. This book taught me a lesson about reading a minimalism book before bedtime!While I was able to fall asleep easily enough I awakened early this morning my eyes looked upon the shelf that holds so many of my worldly possessions. After a moment's thought I pulled one box off of the shelf and looked within.
Before I stopped I had eliminated three boxes full of stuff out of my life and pulled out an old monitor that will be Freecycled as well. One box full ended up tossed with the remainder ready to be posted on a combination of Freecycle, the local online classified network VCI.net and eBay.
After all of this I considered treating myself to a sausage biscuit at McDonald's but then thought about that book and actually changed my mind so here I sit nibbling on a Toaster Struedel as opposed to the McD Sausage biscuit I would have normally headed out for, drinking water instead of an orange juice.
This book like the Happy Minimalist
before it boasts very few pages--70 to be exact. However it packs so much food for thought in those 70 simple pages it is astounding. Some things he espouses like the one-month rule I cannot use for a lot of my things like the seasonal items I must keep (kerosene heaters aren't cheap) but he raised an excellent point about keeping things around. I was amused by his comments aimed toward just getting rid of the stuff--even if you have to burn it!
He touched upon having a 30-day waiting list for things before you purchase, discussing how having more things just makes us more miserable because we can only keep up with about 150 things in our head. He was not shy about asking you to look around and in your stuff for things you were toting around that you had not used in ages!
Recently I had went through my laptop bag to lighten it -- he is definitely correct about how easy it is to accumulate and carry stuff around without thinking of it. I cringe as I look at the purse sitting at my feet--I need to look inside of it as well!
If you get the opportunity to snag this book and read it, I encourage you to do so. The book is not very long so you don't have to worry about it being a long read. However not only does it contain information about him and his minimalist ideas but also links and information about other minimalist greats such as Leo Babauta
and others. Everett's book
is a great foundation work on the minimalist life containing links and locations filled with additional information if you want to learn even more. Grab a copy and give him a chance to say his piece--you won't regret it!While you are doing that I think I shall start listing this stuff on Freecycle. You know, if I had embraced the Minimalist path years ago I could have saved a fortune in Banker's Boxes
and Rubbermaid totes
!