How I became an accidental minimalist and what it taught me about sticking to resolutions

The boxing gloves go in the bag for charity, they’re hardly worn and can be reused.

Same story for my swim goggles, the karate gi, and the bike lock.

I have two piles of books. One for storage and one for the second hand store. The storage books whittle down and down, the box set aside for them gets smaller.

My friend makes a face and holds up a book.

“Mastering pool?” she asks.

“Toss it.”

“Beginners guide to saxaphone?”

“Also goes.”

She gestures to a section of books.

“You’ve got a lot on maths and stuff, what do I do with that.”

“It goes.”

Two months ago I accidentally became a minimalist.

This accident taught me a lot about what things mean to me. The process itself of giving them away also taught me a lot about my discipline, what things I have stuck to, what I haven’t, how slight the difference between those two can be.

I have not read anything by Marie Kondo or any other books about minimalism. I am not someone who has read thousands of internet articles and watched a lot of YouTube videos. My choice wasn’t a thought out or a calculated one.

It was driven by necessity — I was moving overseas for a prolonged period of time and needed to decide what to put in storage, what to take with me, and what to sell or give away.

Initially I had planned to put everything in storage. I even have a quote for a storage unit. But in the process of taking inventory to decide how much space I needed I was struck by a crazy though.

What if I got rid of all of it.

This isn’t some attempt to implement half-baked minimalism and I wasn’t clutching things to my chest to see if they brought me joy.

This was practical — did I care enough about this thing to go through the annoyance of storing it and then spend a couple of cents a day keeping it in a shed somewhere.

The answer was overwhelmingly no.

My couch and chairs?

No. They’re old and can be quickly sold, and replaced, online.

My exercise bike?

No. There is nothing easier to buy for cheap online than an exercise bike. Everyone buys them, nobody uses them.

The desk that I had bought myself as a gift when I got into university and have been moving from place to place ever since? Surely I would want to keep that.

Surprisingly not. I have loved that desk and I have a lot of good memories, but I don’t care enough to carry it with me.

My guitars?

No. I haven’t played guitar for years. Writing sits in the part of my life that I used to occupy with learning songs.

The books and bookshelves are something I never thought I could get rid of.

Some of my books I have been carrying around for more than 20 years. I have my university textbooks, the books I read when I was a teenager trying to broaden the way I thought, the books I collected to help with my career — all three of them.

Every time I have moved they have been packed and unpacked. They are the largest part of every move. I always envisioned having an extra room in my house for all my books one day. They filled three large bookshelves but there were so many sitting dustily around the house that I could have probably bought another small one.

I know the answer straight away but I spend days turning it over in my head. Surely I can’t seriously even be considering getting rid of my books.

But I was. And I do.

The clincher for me was looking at one of my favourite fiction books by Neil Gaiman. I bought it 12 years ago and I still remember turning the pages on a bus from Sydney to Canberra and the way the pages looked under the little reading light as the bus rushed along close to midnight.

I read it quickly and after it was done it began an endless cycle of sitting on shelves in different rooms.

That just seems so sad when I think about it. So I give it away.

Eventually I boil down my books into just three piles.

• Books I take with me on the plane. The absolute essentials.
• Books I post to myself. The reference books or personal copies.
• Everything else.

Since then I have experienced the stereotypical feeling of liberation.

“It must be liberating,” people tell me.

“It sure is,” I reply.

But there is something else.

The zeal of the recent convert

There can be nobody more righteous and energetic than the recent convert, and nobody more frustrating.

I am slightly embarrassed that I am that person.

There has been no grief in getting rid of the things that I used to have. Most of them I don’t even remember.

In the months since I arrived overseas the two boxes I sent to myself completely failed to arrive. I totally forgot about them.

When one of them did arrive (the other is still MIA) some of the things in it were broken, the rest I was completely unenthusiastic about.

That’s been the case for most of the things that I would normally have bought.

During the purge of my things I turned all of my possessions into about $10,000 and one suitcase.

Yes. I now own one suitcase of stuff. In that suitcase I have:

• Two sets of black shoes. One are boots, the other are formal. I have thought that I might buy some sneakers for running. But I haven’t yet.
• Two jackets. One heavy and one light.
• Two jumpers and one union hoodie which was a present from a close friend.
• One suit and one tie. This is down from almost a dozen suits and more ties than that which I had been carrying around forever.
• Two pairs of jeans, two pairs of shorts, 10 t-shirts, 10 pairs of socks and underwear.
• Around half a dozen collared shirts — which I haven’t even worn once since being here.
• A collection of hand grippers and exercise bands, a razor, a beard trimmer.
• My laptop that I use every single day.
• Six books and a manilla envelope with diplomas, my birth certificate, and other assorted awards that I’ve gotten over the years.
• An iPad which is now where most of my library lives.

That’s it. That is literally every single thing that I now own. I’m simultaneously shocked at how few things are there, and how many.

What has surprised me is how jealously I am defending this lack of things now. When shopping for new books I stroll through a bookstore but feel strange at buying the physical book. Every time I’ve opted to buy a digital copy instead. I’ve reactivated my Audible account.

I’ve thought about buying another jumper so I have some variety in what I wear and decided so strongly against it that I was surprised.

I’ve started kickboxing again so I had to buy a pair of gloves — it’s simply too disgusting not to. Having to do this annoyed me.

Because I’m living in Amsterdam I’ve thought about getting a bike to get around but have resisted — recently I’ve gotten a bike hire membership so I don’t have to own one. This seems like a good compromise and also seems to work out cheaper, especially because everyone tells me people have a tendency to steal bikes off the street.

I feel far more comfortable with less things. Every opportunity I’ve had to grow the base of things I own I’ve felt a weight and discomfort. I look at the collared shirts that I never wear and think that I could get rid of them.

I’m still reluctant to call myself a “minimalist” but I have certainly been living the life of one for the last two months and don’t see myself stopping any time soon.

Packing with the elephant and the rider

Psychologist and bestselling author Jonathan Haidt has an analogy when he talks about the different sides of someone’s personality.

• There is the emotional side — this is the elephant. Huge and powerful but quite dumb and irrational and mainly driven by instinct.
• Then there is the rational — this is the rider. The rider is smart, focused, and has perspective from way up on top of the elephant. Haidt points out that the rider is nowhere near as powerful as the elephant and must be smart about channeling and directing the huge animal’s power. While the rider may think they are in charge of the elephant the times when the two are in conflict the elephant usually wins.

I first heard this concept when doing a course a few months ago on strategic communications for my work where we spoke a lot around the elephant and the rider. We focused on how communications that appeals to values and emotions, the elephant, is more motivating and effective than that which appeals to the intellect, the rider. This is not revelatory in itself but I found the analogy to be quite useful in explaining this concept to people.

The tension between rational and irrational, thinking and unthinking, is particularly important as you start to experience decision fatigue or your willpower becomes depleted.

I thought a lot about these things when I was packing and disposing of my belongings. I’ve felt a bit like an archeologist going back through the bones of my old resolutions and ambitions.

I threw away piles of old to-do lists and notebooks. Sold things that were purchased with good intentions but were then never used as well as items that were part of the start of something life changing.

At the time I found it interesting to make a list of the things (resolutions, life changes, and hobbies) that I didn’t persist with, and those that I did, and to compare what was different between the two.

Often the motivation levels were the same but it came down to a lack of friction. Even a tiny amount of friction built up and eventually slowed down my efforts.

What was the difference between the saxophone and guitars? One of them I am reasonably proficient on and can still play today, even though I don’t. The other I tried to learn but put down and never picked up again.

Surprisingly it was the ability to practice — when I tried to learn saxophone I was living in university housing and wasn’t able play often enough to get good without annoying everyone around me.

I have vivid memories of driving out in my car to industrial areas and practicing in my car to try to overcome this but that’s not sustainable.

Meanwhile the guitar was able to be played very quietly — I could, and did, practice well into the night if I felt like it.

Less friction, more results.

For each of the things that I stuck with, or didn’t, I’ve gone back and asked myself the following questions using the elephant, rider, path framework.

• Did I motivate the elephant? Was I emotionally engaged and did I have ways of reinforcing and topping up that engagement when I became fatigued.
• Did I direct the rider? Were my goals clear and did I understand what I wanted to achieve. The vaguer the goal the less likely you are to achieve it. It also helps to write them down.
• Did I shape the path? Did my environment support these goals, or work against it. Did I work to change so that it supported my goals rather than worked against it.

It’s probably not surprising but every single thing that I have persisted with have “yes” answers to all three of these questions. The things that I failed to stick with have significant “no” answers in at least one area and mostly more.

Since the move I’ve continued to try to implement this framework whenever I’m trying to work, achieve a goal, or stick with a new hobby.

Try it for yourself and see how it works. Hopefully you’ll be as surprised as I was.