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I completely agree. I recommend decreasing your gadgets to just a phone (for when you go out) and a tablet or laptop for home. That is, no TV, no stereo, no ga

I completely agree. I recommend decreasing your gadgets to just a phone (for when you go out) and a tablet or laptop for home. That is, no TV, no stereo, no games console. Assuming you live on your own, you can do all the same things you did before, just move your laptop screen to a comfortable distance. I suppose you could buy headphones if you also want loud audio, but personally I prefer to go out to a bar or nightclub or movie theater to get that experience. You can also optimize most of the furniture away. The last few places I lived I just had a mattress in the main/living room and cooking supplies in the kitchen. Not only is the up-front cost less, but you can live in a much smaller apartment, cleaning the whole place is much faster, moving house is easy. Personally I like to work lying on my stomach, so I don't need a desk, but I suppose you could get a small table and chair if your body isn't comfortable lying down or sitting on the floor for a lot of the day. More available floor space means it's easier to pace or work out too. Other recommendations... Best to live somewhere without carpet, so you can clean it with a broom - saves buying a vacuum cleaner. You can use toilet paper for the bathroom and also in the kitchen and also to blow your nose. You can use shampoo for everything in the bathroom, including washing your hair, hands, body and clothes (if your house doesn't have a washing machine). You can use dishwashing liquid to clean most surfaces in the house, as well as your dishes. You can avoid using lights for most of the day/night by keeping windows uncovered and using the ambient light from outside. The upsides are exactly as you say - since you're not spending as much time and money maintaining your house, you have more time to go out and visit interesting places, and you can spend more money at nice restaurants or splurge for a comfortable hotel if you want to enjoy some luxury every now and then. But I find I don't really want to. Life is a lot more enjoyable, in my opinion. Way less stress than cleaning and maintaining a bunch of stuff.

snoshy 5y ago
That's certainly one kind of minimalism, but I think it goes well beyond what GP intended. While your comment and lifestyle seems earnest, it's a bit too far for most given the GP context, in the sense that rather than minimizing the time taken to do routine things, it optimizes many of them out entirely to the point that it does not appear practicable for most (ex. mattress being the only furniture). Such things can certainly be taken to even further extremes: why buy a mattress? A sleeping bag might do fine and might well be good for your back. Everybody draws a line, and for even relatively extreme folks, that line is certainly shaped by social norms. I'd wager there's a rather large number of folks like GP intending to minimize the effort required to do drone-ish tasks rather than eliminate them. I don't deny that it's only a logical next step to eliminate them entirely, but that seems a step too far for social conventions. After all, culture defies logic rather often.
- nessex 5y ago
  Right, it's about eliminating the mundane parts, not about having nothing in my life. It's a balance that will be different for everyone.
- alisonatwork 5y ago
  I tried living without a mattress for a while. It wasn't super comfortable but it wasn't really a major problem till winter, at which point I realized I would need some more insulation, and a mattress seemed like the best bang for the buck. I might be able to make do without if I lived in a warmer place. Right now, though, the place I'm renting came furnished, so it's not an issue. (Bonus with a furnished place - I don't need to worry about the kinds of bills that the OC was talking about because one flat monthly payment covers rent, water, electric and internet. My only other bills are phone and media/content subscription services, all of which are also flat rates, set up once and paid automatically.) For me simplifying my life doesn't mean living with nothing at all, it just means living without unnecessarily complicated or laborious things. Clearly different people will draw a line at different places. The point of my previous comment was more that it doesn't hurt to try eliminate things from your life, if it seems they're just a hassle. Who cares about the social conventions? I think a lot of people find themselves caught up in the rat race and take part without really thinking about why they're doing it, or whether it actually is worth all the effort. It turns out you can forego a lot of things and, actually, life isn't all that bad. That's especially the case if you are earning a decent salary, so you afford to can go out and treat yourself whenever you feel the urge. I think now is probably a better time than ever before to live simply, because we have immediate access to all the world's knowledge and art from a tiny computer in our pockets.
  - nessex 5y ago
    That's pretty much the exact philosophy I live by. I've definitely found no bed frame to be a hard-sell to family and friends, and it's hard to see why once you've tried all the options. A mattress makes a lot of sense, but a bed frame adds little value unless you are short on storage and one has storage built in, or you aren't mobile enough to get to the ground. But maybe I'm missing some utility that others have found in their bedframes! Living in Japan now, I had a few months with a padded mat + quilt on the floor as is tradition (and a damn cheap one), but upgraded to a mattress on the floor because the floor was too cold in winter as you mentioned. There's as much to be gained from taking stuff away that isn't useful, as there is from adding useful stuff to your life.
deleted 5y ago
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nessex 5y ago
Sorry if you saw my original comment, I misread this as a dismissal through exaggeration, but after double checking my comprehension I realise I was both wrong and missing the fact that I can relate to most of this. I've tried many of the things you mention, and while I don't do all of those things still, many of them do make my life easier and more stress free. It's interesting how many of the things I've just stopped thinking about as I tried them and subsequently rid my conscious mind of other more time consuming or stressful options. There are so many better things to spend time on than the mundane parts of life.

snoshy 5y ago

That's certainly one kind of minimalism, but I think it goes well beyond what GP intended. While your comment and lifestyle seems earnest, it's a bit too far for most given the GP context, in the sense that rather than minimizing the time taken to do routine things, it optimizes many of them out entirely to the point that it does not appear practicable for most (ex. mattress being the only furniture). Such things can certainly be taken to even further extremes: why buy a mattress? A sleeping bag might do fine and might well be good for your back. Everybody draws a line, and for even relatively extreme folks, that line is certainly shaped by social norms. I'd wager there's a rather large number of folks like GP intending to minimize the effort required to do drone-ish tasks rather than eliminate them. I don't deny that it's only a logical next step to eliminate them entirely, but that seems a step too far for social conventions. After all, culture defies logic rather often.

nessex 5y ago
Right, it's about eliminating the mundane parts, not about having nothing in my life. It's a balance that will be different for everyone.
alisonatwork 5y ago
I tried living without a mattress for a while. It wasn't super comfortable but it wasn't really a major problem till winter, at which point I realized I would need some more insulation, and a mattress seemed like the best bang for the buck. I might be able to make do without if I lived in a warmer place. Right now, though, the place I'm renting came furnished, so it's not an issue. (Bonus with a furnished place - I don't need to worry about the kinds of bills that the OC was talking about because one flat monthly payment covers rent, water, electric and internet. My only other bills are phone and media/content subscription services, all of which are also flat rates, set up once and paid automatically.) For me simplifying my life doesn't mean living with nothing at all, it just means living without unnecessarily complicated or laborious things. Clearly different people will draw a line at different places. The point of my previous comment was more that it doesn't hurt to try eliminate things from your life, if it seems they're just a hassle. Who cares about the social conventions? I think a lot of people find themselves caught up in the rat race and take part without really thinking about why they're doing it, or whether it actually is worth all the effort. It turns out you can forego a lot of things and, actually, life isn't all that bad. That's especially the case if you are earning a decent salary, so you afford to can go out and treat yourself whenever you feel the urge. I think now is probably a better time than ever before to live simply, because we have immediate access to all the world's knowledge and art from a tiny computer in our pockets.
- nessex 5y ago
  That's pretty much the exact philosophy I live by. I've definitely found no bed frame to be a hard-sell to family and friends, and it's hard to see why once you've tried all the options. A mattress makes a lot of sense, but a bed frame adds little value unless you are short on storage and one has storage built in, or you aren't mobile enough to get to the ground. But maybe I'm missing some utility that others have found in their bedframes! Living in Japan now, I had a few months with a padded mat + quilt on the floor as is tradition (and a damn cheap one), but upgraded to a mattress on the floor because the floor was too cold in winter as you mentioned. There's as much to be gained from taking stuff away that isn't useful, as there is from adding useful stuff to your life.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

nessex 5y ago

Sorry if you saw my original comment, I misread this as a dismissal through exaggeration, but after double checking my comprehension I realise I was both wrong and missing the fact that I can relate to most of this. I've tried many of the things you mention, and while I don't do all of those things still, many of them do make my life easier and more stress free. It's interesting how many of the things I've just stopped thinking about as I tried them and subsequently rid my conscious mind of other more time consuming or stressful options. There are so many better things to spend time on than the mundane parts of life.