A Day in the Life of a Minimalist Paperback – January 1, 2012

Full disclosure: I received an offer to get the Kindle version of this book for free with the understanding that if I loved it, then I would write a loving review.Well, I didn't love it, but I liked the book a lot. I read the book twice. The first time I read it I thought it was a collection of disjointed essays from a single man who tossed everything out the window to start a new life. For most of us that are married and have children that is not particularly relevant. Nonetheless, after the first read I found myself challenging certain assumptions about things in my life. In particular, have I introduced unnecessary complication in my life simply due to the pressures of advertising, laziness, or something else ?Example 1: I have financial accounts at two different banks, two brokerage accounts at different brokerages, IRAs scattered all over the place, multiple 401K accounts, etc. Why? Every time I changed jobs I left the old accounts where they were and started fresh with the new employer. I didn't want to go through the hassle of consolidation. But, now I have a rather complicated set of financial accounts. Why did I allow this to happen? Anyway, I have already started the process to consolidate all of my accounts into one 401K, one bank (now credit union), and one brokerage, and one IRA.Example 2: Over the years we amassed a huge collection of water bottles. You know the kind, a cheap plastic bottle with some advertising on it. In reality, we only like to use the few stainless steel bottles we have, but the plastic ones are taking up valuable kitchen cabinet space. Even worse, many of the bottle caps are unique and don't fit other bottles. Why did we keep these things? We have since simplified by getting rid of the plastic bottles full of advertising and kept only the stainless steel bottles that have interchangeable caps. It is so much simpler now to find a bottle and cap in a rush out the door to a game, we have more space, and we are no longer advertising for a company.You may look at these examples as trivial. I think they are trivial. The author's book got me to challenge assumptions about how much complexity to keep in my life. I could cite 10 more examples where I removed some small amount of unnecessary complexity that has reduced wasted time and gave more time for doing things I really enjoy.So, I read the book again more carefully. I looked where I could apply the author's ideas to my own life in areas important to me. One of the areas where I applied the author's suggestions was relationships.Example: I have a friend that emails me about twice per day on any number of topics and some of the notes are quite lengthy. I simply don't have the the time for a thoughtful response at that frequency when many of my friends are doing the same thing. Instead, I figured out a way for my friend and I get to get together over lunch and consolidate the giant thread of emails into a relaxed and more personal conversation. It was more enjoyable, more meaningful, and frankly a lot less complex than processing email. I believe this approach makes a lot more sense than some of the productivity gurus that would just have suggested ways to process email more efficiently.Key point: The author makes a point of getting the reader to take out complexity rather than trying to optimize a complex situation. That is what makes him different. Many times we never intended to bring all this complexity into our lives. I certainly didn't. Instead, maybe complexity was introduced through laziness (e.g. my bank accounts) or through product promotions and advertising (e.g. my water bottles) or maybe through a sense of misguided efficiency (e.g. emailing friends instead of seeing them in person.)Here is my suggestion. Read the book. Then take a look around your life. What have you done or allow to happen to make your life unnecessarily complex? By making some changes could you redirect your energies from the unimportant to the important? How might you increase general happiness and well-being while reducing frustration and wasted time. When you have worked through the trivial items, read the book again for greater insight, and tackle the bigger issues. You can apply the author's ideas literally for some benefit or think about the ideas he is promoting and then apply them to your situation for even greater benefit. Perhaps that is where the real value comes from the book and his ideas. Don't try to mimic his life, but rather borrow his ideas and apply them where appropriate.What would it take to make this a five star book in my opinion? I think the author could have done more to hand-hold a few of us in applying his ideas to our own situation.

So what does it take to be a Minimalist? After reading this book, I am convinced that a Minimalist is a person with a well-defined desire in life. So often do we live our lives mindlessly, living from paycheck to paycheck that seems to disappear as fast as we could log in to our bank account. This book leads us to question many necessities of life that we consume without much thought. Things such as cable, internet, phone service, and even our big houses, are questioned in this book. Are they bringing you closer to what you want out of your life?This book provides a refreshing view that focuses on the question of "what do we truly want" instead of on "how to get them," which seems to be the goal of many self-help books. The strength of this book rests on the author's willingness to make many practical and specific recommendations that you can take to change your life. The stories on how he got rid of his books, how he stopped taking photos during his travels, and how he cleaned out his digital library personally resonated with me and made me consider them as well.But I do disagree with the author's view that the Minimalist way of life can be for everyone. To the question of whether the world would work if everyone was a Minimalist, he answers that "it would" and "it did- for thousands of years." I think certain level of "busy-ness" is necessary in today's society. I appreciate people who are willing to work a 9-to-5 jobs every day, perhaps working a mundane jobs that may be less desirable and free-flowing than the Minimalist's life. Yes, some of us (guilty as I write) probably check our emails and make phone calls more often that needed, but for many jobs these days, answering those emails and making those calls are necessary and even beneficial for others and for the functioning of our society.So I recommend this book to everyone who is tired of Keeping Up With the Jones and who wishes to start de-cluttering his/her life. The Minimalist lifestyle may not be for everyone, but everyone will find something useful from this book.Editorial Issue: I did not find a table of contents in my edition of the book. When I tried to go back and find an essay from the book that I remembered, I had to flip through the whole book. It'll be helpful to add a table of contents with the titles of the essays.

I really enjoyed that the thoughts and ideas were against the normal. The author was able to express his trials with the change in perception as well as what to expect. The "How to" was simple, on some I wish there were more details of how to accomplish the goals to Minimalism, but that would have went against Minimalism though ;). I enjoyed the Chapters, as they were short, and easy to not lose your place. You can find even in 5 minutes able to read through one chapter, then on to a new. I enjoyed that I had an "official" stopping place within a few pages, rather than 20 pages later. The beginning of the book, the author informs you he will be repeating some of the information, and he does, but in the end it makes sense. I like that I had the warning or I may have stopped the book. The repeat didn't necessarily make it make sense in the end, but more to ensure you grasped the point clearly from different point of views. I felt motivated afterwards to minimalism some of my material possesses and grateful for that. I love that this book is different from the normal. It made me think of things that in our society we just accept and move on, not realizing it is taking a piece of us away each second. With excitement, I will be looking into the other books... I would have given this a 4.5 stars, but it won't allow me to do so. Thank you!!

I have followed the minimalists for most of this year and although my life does not compare to theirs they have taught me an awful lot. I have never had the chance to be materialistic my finances and family situation has never allowed it to happen, however they have taught me to focus on what I have ( my family and friends) . Joshua is a single man with no children so there are things he can do which I cannot , but , there are many issues he brings to light and for that reason I hope he can spread the minimalistic message worldwide.

Virtually all content is available verbatim on theminimalists.com. Great if you want to read it offline.Additionally, the writing is somewhat childish and naive. It is poor on grammar and structure, using commas extensively where none are required which produces a staccato reading effect which is frustrating.The author is boastful of moderate career achievements and demonstrates a lack of experience in the world. I don't think the author has travelled much, it seems he's never left America so his views are quite 'local'. He's around 30, single and opinionated so his brand of minimalism is geared towards that life.Regardless, he feels he's achieved something that makes him happy which is something we can all learn from.

Joshua is one half of The Minimalists - a popular website about decluttering one's life to focus on what is truly important. This book is a collection of the essays written by Joshua for their website. Some are quite long; some are almost zen-like in their brevity. All are extremely well-written and thought-provoking. What I like about Joshua's writing is that he is not prescriptive, or condescending. He is honest and he mostly simply asks that you think how his thoughts might apply to you (or not).His notion of minimalism is not about interior design and clean lines but about gaining focus in your life. His suggestion is that one should be ruthless in focussing on what matters: love, health, friendship, personal development, etc.I really enjoy reading his essays on the website, and am very happy to have them collated on my kindle. I recommend anyone to take a look (it's really a very cheap book) and see whether Joshua's book can improve your life. I think it can.

I must confess I am a bit of a JFM geek and have read the whole website theminimalists.com from front to back. But I loved reading it all, drinking in the words, words of value and inspiration. When the synopsis of the book said the essays were collected from the website, I thought oh, but I read the book anyway, and I must say I felt like they were new and fresh - to the point of not recognising that I'd read the words before. So powerful are his words, that I got sucked in and read the whole book in a few hours. JFM has divided them up into categories, and they do work so much better in order. They mean more as a collection.The minimalists' ethos is to add value, and they do that in bucket loads. The minimalism movement woke me up and got me thinking about my life. JFM captures the thought process and journey so very well. Definitely worth a read.

Buy this book now - I've followed 'the Minimalists' online for a period of 18 months. This is an updated selection of their 'Greatest Hits', buy this book NOW and then buy a friend a copy - there are plenty of books on this subject but none really offer such a personal insight into how it works. The mannner in which the authors relate minimalism to personal advancements is truelly an inspiration. There is a spiritualness to minimalism that the genre almost rejects by the very nature of its 'stark' and 'cold', lazy stereotypes but the manner in which JFM explains simple principals elevates this book beyond the regular munuels. It achieves this, IMO by offering a 'warmth' and a 'human touch' to minimalism journey, by the author.@1500club