“Sometimes it takes a car crash to realize you were driving irresponsibly.” When his mother died and his marriage ended in the same month, Josh Millburn had to reexamine how he was living. He had spent his twenties focused on making money and climbing the corporate ladder. He wracked up a lot of debt and was focused on so called success and achievement. In our society, we know that means accumulating more and more stuff, believing that “if we just get one more thing, I’ll be happy”. The average American household has over 300,000 items in it. But stuff never fills the void, it only widens it. Josh woke up to that reality and embraced a minimalist lifestyle, writing an ebook called “The Minimalist Rulebook: 16 Rules for Living with Less.”

Living more deliberately with less is now Josh’s way of life. After the financial crisis of 2008, Josh realized his money and stuff were doing the opposite of what he wanted. They weren’t making him happy. They were getting in the way of what was truly important.

Too often we live with overindulgent consumption and sometimes a big event is needed to wake us up. For single parents, the changes that lead us to parenting alone often act as a wake-up call or “car crash”. Covid has had the same affect for many too. We find ourselves reevaluating our lives, our priorities and our decisions. When Josh found himself reevaluating, he discovered that it was time to redefine what brought value to his life. Rather than letting his belongings give the impression of adding value, he started to examine everything he owned through a different lens. He started asking himself what he needed to let go of and what was important to keep. In this process, he found out that sometimes we assign equal value to all the things in our life even when they don’t add the same benefits.

Instead, we must be intentional in determining what adds value and what doesn’t. In doing so himself, Josh began to embrace a minimalist lifestyle. He now only owns things that serve a purpose or bring him joy like art or music.

The Minimalist Rulebook

Josh uses a set of “rules’ to determine what he keeps and what he eliminates from his life. These are found in his e-book, “The Minimalist Rulebook: 16 Rules for Living with Less”, available free on his website (www.theminimalists.com). These rules aren’t meant to be rigid or exhaustive. They are meant to be used like a recipe. You put several of them together to get the result you want.

For example, we sometimes justify holding on to things “just in case”. Josh says these are the three most dangerous rules when it comes to hanging on to things. To overcome the “just in case” mentality, Josh says you should never hang on to anything “just in case” if it is something you can replace for $20 or less without having to go out of your way more than 20 minutes. Another rule is the 90/90 rule. Ask yourself, have I used this in the last 90 days? If not, ask yourself if you will use it in the next 90 days. If not, give yourself permission to let that item go.

When it comes to the minimalist lifestyle, Josh says don’t start with nostalgic or sentimental items nostalgic like letters, cards, and kids’ craft items. Deal with these “memory box” type items after you’ve made progress in streamlining other areas first. Don’t start eliminating there. Instead, Josh says a tactic he uses for people to get started is “the 30-day minimalist game.” This helps you start small with things that are easy to let go of so you can build momentum as you minimize. A good place to start might be with clothes you don’t use anymore.

Josh also suggests that when it comes to sentimental items, it helps to keep in mind the idea that if everything is precious, nothing is precious. Sometimes we water down the value of things simply by having too many of them. We don’t need nearly as many clothes, or kitchen gadgets, or accessories...