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a Round Up of Minimalist Books

I mentioned in my last post that I've been on a bit of a minimalist kick lately. That has included reading several books about minimalism, decluttering, and work habits. I figured I'd write a small round-up of them to collect my thoughts.

First, the decluttering books. I read three - *the Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up* by Marie Kondo, *the More of Less* by Josh Becker, and *New Minimalism* by Cary Telander Fortin and Kyle Quilci. These were each primarily concerned with establishing methods for removing things from your home to declutter your life - while they all paid lip service to the benefits of minimalism, their bulk was dedicated to their methods for getting rid of your stuff.

I didn't finish *Life-Changing Magic*, because it was frankly insane. Not the decluttering method itself - going category-by-category instead of room-by-room, and making sure to have everything of one type out together makes sense. But the anecdotes about Kondo's life, and her clear belief in the literal magic of tidying, make it tough to swallow. Up next was *the More of Less*, and I did finish this one, though I didn't find it too valuable. Frankly, many of its insights were repeats of things I'd read in blogs, combined with occasional christian preaching (this book was sorted in the religion section in the library). It wasn't bad as a starter text, but I'd already figured out many of its points.

New Minimalism* was, by far, the most useful of the decluttering books for me personally. I'm a very liberal person who worries about my environmental impact, so my struggle with decluttering is figuring out how to remove things without simply throwing them in the garbage. *New Minimalism* focused on decluttering in ways that took sustainability into account, including a list of resources about where to take certain items for donation. It also had some other useful ideas - an overview of some personality types the authors had encountered, and what parts of decluttering they struggled with (I was called out by the "practical" archetype), as well as some design tips for post-declutter, to decorate with what you already have. If decluttering is the goal, *New Minimalism* would be my pick for a book to read.

The other half of the books I "read" were self-help books about focused work. The first of these was *the One Thing* by Gary Keller, which I honestly only read 5 pages out of before dismissing it. I did the same with *Essentialism* by Greg McKeown, reading only half of it - for both of these books, the issue I had was that they were too corporate. McKeown, for example, has an MBA and his back-flap bio noted that he gave talks at Google, Apple, LinkedIn, and others. His points weren't bad, but his examples had a serious privilege problem - he talks about the importance of rest, for example, by sharing an anecdote about an executive who burned themself out, so they took two years off work and moved to the south beaches of France with their family to recuperate. Resting is important, but not everyone has those kind of resources. Another thing I just have to mention - he relates the story of a couple who decided to cut out all social activities to spend time with their kids, saying "Their kids were their best friends" like it's a good thing. It's not. Guess how I know.

It made me seriously consider writing an open-source version of his book, called *Essentialism, for Real People*. I have a vision of the "rest" section simply saying "Sleep is Important." followed by like 30 citations, wikipedia style.

The last book was *Digital Minimalism* by Cal Newport. Again, I agreed with some of the points, but if fell into the self-help book trap of relying on tenuous anecdotes. For example, the author believes finding solitude away from the busy feeds of social media is important. He knows this, because Thoreau wrote about the importance of solitude in *Walden*, and Abe Lincoln used to seek solitude when he was president. The book continues to support its points with these kinds of cherry-picked anecdotes, which was frustrating because I *do* agree with it in places - I've made an effort to cut out things like Reddit, YouTube, and Tumblr. I do want to use the internet in a more intentional way, and cultivate better personal relationships. It just doesn't do a very good job of supporting itself.

So, that's the round-up. If you read this and think there might be a better book that I missed, feel free to let me know.