Never underestimate the importance of removing stuff you don’t need.
Encouragement provides us with motivation to persevere. It invites us to dream dreams of significance for our lives. And it begs us to work diligently with optimism and promise.
Overcoming the pull of consumerism is a difficult challenge regardless of our stage in life. Simplicity requires encouragement. To that end, I hope you will find motivation in these articles below.
Each post was intentionality chosen to inspire simplicity in your life. For maximum effect, find a quiet moment this weekend and enjoy them with a fresh cup of coffee or tea.
Eighteen Summers: It’s All We Get | Simple As That by Rebecca Cooper. I know what I must do. I must make every single summer count. All eighteen of them, because it’s not a lot.
No couch, one car: How these Minnesotans are living with less | Star Tribune by Allie Shah. The minimalist revolution has led some Minnesotans to shed possessions and embrace a no-frills life.
12 Things Minimalists Wish You’d Stop Spending Money On | Reader’s Digest by Marissa Laliberte. Owning more stuff than you can use doesn’t just waste money, it fosters procrastination and increases feelings of anxiety. Break the cycle with these tips.
Shopping Online Is Easy, 5 Ways To Make It Harder & Save Instead | Forbes by Joshua Becker. Online retailers are juiced up, 24/7 machines — on-demand and always ready. Previous areas of resistance have been meticulously obliterated.
How To Live A Minimalistic Life With Kids | The Alternative Daily by Susan Patterson. After raising my children with a spirit of minimalism, I feel like I am in a good position to share some of my tips. Here is what I have learned.
Got back at it today to read “18 summers” again.
Even though I don’t have kids, I love the idea that time is limited and therefore matters. Let’s make every minute, every hour, every conversation count…
Thanks Joshua!
These weekend posts are my favorite reading material. Keep up the thought provoking ideas. Love it!
So glad to see Anthony Ongaro featured. I love his Break The Twitch blog. I recommend his 7 day digital detox.
I don’t know if anyone else is having a problem with the blog Simple As That, but I keep getting spammed upon going to their website. I can’t let them know because I can never get to any of their pages.
Joshua – While in general I like your posts and find them inspirational as we continue to declutter and simplify our lives, but, as a general comment, sometimes it seems that you conflate frugality with simplicity. While they can be synergistic, they aren’t always. Take for example the advice I’ve seen a few times on your posts, or links you’ve posted, to avoid a smart phone. Yet if you want to declutter and simplify, there is nothing like a smart phone. On one device that fits into the palm of my hand I have my radio, all the maps I ever need, a music player, all the books I might ever read both in text version and audio version, my email connectivity to friends and family, a video chat feature that lets me stay in touch with grandkids both visually and verbally, my subscription to a newspaper, my grocery list (shared with my wife so we only need one), my weather forecast complete with up to the minute radar and lightning strikes – a real safety feature in our part of the country, my camera, all the electronic photos my wife and I have ever taken (on the cloud), a watch complete with alarm clock and stop watch, my bird identification book, my fitness tracker, etc. In fact, I can’t think of anything that has decluttered or simplified my life more than my smart phone.
Excellent points!
My smart phone gets used for a lot of the same reasons! I do, however, still get the morning newspaper in print because I love the feel of it.
Happy Saturday Joshua!
Our house went through a phase where we were more minimalist and the clarity was wonderful! Life took hold and now there is junk!
We are painting the house and as we paint each room I am slowly working forward returning to “less is more”. I love the freeing feeling of open clean spaces.
Enjoy your posts!!
Really enjoy your newsletters. It’s great to know there are other people out there who want to escape consumerism. Knowing there is a world community of people who are trying to cut down on ‘stuff’ and the impact their lives have on the environment makes what I have been thinking these last few years feel more legitamate as a way of life. Until the minimalist movement there was nothing to counter the onslaught of advertising messages that hit us everyday. It IS less stressful to have less stuff – but it’s hard to keep believing it when friends and family talk so much about the new things they are getting. I feel totally comfortable not buying lots of stuff – but I would hate to think that people think I am mean/scrooge/a miser!
Hi Joshua! I’m from South Africa, and I just love being a part of a ‘minimalism community’ – even if it is just online. I love to read becoming minimalist, the minimalists’ writings, Leo Babauto’s writings and No Sidebar/Brian Gardner. I recently started listening to podcasts too. Of this weekend’s inspiring simplicity email I enjoyed the one on minimalism and kids the most, because we have two toddlers. I have been into the minimalism journey for quite a few years (unfortunately hubby is not on board), but I realised the other day how far I still have to go, when my 5-yr-old stood in our bedroom, that was quite unorganised/messy at that moment, and he looked around and asked me: ‘ Mommy, do we have a lot of stuff? ‘ That was a bit of a wake-up call for me that we still have more than is needed. I like the idea of white space is where creativity happens (think it was Brian Gardner who said that). Anyways, thanks for all the inspiraling! From probably your biggest fan in South Africa :-)
Inspiration I mean!
I’m very frugal, but I don’t consider myself a minimalist since we store a lot of stuff in our storage shed for the future (i.e. clothes for our 2nd baby). But I find it inspiring that many people have bettered their lives through minimalism. Thanks for sharing the great posts!
I would say keeping baby clothes to use again is a minimalist approach. Buying a whole new set would be wasteful. I loved seeing our baby clothes worn again, sometimes by all three of our children. We had no money to waste in those days.