed as a challenge, and as such I understood that it was going to be challenging, but I didn’t expect it to test my willpower as much as it did. This is the story of my Yearlong Shopping Ban, inspired by Cait Flanders.

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Rules

I had a few self imposed rules and allowances meant to impose additional restrictions and to allow me a handful of planned purchases throughout the year. These almost worked out, though it got a little fuzzy as the year was approaching an end.

Coffee purchases are allowed, but only black. No lattes.

I thought I would have a hard time giving up sugary espresso-based drinks, and rather hilariously this became one of the parts of this challenge I’m most thankful for. The first handful of months were extremely challenging. I missed lattes in the winter and I missed frappes in the summer. But as the year went on, I began to miss these things less and less. It helped too that I could have a black coffee for less than $2 at any coffee shop, and for free at every hotel. I don’t see myself going back to buying fancy, sugar-filled drinks anytime soon, though I may still splurge on a pumpkin spice latte in the fall and/or a peppermint latte in the winter.

Fast food is allowed outside of my hometown simply to make travel easier.

This one was surprisingly easy to cut out. Even on the busiest days I found a few minutes to throw something together at home. Another one I won’t be going back on.

No soft drinks.

This one caught me a few times throughout the year, mainly at places where a drink purchase was a habitual addition. I always got an IZZE at Chipotle, for example, since it’s one of the few places I can buy an IZZE. I’ve really come to appreciate water though, which sounds weird to say. But it’s always freely and infinitely available at every restaurant, and goes with every dish.

Toward the end of the year I forgot this was a blanket ban and started purchasing sodas when I was out at bars with friends to avoid buying alcohol (more on this later). I guess I hoped those I went to the bar with would care less that I wasn’t drinking with them if I at least had a non-clear drink in my hand.

No drive-throughs.

Easy, plus it plays well with avoiding fast food altogether.

No alcohol.

More on this later.

Attempt to repair before replacing.

Thankfully I didn’t have anything that needed repairing nor replacing throughout the year.

Attempt to buy at a thrift store first.

I didn’t utilize this one as much as I had hoped, mainly because I strayed away from buying anything throughout the year. I did make one Goodwill run that was very successful though. My girlfriend moved to a new apartment and needed a cable modem for her internet, I snagged one at a Goodwill down the street for four dollars.

Pick the vegan menu items whenever they are available.

This is a work in progress still. I started strong up until The Meal—and I remember the exact meal (dinner with coworkers at The Village Idiot in Lexington, KY). The menu placed the vegan quinoa bowl right above my favorite dish of all time: BBQ Pulled Pork Mac & Cheese.

This was the first time in 2019 I chose a non-vegan menu item when a vegan alternative was on the menu, and it opened the floodgates for even more plant-based avoidance going forward.

I learned this year how unfortunate it is that so few places cater to vegans (or even vegetarians for that matter) at all. I travel all around the US and visit a variety of restaurant types, and many include meat in—literally—every single menu item.

I was able to have a lot of conversation about veganism and our collective meat-obsession this year, more on that later.

No new subscriptions.

If it smells like something’s burning, that’s my attempt at achieving this goal. Let’s see... I got a Quip as a gift, so a toothbrush head subscription went along with that. This one I actually don’t mind because it saves me from buying new toothbrushes every few months. I started a Squarespace site of my own, with it came an annual subscription. My favorite weather app, Weather Line, released a radical new update and with it pivoted to a subscription model. I started using Backblaze as an off-site cloud backup service since I’m increasingly using my computer to do real work and would hate to start from scratch if anything happened to it. Finally, most recently, I subscribed to Heated, a daily newsletter for people who are mad about the climate crisis.

All in all, I’m not upset with myself for starting these subscriptions... just disappointed.

No paid software.

So after everything you just read about my weakness for subscriptions, not buying was actually really easy. Somehow, when things have a single price tag paid up front, I have no problem saying no. Yet when they are subscription based, I’m compelled to give them my money.

I’ll be a lot less strict about buying software in the future though. I’m a huge advocate of buying software, and I really have no issue paying for a tool and supporting the developers even if it’s not the perfect tool for me.

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Year in Review

This year required inordinate amounts of discipline and self-control for me, far more than I expected going into it. After all, how hard could it be to simply avoid buying new things? Incredibly so, it turns out. The big things were easier. The things that were obviously a strain on my budget I had no issue denying. Smaller things—apps, drinks, socks, etc.—while all silly to believe were the things that caused me to second guess my challenge, turned out to be so insignificant that it became dangerously easy for my mind to justify looking the other way and making the purchase. Thankfully, this (mostly) didn’t happen.

At various different points throughout the year, I’d get emails advertising sales and special offers that were unfortunate to have to turn down. One example was the Allen Edmonds boot sale. I had had my eye on a pair of winter Chelsea boots for about a month when the Allen Edmonds boot sale began. The offer: $100 off every style of boots. Turning away from this sale was extremely difficult, but I’m glad I did as I later decided I didn’t need another pair of winter boots.

Black Friday and holiday sale season was also difficult to endure, though thankfully by that point in the year I wasn’t so much tempted by the sales as I was depressed by having to miss them. Countless opportunities to save money on things I’m planning to buy in 2020 passed by, but being on the other side of it I’m glad I outlasted. My budget is relatively tight, yet I still managed to spend less than I made in 10 of the past 12 months, and those 2 months were as a result of surgery that put me off work for about 6 weeks.

If fighting against my own willpower wasn’t hard enough, justifying my decisions to others was extremely challenging. At the start of the year, frugality at the expense of experiences was difficult to justify. The most common place I experienced this was at bars with my coworkers. I struggled to find the right words to justify my decision not to drink at first, trying to avoid diving into the whole concept of this shopping ban. Eventually, however, I found the confidence in my decision making necessary to simply say, “I don’t buy alcohol because it’s expensive and unnecessary.”

As the year went on, I found far more support from others, both strangers and friends, than I could have ever expected.

I’ve had countless conversations in the past 365 days about issues surrounding this shopping ban, but I want to focus on three in case these strike a chord with anyone. You can title this section, “Conversations,” or perhaps, “Ways in which in hindsight it would have been easier to simply explain this whole notion of a shopping ban and all of its additional restrictions to my friends, coworkers, and total strangers from the get-go.”

1. Veganism

People are really wary of the word “vegan.” I didn’t know this going into the year, and would frequently voice concern if there was nothing remotely vegan or vegan-able (my word for vegan with modifications) on a menu. The response was usually, “Oh, you’re vegan?” To which I would politely respond, “Not at all, but I am trying to cut back on my meat consumption whenever I can reasonably do so. After all, there’s no reason I should have meat with every meal or even every day.” This is usually when the conversation shifted from gentle inquiries to bold defenses, “Well I like meat,” “There’s nothing wrong with meat,” “I’m perfectly fine being a carnivore,” etc.

Somehow meat (at least in America) has become an unbreakable covenant held by those who all-too-proudly defend their desire to eat animals (hopefully in addition to plenty of plants). Surprisingly often, my remark about how I’m trying to cut back was received as a subtle insult on the diet of the person I was dining with. As if my ordering a salad was my passive-aggressive way of saying “Your burger is bad and you should feel bad!” Obviously this couldn’t have been further from the truth, and I often tried to continue by saying, “Really, I like meat! I’m just trying not to have it all the time.” But whether or not I could save the conversation was hit-or-miss. I’m happy to report that some of my table-mates were interested in hearing more, and even felt the same way about their own rate of meat consumption. Those conversations were the best ones.

Ultimately, going forward, I’m going to continue seeking out animal-free meals at every mealtime. Until I live and work in a nation that is wholly supportive of plant-based meals (I’m excited about the number of plant-based meat alternatives popping up!), it’s going to be difficult for me to cut animal products out of my diet entirely. But in the meantime, and I can’t stress this enough to anyone who’s on the fence about cutting back, every time you say no to animal products is a win. In no way does it have to be all-or-nothing.

2. Alcohol

As I mentioned earlier, I didn’t know how to approach my aversion to purchasing alcohol earlier in the year. I usually found it easiest to just say, “I don’t drink.” Humorously, when I would tell people I didn’t drink they would assume I was either (1) a recovering alcoholic or (2) highly religious. I also learned that nearly universally people that are planning on getting drunk do not like it when you say you are not drinking. There is either a shame or a distrust connected to being drunk in front of a sober person. I still try, and I think succeed, at being good company. And if that’s not enough, I can usually win everyone over by offering rides home at the end of the night.

As I mentioned earlier: I came to own the fact that I thought alcohol was expensive and unnecessary, and as I did people seemed to accept that stance more. It wasn’t about them, it wasn’t my beliefs, it was simply about my frugality. Which brings us to...

3. Frugality

Usually, the conversation would come around to the fact that my convention-challenging behaviors were all a part of a yearlong frugality exercise that also encompassed various lifestyle modifications. This has resonated with everyone I’ve shared it with. No matter how much people make or how much they spend, how much they like meat or alcohol, everyone could understand wanting to better oneself and spending a year focusing on honing in on that which matters most.

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The List

Without further ado, here’s the list of every non-food item I purchased in 2020.

Automotive

• 1 Bottle of cleaning solution

• 1 Ice scraper

• 1 Microfiber cloth

• ​​1 Paint repair kit

• ​​3 Spray bottles

Clothing

• 1 Pair of dress pants

• 1 Pair of dress shoes

• 1 Pair of shoe laces

• 2 Pairs of shorts

• 2 Short sleeve wool linen shirts

• 1 Suit jacket

Entertainment

• 2 Books

​​ Home Goods

• ​7 Bars of body soap

• ​​1 Bar of conditioner

• ​​3 Bars of shampoo

• 1 Bottle of laundry detergent

• ​​1 Bottle of rubbing alcohol

• 1 Bottle of shower spray refill

• 1 Electric toothbrush

• 3 Pens

• 3 Pods of razor cleaning fluid

• ​​1 Small box of Kleenex tissues

• 2 Sticks of deodorant

• 3 Sticks of sun screen

• 2 Tubs of hair cream

• 1 Tub of hair fibre cream

• 1 Tube of toothpaste

• 3 Tupperware containers

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The Future

Going forward, I will certainly not be renewing this challenge for another year. I really have to hand it to Cait Flanders that after a year of this she was ready to do it all over again. That said, the effects this challenge have had on me and my habits are immense. I expected to learn more about what I really need and ended up learning a whole lot more about what I don’t need, which is to say much of anything at all. I certainly never need anything immediately.

Bearing this in mind, I created a spreadsheet in Notion of things I would like to purchase in the future. On each line I’ve listed the item, a link to buy it, its price, the date I must wait until I may buy it, a general category, whether the decision to buy it is based on (1) Utility or (2) Status, and finally any miscellaneous notes related to the purchase (i.e. “Only if I move”).

Paradoxically, more items are deleted off the list than are added to it. When I think something would be cool to have, I add it to the list and set a date, the longer I’m willing to wait the better. Then I review the list regularly. Sometimes as early as the next day and other times after months, I decide I really don’t need to spend money on whatever I once thought was so important.

As I mentioned earlier, a few of the restrictions from this year’s challenge will live on indefinitely. For example, I really don’t miss buying fancy coffee drinks. Little by little I don’t even desire regular black coffee anymore. I might end up taking another cue from Cait Flanders’ challenge and make coffee exclusively a dine-in experience going forward. Additionally, I don’t see myself buying fast food in my hometown ever again, and I would like to use my 2020 spending powers to purchase snack containers with the intention of packing my own snacks when I travel, perhaps with the intention of cutting fast food (and possibly even meat) out for good. Finally, alcohol. I decided I’m done with it. I didn’t miss buying it at any point this year.

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I want to leave you with this, since to me minimalism has always followed the same pattern of consuming less, then consuming better. Along this vein, in the Only What Matters community I’ve talked about my experiments with intermittent fasting with the intention of eating less, then eating better. This less/better dynamic is the consistent thread throughout my minimalism journey and my primary intention going forward is to use the lessons I learned about myself and society in 2019 to make a solid effort to consume less, and convince others to do the same. Then, to simply focus on consuming better.

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If you aren’t already a member of the Only What Matters community, I highly encourage you to check it out. I documented my shopping ban progress monthly and received great feedback every month from other members of the community, some of whom tried this challenge for themselves.

Rebranding Junk

Up until recently, I thought minimalism was easy. I never had much emotional attachment to things, clothes, or the food in my refrigerator. Thus, it was never difficult for me to pare down to the bare essentials. What I wasn’t prepared for, though, was paring down that which was entirely disconnected from emotion already: my junk drawer.

Every household has a junk drawer, arguably every household has to have a junk drawer. No matter how many categories you divide your belongings into, some things unelaborately only fit into one category: Junk.

I moved into a new apartment at the beginning of 2018, and since I threw out or donated most of my belongings during the moving process, it was a great opportunity to establish a system that would enable me to live a clean, polished, simple life free of clutter. My grand plan for managing junk was a humble shoebox on a high shelf in my coat closet which I scribbled on the side in bold Sharpie, “JUNK.” I told myself that no matter what, this junk box would be the limit to my junk accumulation. If the box was full and a new possession needed to enter the box, something else needed to go. Easy.

But as I should have known by then, simple doesn’t mean easy.

By mid 2019, roughly 18 months later, my plan had terrifically failed. The junk box had overflowed and was accompanied on its high shelf by junk-category things piled beside the box, and now a drawer in my kitchen had been filled—to the point that it was difficult to open—by a miscellaneous array of whatchamacallits and thingamabobs. My should-be easy junk management plan had failed.

So I did what one in my predicament should do, I ran to my support group. I created a new thread in the Only What Matters member community titled, “How do you control the accumulation of junk?” A more moderate alternative to how I felt in the moment, which was more accurately conveyed as, “HELP! TOO MUCH JUNK!” In my post, I explained with brevity what I explained above here. Putting a bow on it, “Trimming my wardrobe was easy, but how do you deal with the collection of junk?”

Responses were swift and supportive, but none of them quite clicked with me like the one left by Justin.

“[I’d] think about shifting how you think about those items. The label itself — “junk” — shows you feel negatively about these items.”

He was correct, I did. He continued.

“They’re things you wish you didn’t have or have to deal with.”

Still entirely correct. Again.

“And so they exist in this purgatory, kept around until you can throw them out, never truly welcome in your space. But I think part of dealing with junk is acknowledging, however begrudgingly, that you’re keeping it around for a reason, and give it a home somewhere.”

And that was when it hit me. Of course! Like so many issues before it that seem impossible to grapple with, this wasn’t a junk problem at all. It was a branding problem. With my bold Sharpie uncapped 18 months prior, I had literally written off everything that ever entered that fateful shoebox as excess, waste; a byproduct of modern life in which small household goods can only be purchased in quantities greater than one.

In order to truly work with these things, I had to accept the fact that I have them because I either need them periodically or will need them at some point in the future. These things were not junk, they were tools. Suddenly, I had a simple rule I could work with and build off of:

If something will not be used periodically or at some point in the future, get rid of it. Otherwise, respect it.

And so I took to organizing. It was easy, even though getting to this point was not. Having a basic rule to abide by made decision making effortless and quick. Before the minute hand on my clock made a complete revolution, I had achieved a balance I was extremely happy with.

My shoebox, still labeled JUNK, was now filled with half as many belongings as it was before, and those items still in it were organized neatly: Cables bundled, hard drives stacked, pens and pencils moved to a separate cup (a gift from a friend purpose-built for holding pens and pencils that I wasn’t using for some weird reason), envelopes and stamps pressed flat, loose coins moved to a repurposed mason jar, and papers scanned and discarded. The junk drawer, now affectionately-if-not-compulsorily referred to as my miscellaneous drawer, followed the same path. Both are now neat, organized, and most importantly, only contain that which I have deemed necessary to keep.

Strangely, my takeaway from this experience is rather KonMarian (I sincerely hope it’s not too soon to coin such a term). By accepting that the things I had unaffectionately labeled as junk all came into my possession because I saw value in them in the past, I was able to quickly and easily work through them. Those that continued to hold value I kept, and for those that didn’t, I simply discarded them. But I never could have reached that understanding if I continued to hold the belief that all of it was junk.

Comment below or on the thread that inspired this post in the Only What Matters member community.

Lifestyle Design

Design is all around us, and so often design also is us. We design a morning routine, design the layout of our living room, design the wardrobe in our closets. All of this falls into a much broader term coined by Tim Ferriss in his bestselling book, 4-Hour Workweek, “lifestyle design.”

We’re so used to being immersed in design that we start to ignore it. We passively encounter the vast majority of design we pass. Notice I didn’t say “immersed in things that were designed,” but rather, “immersed in design.” This is a crucial differentiation that sets the definition for design that I choose to believe. It is much, much larger than an act of artistic creation. It is actually a critical foundation for how we behave and how we feel.

New Jersey State Lunatic Asylum designed in accordance with the philosophy of Thomas Kirkbride, 99% Invisible

Architecture and design podcast 99% Invisible recently shared a piece about the architecture-obsessed doctor, Thomas Kirkbride, who pioneered the design of the late-19th century and early-20th century insane asylum. His belief was that the architecture of an asylum—its design—could treat and cure mental illnesses.

Mr. Kirkbride understood that design isn’t simply deciding how a subject looks, but rather it serves as a foundation for all of the human interactions that occur with(in) the subject.

Believing in this, we can start to understand how lifestyle design is more than just a series of aesthetic decisions. How you structure your day-to-day can have a significant impact on your perception of reality. To quote Howard Moskowitz, “To a worm in horseradish, the world is horseradish.”

A 100-year-old bonsai at the Italian Museum of Bonsai, Wikimedia Commons

The idea, then, is to design away the horseradish and carefully cultivate a lifestyle that yields the fullness and joy you desire. The Japanese bonsai tradition comes to mind. Bonsai trees require an incredible amount of care and attention to flourish. I know because I owned one once, and it barely lasted a month. For a bonsai tree to thrive, all one has to commit is inordinate amounts of time and intention into watering, shaping, and pruning. All of this is to maintain the generally unchanging appearance of the tree, as many century-old examples of bonsai trees fail to stretch taller than a toddler. What’s to be gained then? Many would argue it’s a waste of time, but those that have poured themselves into the practice will undoubtedly share their pride and joy. Likely not mentioned but equally significant are the countless calming sessions of ingenuity spent cultivating and pruning the perfect miniature tree.

When you stop thinking about your daily routine as a series of obligations, or entries on a calendar, you can start to pick apart that which is in pursuit of cultivating the perfect lifestyle. You can start to decide what details of your day can be pruned and replaced with something that steers you toward your ideal lifestyle.

Before reading a few of the examples below, imagine what the lifestyle you dream of looks like. Imagine what changes need to be made, and understand that it’s okay if it seems like it’s impossible to attain.

• Instead of scrolling through social media on the train to work, read a book about a topic you’re interested in.

• Instead of taking a 30 minute shower in the morning, limit it to 10 minutes and take a 20 minute walk around your neighborhood.

• Instead of buying new accessories to keep up with changing trends, search for timeless pieces that will stay relevant as trends change.

• Instead of filling a cart at the grocery store, bring a few reusable bags and only buy what you can fit in the bags.

• Instead of catching up on the day’s news on your couch, find a local coffee shop or library with free Wi-Fi.

• Instead of (or in addition to) liking the photo your mom posted online, give her a call.

While all of these tiny details may not apply to you, the point is that you can make little changes without uprooting your entire way of life and those changes have the power to sway proximate details in your life. These details, in turn, all have the cumulative ability to create a significant improvement that would be jarring and difficult to maintain if all changed at once.

Revisit the lifestyle you imagined a moment ago, and instead of picturing the overwhelming amount of change that it will take to get you there, start by thinking of the first little change you can make. Chances are, taken individually, each change you need to make is simpler than you think.

Defining a Career

To say careers today look different than careers in generations past would be a major understatement. A Gallup (2016) report revealed that 21% of millennials have changed jobs within the past year; three times the highest figure in any other generation. According to the same report, only half of the millennial generation strongly agreed that they would be working at the same job a year from then, and around 60% said they would be willing to leave if a new opportunity arose elsewhere.

This isn’t to say all members of the millennial generation share the same sentiment, or that all members of every other generation are perfectly content in their current job, but one thing is certain: The word “career” doesn’t mean the same thing today as it did in the past. That’s why it hit home for so many of our Only What Matters community members when Quintin asked, “What does a career mean to you?”

“Some view careers simply as a means to financial stability,” Quintin wrote, “while others focus on their careers being personal achievements to themselves and society.”

What was most fascinating about the responses that followed was that while there wasn’t a clear consensus, but there was clear contentment.

Christine, Only What Matters member and UX designer, wrote that for her “work is a way to feel personally fulfilled and to grow, and contribute in a positive way.” She added that she doesn’t subscribe to the traditional “corporate ladder” view of a career.¹

Another member, Christopher (not to be confused with the author of this blog post), spoke to the notion of climbing the corporate ladder, “Sounds exhausting.” On Quintin’s post, he wrote about his recent departure from his former job,

I wanted my career to be something I believed in, and gave myself for twenty years to it, but in the end they didn’t value my contributions. In retrospect, I would have skipped the American Dream entirely, pursued something that was personally important to me, and been a minimalist from the start. I just got sidetracked by all the glitter in front of me and all the pushing from behind that I didn’t know how to resist.

Indeed there is a positive feedback loop buried within the traditional definition of a career that can be incredibly hard to break. By working hard, one can earn a promotion, which encourages hard work, which leads to another promotion, and so on. This loop not only provides positive feedback for past labor, but also incentive to continue with the company, as more promotions can be expected in the future. It is no wonder it is a difficult, if not frightening, loop for many to break out of. The loop (id est ladder) is ideal for someone who has found their calling and who doesn’t mind their passion becoming their primary source of income. But what about for everyone else?

Community member Justin puts his focus into the “life” of the work-life balance, writing, “Work is ideally somewhere I benefit others in a meaningful way and make a living doing so. Failing that, it is a way for me to make enough to maintain a relative level of comfort while pursuing what I find meaningful.” He continues, “The point at which I realized a job is just a job and not my ‘passion’ or ‘calling’ was liberating.”

A study published by the Pew Research Center (2016) shows Justin is not alone. Three-in-ten Americans responded saying their current job was just a tool used to pay the bills. This can be hard for some people to find contentment in, as so often we find our identity in the work we do. Often, the first question we’re asked when we meet someone new is, “What do you do?” Justin concludes, “Not binding how I derive meaning from life to how I make a living allows a certain degree of flexibility and takes the pressure off when job searching.”

We would love to know what you think about the word “career.” Discuss this post below or in the Only What Matters member community.

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1. While cliché, it’s worth noting here that “career” has two definitions in the Merriam-Webster dictionary specifically pertaining to one’s work. One, “A profession for which one trains and which is undertaken as a permanent calling.” The other, the corporate ladder: “A field for or pursuit of consecutive progressive achievement especially in public, professional, or business life.” ↩︎

15 Minutes to a Finer Financial Future

“Budget” is a word that takes on a radically different meaning depending on who you talk to. To some people, it is ranked among words like “dentist” and “surgery” and is likely to be followed by a shameful ellipsis. To others, it’s more like “ice cream” and “freedom” and is certainly accompanied by a proud exclamation point.

How is it that one word, referring to the exact same thing, can be interpreted so differently? The answer is context.

The first person described above, Mr. Ellipsis, is likely someone who is not in great financial shape. Mr. Ellipsis has likely waited until reaching a disastrous state of financial affairs to create a budget that he hopes will rescue him from his status quo. While he will likely correct his course with time, the word “budget” will be used as a barrier to his enjoyment of life many times along the way. “I can’t go out tonight, I have a budget...”

Contrarily, Ms. Exclamation took a different approach. She got her first job after graduating and—before making any substantial financial decisions—took less than an hour out of an afternoon to put all of her monthly expenses on paper, both those that were known and those in the future. She knew she didn’t have to do anything over-the-top (no spreadsheets needed, unless of course that’s your thing), but rather just enough to have a plan for where she would send her money and how much wiggle room she had each month. As a result, the only time she had to think about her budget was when her friends asked, “How could you afford that?” To which she could proudly reply, “I have a budget!”

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The 15 Minute Minimal Budget

Step 1. Figure out how much you make

Let’s assume an income of $34,285 per year. If you’re wondering why it’s such a specific number, it’s because I’m also assuming 30% for taxes, retirement, and insurance which gives us almost exactly $24,000 take-home pay, or $2,000 per month. That’s the number we’ll put on our budget.

Income:       $2,000

Step 2. Figure out how much you NEED to spend

“Need” is really the keyword here, this typically boils down to rent, utilities, food, and existing debt payments. That’s it. 

Income:       $2,000

Rent:         - $650
Electricity:   - $60
Gas:           - $50
Groceries:    - $150
Eating Out:   - $200
Student Loan: - $250
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TOTAL:          $540

These numbers don’t have to be exact, but they should be honest. Utilities and food spending will fluctuate month-to-month, but as long as you’re close you’ll have a good idea of what you can and can’t afford. When in doubt, round up.

Step 3. Figure out how much you WANT to spend

This is where you put everything beyond the bare essentials. Cell phone plans, gas, subscriptions, you name it, it goes here.

Remember, $540 is your baseline leftover from Step 2, which is a significant portion of your take-home pay (27%!). If you’re in debt or are rapidly accelerating toward being in debt (especially high interest debt such as credit card debt), you should very carefully consider what expenses you list during this step. Every dollar you don’t spend on unnecessary luxuries is a dollar you could put toward paying down that debt, should you choose to do so.

Income:       $2,000

Rent:         - $650
Electricity:   - $60
Gas (home):    - $50
Groceries:    - $150
Eating Out:   - $200
Student Loan: - $250

Cell Service:  - $60
Internet:      - $50
Gas (car):    - $100
Netflix:       - $13
Cloud Storage:  - $3
Newspaper:     - $14
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TOTAL:          $300

Step 4. Decide what to do with what’s left over

This part is entirely up to you. I’m not going to tell you what you should do with this leftover money since there are plenty of successful finance gurus that all have an opinion on this.

The only thing you should take away is that this number is why having a budget is so important. Knowing you have an extra $300 at the end of each month is the critical first step to being able to make confident spending decisions at each and every juncture. Using just 15 minutes of your life to put this all on paper is the difference between knowing and guessing, and it makes all of the difference in the world.

Discuss this post below or in the Only What Matters member community.

10 Minimalist Packing Tips For Your Next Trip

Packing for a trip can be challenging. Packing for long-term, extended travel can be a nightmare. 

And while minimalists tend to assume this stuff will be a breeze—”I only have 3 shirts anyway”—it doesn’t always work out that way. Turns out you kind of need things like toiletry containers, outlet adapters, and other random things in order to keep living your life semi-normally on the road.

Luckily, we’re experts in this kind of stuff. Check out the video or read on to discover ten tips from the Pack Hacker team that will help you keep things minimal and pack better for your next trip.

10 Minimalist Packing Tips For Your Next Trip from Pack Hacker on Youtube.

1. Lay it flat.

One of the best ways to figure out what you need to take on a trip is to lay out everything in front of you, either on a table (if you’ve got one big enough) or the floor. To really keep things minimal, we suggest trying to cut everything in half. Don’t literally cut your clothes in half, but try to take half the number of items you initially think you need. You’d be surprised what you can get away with.

2. Compartmentalize your gear.

Compressible Packing Cubes | 📷 Pack Hacker

Storing your stuff—preferably all of it—in packing cubes or pouches keeps your gear organized and lets you to easily find what you’re looking for. We love packing cubes, but even a plastic grocery bag or a Ziploc can work wonders.

Pro tip: We recommend grabbing a few different sizes and colors so you can hold a variety of items and easily remember which cube has which stuff. 

3. Consider multi-functional items.

Merino Wool Buff | 📷 Pack Hacker

Always be on the lookout for items that can serve multiple purposes. Here are a few common examples: a compressible lightweight jacket can double as a pillow, a buff can double as a scarf/hat/eye-mask, and one multi-use adapter can eliminate a few cords. Versatile items are the key to keeping things minimal and optimizing your travel kit.

4. Get some merino wool.

If you travel often and you’re not rocking some merino wool…you’re doing it wrong. Seriously. Between the anti-microbial properties and multi-climate usage, you really can’t go wrong. If you’re looking to pack light, you pretty much travel perpetually with two of everything (shirts, socks, and underwear), if they’re all merino wool. This way, when you do need to wash your stuff, you can wash/dry one outfit while you wear the other. We love this stuff—that’s why we wrote an entire guide on merino wool.

Pro tip: No one cares if you’re wearing the same clothes! Especially when you’re traveling, most people won’t even notice. They will, however, notice if your clothes stink. So don’t let that happen.

5. Keep everything fresh.

Cedar Wood for Freshness | 📷 Pack Hacker

Let’s not beat around the bush—things can get a little grimy when you’re traveling day in and day out. In order to keep your pack—and the contents in it—fresh, we’d recommend throwing a cedar wood chip in. It’ll keep everything smelling nice and keep any bugs away from your stuff! (Shoutout to tip #3.) Dryer sheets, essential oils, or potpourri sachets can work here too, though we tend to prefer the natural cedar scent.

6. Get some solid soap or a shampoo bar.

And to be clear, we mean non-liquid soap. (Yes, you should still get some “solid” soap, as in good soap, but the gist is that bar soap is better for travel.) There are countless benefits here—solid soap doesn’t eat into your TSA liquid restrictions, it takes up barely any room, it lasts a long time, it’ll keep your bag fresh and, if you get the right bar, you can even use it for shampoo, laundry, and dishes. Boom. 

7. Bring a compact bag.

Sling for Quick Access | 📷 Pack Hacker

If you’re traveling with one backpack, it’s good to have a smaller bag to use when you’re out and about. We prefer packable daypacks or slings, but you could also get by with something as simple as a reusable grocery bag. The point is, you don’t want to be lugging around your huge travel pack as you’re walking around a new city. If you’re going the digital nomad route, we would recommend opting for a legitimate packable daypack as it’ll be able to handle a laptop and all of your gear a lot better than a simple bag. As a bonus, this bag can pull double-duty as your personal bag on the flight home when you realize you’ve somehow acquired more items than what you left with. (We’ve all been there.)

8. Plan your flight.

Having all your necessary in-flight items—like water, snacks, headphones, etc.—close to you during your trip can be the difference between an enjoyable flight and a miserable one. If you’re using packing cubes or pouches, consider grabbing one that can pull double-duty as a sling for your time at the airport and on the plane. At the very least, keep that pouch accessible at the top of your pack so you can grab it as needed.

9. Strategize to save money.

High Calorie Snacks on the Road | 📷 Pack Hacker

A little bit of planning can save you a small fortune on the road. We’ve found the three biggest areas you can save in are food, electronics, and data. Eating on the road tends to be unhealthy and expensive—so packing some calorically dense food in your carry-on can save you a bunch of cash at the airport. Try to buy all of your electronic cords and adapters beforehand, as buying these things in the middle of your trip can be far more expensive and they’ll likely be of inferior quality. And lastly, make sure to limit your data usage and avoid fees when you’re on the road by downloading content onto your devices before you leave. (That whole “downloading Netflix shows from the app” thing is life-changing.)

10. Practice your trip.

One Bag Travel | 📷 Pack Hacker

At the end of the day, a lot of this stuff is up to you. That is why we always recommend practicing your trip beforehand by loading up your pack and going about your daily routine using only the items inside. Do this for a couple days or weeks and you’ll quickly figure out what you need, what you don’t need, and how you’d like to configure your pack.

What you get with less

Nothing motivates a material detox quite like moving to a new apartment does. Before moving, I was motivated to reduce the amount of material objects I owned (which meant less for me to pack) and to approach life through the lens of less. You never realize how much stuff you have until you’re forced to pack your life into a million different boxes. With the help of Marie Kondo’s The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up, my space emerged from the process delightfully spare (sort of), and it felt pretty damn good.

Now, when I talk about paring things down, I’m not talking about extreme, buzzy and trendy minimalism, the kind where you get rid of practically everything you own. Extreme minimalism is simply a different form of cultural capital when it comes to owning things, even if it is less. Radical minimalism can take up just as much time and space in your mind, causing stress just as much as clutter might.

As ubiquitous as the concept of minimalism is and how to practice it, it’s easy to forget why we do it and what you actually get with less. When I moved, I didn’t go crazy and get rid of everything I owned, I got rid of the things that were causing me more stress than they were doing good. So, when I talk about material detox, I’m talking about the kind of minimalism that feels right for you and the kind that leaves you feeling whole—not uncomfortably naked (figuratively and literally). After a successful purge of unnecessary material objects, I realized there were a lot of unforeseen benefits to minimizing the things I owned.

What you get with less:

Time

The less things I own, the more time I seem to have to myself. I quickly realized I was spending much less time agonizing over what to wear and less time packing for trips because I know my closet’s items more intimately and because my wardrobe consists only of items I look or feel good in.

Another example: I spend less time sorting through kitchen utensils to find the right one while cooking (why did I think I needed three of the same type of spatula?), and less time cleaning and organizing—it’s amazing how easy it is to keep organized when you have less items to clean and organize. With fewer things to pick up and put away, fewer things to collect dust, and fewer things to move in order to vacuum, my cleaning routine sped up a significant amount. That means more time and energy spent in the places I want, like out surfing or hiking.

Peace of mind

Marie Kondo’s book suggests filling your life with things that trigger happiness, which implies we have an emotional connection with the things we decide to keep. This decision isn’t simply about what we choose to have around us; it’s deeper. It’s about the things we want as part of our life. It’s about who and what we are loyal to.

By ridding my apartment of the unnecessaries, I was enabled to be more mindful and aware of the things that were taking up space in my life both physically and mentally. According to psychologist Sherrie Carter, clutter can “bombard our minds with excessive stimuli (visual, olfactory, tactile) and cause our senses to work overtime on stimuli that aren't necessary or important.” With less clutter, my environment no longer feels chaotic, and I now look forward to coming home and relaxing. All that clutter really affected me and it’s only now that I can refocus on the things I find most important.

Money

With renewed focus on the things I own, I began to spend much less. I started to only spend on the things I needed, or the things that brought me real joy. It wasn’t easy at first, but thinking a second longer around the impact of the purchase I was about to make helped me step out of the consumer cycle and fight the thrill of a purchase. Not only am I saving money on things I don’t really need, I’m also wasting less. The less you have, the less you ultimately waste. And now I’m going to continue selling and recycling the things I don’t need.

All this minimalism seems to be doing wonders for my well being. Unfortunately, while my material world is looking more orderly, my virtual world is not. My phone and laptop remained a cluttered hodgepodge of applications. Do I really need three different to-do list apps? Clearly I still have a problem—a virtual hoarding problem. Looks like it’s time to apply the same sort of practice to my virtual world.

5 ways to prevent unwanted gifts

In the member forum, Andy asked:

How do you deal with loved ones who, as an expression of their love, want to buy you stuff?” How do you get them to “cut it out without hurting them”?

Ever had a flier pressed into your hand as you walk down the street? Whether it’s a coupon for a buy-one-get-one-free toaster or a pamphlet forecasting the end of the world, it’s as though the person is saying: “Here, please throw this away for me.”

Andy raised a similar but far more interesting question. It’s different from the question of what to do with stuff you already own that you don’t need (the subject of a future post). And it’s more difficult one to manage, because it’s not just you who needs to take action; you’re trying to change someone else’s habits.

And habits can be tremendously hard to change. Plus, who could file a grievance against someone who just wants to take care of others? It’s a tough case to make.

But for the sake of argument, let’s go a little over the line with our analogies: If, as they say, one is not an alcoholic when they’re drinking with others, then one is not a shopaholic when they’re shopping for others. Take away the “others,” and all that’s left is a bad habit.

If that bad habit is giving you grief, as it does for Andy, try managing it in these five stages:

1. (Polite) Denial: “Sometimes it’s as easy as, ‘Please don’t buy me anything,’ and that’s the end of it,” Chris responded to Andy’s question in the OWM member forum. It worked on his dad, who used to bring him home t-shirts from events he attended. It could work on your loved one, too. But…

2. Bargaining: Asking politely doesn’t work on everyone, and that’s when it’s time to start negotiating. Try the sandwich approach—delivering the “meat” of your argument between two positive slices.

• Thank them: “I love you. I appreciate you care enough about me to buy me this.”

• Be blunt: “When I sell or donate this, it’s not personal.”

• Make a better offer: “The best gift is spending time with you. Next time, let’s take the money you would have spent on [insert gift here] and sit down over a fancy cup of coffee.”

3. How About Some Light Anger: Negotiation doesn’t always work. “My mom has always been the gift-giver, and she’s very motivated to try to ‘outsmart’ my minimalism to buy me something I didn’t even know I wanted,” Chris writes. “My conversation with her is ongoing, but I’ve had to employ tough love at times.” Just don’t be too tough. In fact, it’s safer to skip this stage.

4. Depression: If the above fails, you might be tempted to resign yourself to doing nothing. It’s no use staying in this stage long, though. Sure, you couldn’t change their behavior, but there’s still one thing you can change…  

5. Acceptance: You can change your own mindset, by accepting the fact that it just might bring someone as much joy to hunt for things and pay for them as it does to actually give them to you. If that’s the case, then you might try giving up on trying to change them and “live and let live.” In which they give you stuff and you give it away—giving as little effort and feeling as little anxiety as possible. Hopefully that doesn’t mean throwing it away. Sell it. Give it to a friend. Drop it off at Goodwill. And feel good about it.

Whether anything you try will work, as Chris wrote, “it depends on the loved one.” It also depends on you.