What is Your Minimalist Destination?

Written by Everett Bogue | Follow me on Twitter

peacetreeBeing 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:

  • Can you fly to Peru next Friday?
  • Can you start your own company in a month?
  • Can you relocate to Vancouver next week?
  • If you lost your job, would it be devastating?

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 Oregon in August, 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 a problem while I worked my freelance contacts online.

Many people are trapped in their own lives by their stuff. But the reality is, we don’t need any of it anymore.

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

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

It doesn’t matter who you are, the possibilities are open if you get rid of the physical, mental, and emotional stuff.

You can be free. You can do the impossible.

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How to Achieve Minimalist Freedom: Two Methods for Less Stuff

Written by Everett Bogue | Follow me on Twitter

My backpack

My backpack

I just did morning yoga, now I’m sipping coffee and observing the caffeine begin to flow through my veins. Coffee is great.

I flew from New York back to Chicago on Monday night. I’m staying with my family for the holidays. We’ll be celebrating Christmas, and for New Years my grand parents are taking us all up to an isolated quaint old ski lodge that we’ve frequented for a number of years. There are few people up there, so it is quiet.

It’s a good time to reflect before the next year. In fact, I already find myself reflecting.

A reflection on Buddhists and stuff

There were three Buddhist monks on the plane from LaGuardia to O’Hare. Two men in their mid-twenties and a ten year old boy.

Buddhist monks don’t carry anything with them except a small satchel. In comparison, it was funny to watch all of the Americans lugging their giant rolling suitcases out of the overhead bins, and then half of them stroll down to luggage where they pick up the other rolling suitcase they couldn’t bring on the plane with them.

I’m carrying only half a backpackers’ bag full of clothes these days, with a yoga mat strapped to the side, plus a laptop bag with a couple of books in it. I still felt like I had too much stuff.

What if you traveled with nothing?

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.

Here are two ways I would like you to consider thinking about the stuff that you own.

1, 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 underwear, 5 pairs of socks, 1 pair of jeans. Suitable jacket for overnight weather at my destination. iPhone, iphone charger. Moleskin. Cash, credit cards, and ID.

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 50-100 miles with that bag. Does it still seem doable?

This is a good mental list to have ready to go, you never know when the zombie apocalypse might happen –though this is probably very unlikely. You also never know when you might want to set off on an adventure, and these are always more fun when you’re not dragging to rolling suitcases and a backpack with you.

2, Consider adopting a 1-month rule.

I have a solid 1-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 in 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:

  1. Will I use this next month?
  2. What purpose does it serve in my life?
  3. Do I need this professionally?
  4. Does anyone I know need this more than me?
  5. Can I get another one of these in three years if I discover I need one again?
  6. Do I use this seasonally?

After 30 seconds of deliberation, I bring the items to vote. They either stay or they go. They’re either useful or they are not.

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

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

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 cars that don’t work in their backyards.

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

Reflect on the true cost of stuff.

People feel that just because they spent money on an object that they have to keep carrying it with them, the problem is, 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 more house. If you have 10,000 items, you need even more 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.

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A Minimalist Approach to Washing the Dishes

kitchensinkBefore I work on an important project with a person, I like to get a good look at their kitchen sink. This is sometimes difficult to accomplish, but it is worth the extra effort. I’ll try to get myself invited over to their house, if that fails I’ll try peering into their kitchen window.

Why do I do this? Because a person’s kitchen sink is a fundamental judge of their character.

A person can disguise many of their inadequacies. They can fake it until they make it with reputation, showmanship, and publicity.

But, it’s really hard to fake the fact that you can’t do your dishes.

Those dishes are right there in the sink and they are dirty.

I know this because I’ve lived with a lot of people in the past. At one point I was living with ten people in Brooklyn, in a huge old school house that was awesome. These roommates would come and go, and so over the 2.5 years I probably lived with 35-40 people. I realize this sounds crazy, but it was a big house, and these were some of the most remarkable people that I’ve ever known.

That being said, some of them didn’t know how to do dishes, so I observed them.

Based on simple observation, and the fact that I used the kitchen at least twice a day, it was easy to cross-reference dish washing ability with other personality traits.

[Update]Please note, I’m being a little silly here. Don’t take me too seriously. I do believe doing the dishes is beneficial, but I got a little carried away in how I explained things. Please forgive the slightly humor that attempted poorly to employ.

People who do their dishes immediately after eating are:

  • Generally happier
  • Accomplish more with their lives
  • Are less overwhelmed by life
  • Make more money

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Minimalist Blogging 101: How to Blog Less With More Impact

Written by Everett Bogue | Follow me on Twitter.

bloggingA few days ago I had a conversation with a friend who recently started a blog. She eventually wants to take her blog to a professional level, but was getting distracted by all of the bells and whistles that surround the platform.

She inquired as to why the workflow for my blogging was so effortless. Why it seemed like my blog posts just seem to go out, without hours of labor on my part.

I don’t spend a lot of time blogging, because I don’t need to.

It’s easy to get overwhelmed with all of the social networking options, WordPress widgets, let alone deciding on what topic to write about.

This is why I subscribe to a minimalist approach to blogging: do only what you need, when you need to do it. This is a philosophy that I stand by.

There are far too many ways to get distracted while blogging. It’s important to stay focused and not waste timing taking actions that aren’t productive. You should be out in the world living your life, not spending hours in front of a computer gaming the blogging industry.

Focus on what is important for your blog. Don’t worry about what is important for other people’s blogs.

I’ve noticed that there are a lot of people trying to make money blogging. I think this approach to blogging might help them find success. If you know an upstart blogger who is spending too much time blogging, perhaps send them this article?

This is my minimalist philosophy for blogging.

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An Interview with Chris Baskind on The Minimalist Century

Interview by Everett Bogue | Follow me on Twitter

Every week on Far Beyond The Stars I interview an important person on Being Minimalist. Last week I interviewed the author and minimalist legend Leo Babauta. Do you want to be interviewed? Drop me a tweet.

chrisThis week I spoke with Chris Baskind. Chris is the director of web operations at Vida Verde Media and writes the blogs More Minimal and Lighter Footstep. We spoke about the advantages of going car free and the dawn of the new minimalist century.

On to the interview!


Everett Bogue: You’ve been blogging about being minimal for a number of years now, how has your approach to being a minimalist changed over that time?

Chris Baskind: I started writing More Minimal back in 2006. To be honest, its take on minimalism was a little scattershot, but it lead me to building Lighter Footstep, a green website with a strong “use less, do-it-yourself” emphasis. If my approach has changed, it’s that minimalism — or simplicity, if you prefer the term — is now fundamental to how I look at everything. I still write about green and environmental topics, but these flow from my conviction that a more minimal lifestyle isn’t just necessary to restore balance to society: It’s a healthy and fulfilling way to live on its own merits.

Everett: Do you have any current minimalist goals?

Chris: I still set goals for the same reason I look for street signs: they help you know where you are, and which way to go next. But I agree with people such as Leo Babauta that they can be a trap, too. Minimalism is an ongoing process, not a series of achievements. That being said: I still have too much stuff, and plan to further reduce my personal clutter. I’ll be exploring minimalist cooking. Most of all, I want to spend more time talking to people who are also in the process of radical simplification. I learn more things from my readers than I have time to write down.

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