Everything That Remains - How To Become a Minimalist

Would you ever willingly give up all of your stuff? The stuff in your home? You know, all 300,000 pieces? What? You didn’t know you had that much stuff lingering in your house? Actually, neither did I.

According to Joshua Fields Millburn, co-auther of Everything That Remains, that’s approximately the amount of stuff in an average household.

I had the pleasure of hearing Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus, the other co-author, at an event hosted, of all places, at the Apple store on the Magnificent Mile in Chicago. I bring up the location because the book’s premise is about living a meaningful life with less stuff. Talk about irony, right?

They both talked about how they became known as The Minimalists, why they’re doing what they’re doing and why they feel it’s important. Millburn managed to get rid of 90% of his possessions. He and Nicodemus share a car. They don't have Internet in their homes. I could go on and on...

But does having less mean having more? It’s a good question. They seem to think so. For those who are willing to give it a shot, they ask them to take part in a game.

The Minimalists Game.

1)    Start at the beginning of the month and get rid of 1 thing.

2)    On the second day, get rid of 2 things; third day it’s three things…you get the picture.

3)    By the end of the month, you’ve gotten ride of 500 things.

Initially it’s easy, right? Who doesn’t have one thing they can get rid of right now? Or two things, or three or five. But by day 20? It’s not that it’s hard to find those items, it’s the fact that you have to get them out of your house. Do you donate them? Sell them? Trash them? That’s up to you but you can’t let things sit in your house until you sell them so somewhere, on that day, they must go.

Both insist living this lifestyle isn’t about deprivation. In fact, it’s the opposite – it’s about finding more meaning in the things we all talk about as things that are important to us: health, family and relationships.

At one point Nicodemus argues that we all say those things are important to us and yet how we prioritize our time and energy doesn’t really match up with those things. Getting rid of stuff helps us focus less on the material gains in our lives and shifts it to new experiences with others, meeting people face to face, reading books or taking long walks rather than wasting away our time on social media sites.

Of course now I’m wondering if I could survive a month of getting rid of things daily. Anyone care to join me during the month of August?

By the way, you can find Everything That Remains at your local independent bookstore or, if you want to go digital to have less "stuff," buy the book on iTunes.

~Megy