Goodbye, Things: The New Japanese Minimalism

This book has helped change my mindset in terms of decluttering. Every time I chose to declutter an item, whether it went to donation or to the trash, all I could ever see was how much money I wasted. This book challeneged me to look at it from a positive viewpoint. They were items I onced loved but didn't anymore. I recommend this book for anyone struggling to declutter. The beginning of the book features photographs from the author's own decluttering process. It really helps put things into perspectvie.

Thank you Fumio for such an enlightening and profound read. I just graduated and have been feeling a sense of urgency for a while to get a good job now I have a good job and to climb corporate ladder, to build intellectual and emotional intelligence, to navigate modern dating, to stay fit and eat healthy and a barrage of other non stop aggressions. Thanks to minimalism and the ideas of this book coupled with spiritual training and meditation I can finally breathe and live in the moment. Things really do block our insights into the space of happiness. You are a great author and excellent teacher. I thank you so much Fumio

This book goodbye, things is about minimalism and the positive impact this lifestyle has had on the author and includes a manual on how to disregard with possessions in a positive way. The author testifies he formerly lived a shallow life full of clutter but has not now transformed to a life of meaning because he's stripped it of non-essentials. He's learned he doesn't need most of the things society says is important for happiness, so everything he owns now is crucial. Discarding things has freed him up to focus on what he, the individual, not society, believes are the most important things in life; people and present experience. This book says simple living, gratitude, and flexibility are the keys to a well lived life. Big Ideas I Took from This Book Get Rid of the Notion that Someday You'll Use Something: I like this rule because I use it when I try to justify keeping mess in my house. I was mortified he caught me keeping "fancy disposable bags" I think I'll use in the future. Get Rid of Decorative Stuff and Unused Furniture: I like the rule about getting rid of unused furniture. Extra furniture and things increase the need for square footage and square footage means more rent. Material Belongings Have Baggage: Items we don't use speak both positively and negatively. The unread books on our shelves tell us we lack follow through. The expensive chair we no longer sit in reminds us of a poor impulsive purchase and posturing. Stuff Controls our Time, Directly and Indirectly: A big house requires a lot of cleaning. Expensive purchases requires lots of income and high income requires absorbent amounts of stress and time. He says since he reduced his footprint he's had more time to work on things that are important to him and his confidence has increased. He wrote this book, created a website and has reached out to celebrities who've agreed to coffee. That newfound courage is new to him and he credits minimalism with the positive change. Before reading this book I was following a basic form of minimalism, but after reading I am reignited to adopt a stricter approach because I believe it will have a huge positive impact on my lifestyle.

Love this book. Have reread it a few times when i need a reminder to stop buying things i dont need.

Una forma diferente de percibir el entorno. cada persona vive su propio minimalismo. Recomendado el texto. Hasta en el contenido se ve el minimalismo

Everything in this, if you’ve read books on decluttering and minimalism, read the most popular blogs, this book offers nothing. I wouldn’t say it synthesizes the common suggestions in any useful way either. The author favors stories of depths to illustrate points, and there’s a dash of woo sprinkled in here and there. Like many popular books, studies and other authors are references, but not properly cited to see if that’s what said studies really concluded or not. Not a big deal, just a personal pet peeve of mine. More often than not, “referenced” studies in media rarely say what books mentioning them advertise, so I will need to look more deeply into these claims. For someone unfamiliar with the subject and a beginner, it’s decent. Anyone else, well, no, you’ve read this and you’ve read it better. If anything, the author rides off of other trends and authors as his content. And yes, I can’t say I’m amazed by a bachelor minimalist with a love of expensive gadgets, Apple, and replacing physical clutter with digital clutter instead. Seen it. Brands are frequently mentioned in the other examples too. Don’t buy anything to impress others, right? Yeah, sure. I just don’t buy replacing a laptop with a MacBook Pro and tossing out some expensive clothes for an expensive vacation isn’t still just the same old same old in a new package. The lists were nice, and the most useful portion of the book, as the “journey” portion was dull to me. I think another good portion was about how our possessions can be dangers in natural disasters. This is a pretty big reason to think about minimizing, if even only a little. American households often border on full on hoarding. Hoarders are a danger to themselves because of all their stuff. Is an organized stack of stuff really all That less dangerous if something shakes the house? Something to think about, but also once again, he draws this from another source rather than being his own insight. I’m sure it was a great personal journey for the author, but I think the book would have benefited by either focusing more on the internal journey, which rings hallow for me here; or by focusing more on synthesizing the various material he references and commenting in more depth. I’d read any book he tries writing in the future, as it might have more depth. The main feeling I had while reading this is “you’re onto something there, now go deeper”.

This book was like my biography. And at half way through I saw a few summary pages of his lists at the back of the book. I’m 73 and my things are who I’ve been. Catered tea parties, all sorts of art supplies, scripts, a few favorite jeans many sizes too small. Books galore. All saying I’m interested in what you are investigating now (8 very learned kids and 22 grands all curious). We have great discussions because I learn with them.). I highly recommend this book and will surely have a set of criteria to help me loosen my grip on things.

After being introduced to Fumio Sasaki's variety of minimalism on websites describing the new Japanese minimalism and watching a YouTube video of a Japanese show that brings a Westerner to spend the night in Sasaki's minimalist apartment, I was eager to read his book. I find the ways he has streamlined his belongings and his life particularly inspiring. As another reviewer said, some of the contents could have been tighter, but there is much good in this overall. Sasaki's story of his path to minimalism will resonate with those who have found themselves in the midst of excess at one point or another. I personally appreciate his perspective as a working professional, not a digital nomad. (Although since the book was published, he has changed his work.) There are a variety of tips and elements related to minimizing presented in the book. He also highlights some of the other Japanese minimalists he knows, including a married couple who are not extreme minimalists. Some of the tips are common to other sources on downsizing and minimizing, but are good nonetheless. Others are uniquely addressed in this book. For example, some people are concerned that they will lose their identity in some way if they get rid of things, and Sasaki reinforces the fact that this is not true. This is a nice addition to the body of work that may inspire others to minimize their belongings, and the pictures enhance the text.

Every time I lend this book to someone it disappears and a few weeks later I hear they’ve cleared the garage or the attic, or they’re doing a car boot sale (similar to a yard sale). Due to this, I have bought this excellent book quite a few times over the years. It remains my favourite book on minimalism and a fantastic insight into another culture. I like that it isn’t an instruction manual, like some other books on the topic, but a series of small essays on various aspects of minimalism and the minimalist lifestyle as adopted by the author. I am not a minimalist, well not to any extreme but I do often declutter and clear space. It really helped me let go of the idea that memories are external and connected to objects - turns out, for me anyway, that they’re not. Things are just that … things. Sometimes pretty, often useful but it would seem that the emotions attached to them come from within and memories are just as effectively accessed through other means. I know it’s not for everyone, some are truly maximalists, and they are unlikely to be reading this. In all these years of decluttering I can honestly say I have not missed a single item I’ve donated or sold and it all started with this book.

Book arrived dirty and with marks on it. Disappointed. The book itself is brilliant.

I've already read many books about minimizing or just decluttering, but this one really stands out. Well, the first pages are a little bit boring or maybe it's just me, it took me some pages to really get into the book, but once I was hooked, I was hooked! I read through the night. Yeah. Not three hundred pages of new information, but even though I've read many books and watched many YouTube videos there is some new information in there. And it's amazing, just reading, I got some motivation, getting up and moving some stuff out of my home. I mean, even if there isn't new information on every page, it's written in a way so you can quickly go back to check and more important it's written in a way that really motivates you to get up from the couch and start moving. The other book that really had a big impact on my life was written by Peter Walsh.

En ayant lu le résumé, ce livre m'as intriguée. Je suis intéressée par le minimalisme depuis un moment, ai eu plusieurs lectures sur le sujet, mais ce livre là fais parti de mon top 3 ! J'aurais du le lire bien plus tôt ! C'est un livre que je pense garder à vie, car oui, il change la manière de penser et donc, la vie ! Je suis très heureuse de cet achat ! LE livre sur le minimalisme à avoir lu, c'est CELUI LA ! Juste une petite attention, le livre est écrit en Anglais. :)

Easy to read book. A good read to understand some of the thinking behind mimimalism!