542 | Sacred Things

The Minimalists talk about what to do with sacred things that feel like clutter, which minimalist brands work well for home furniture, how to simplify everything in five weeks, how clutter is harming your health (and how to fix it), and more. Discussed in this episode: Why are people constantly angered by trivial things but indifferent to major matters like totally wasting their lives? (00:54) How should I think about sacred things that feel irreplaceable because they keep the memory of my father alive? (6:55) How does Joshua choose the products and brands he brings into his home? (24:39) Right Here, Right Now: Simplify Everything (37:36) Have a question for the show? Call 406-219-7839 or email a voice memo to [email protected]. Listen to the full Maximal episode on Patreon: patreon.com/theminimalists http://patreon.com/theminimalists Detailed show notes: minimalists.com/podcast http://minimalists.com/podcast

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:20Speaker 00

  Every little thing you think that you need. Every little thing you think that you need. Every little thing that's just feeding your greed. Oh, I bet that you'd be fine without it.

• 0:38Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yes, the minimalist Joshua Fields Millburn here. Living a meaningful life with less. My good friend TK Coleman is here.

• 0:47Speaker 02

  Spending most of our lives living in a minimalist paradise.

• 0:50Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yes. Well, here's something to chew on. A quote from Charles Bukowski.

• 0:57Speaker 02

  Oh, man.

• 0:59Joshua Fields Millburn?

  People are strange. They're constantly angered by trivial things. But on a major matter, like totally wasting their lives, they hardly seem to notice. TK, why might this quote be true?

• 1:20Speaker 02

  There's kind of like, I think of Steven Pressfield in The War of Art. He says that the more related something is to your highest calling, the more resistance you will feel in relation to it. So if you are meant to be a writer, that's going to be one of the hardest things for you to do. Whenever you try to write, you'll face a spiritual battle. But if you just want to piss away your time by watching SpongeBob reruns all day, the universe will open itself to you and say, there you go. Do as much of it as you want. If eating healthy is important to you and you try it, you'll face the spiritual battle. On the other hand, if you say, I'm just going to do Snickers all day, the universe will say, here's some free ones. As a matter of fact, here's a Snickers truck riding by and they're just dumping them out

• 2:05Speaker 02

  for everybody to have. There's something true to that.

• 2:10Speaker 02

  You know, I, I think another idea is the more trivial something is, the easier it is to distance ourselves from it. If, if, if it doesn't feel consequential, I can look at it a little bit more objectively. And so I can laugh at it if I need to, I can get angry at it if I need to. But if something is monumental, if it's really important and of great consequence, it's close to home. So it might be harder for me to either have a sense of humor about it when I need to, or to get angry about it when I need to. Those are my speculative hypotheses.

• 2:42Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I think it's a great start. When I think about the things that matter the most to me,

• 2:49Joshua Fields Millburn?

  they don't always map on to the things that outrage me the most, frustrate me the most. Yeah, I, I think about on page three, we're going to talk about these Lego bricks that sometimes kids leave around the house and it's easy to get really frustrated by something like that. Today's actually my daughter's 13th birthday. So I've had more than a decade now. Yeah, she's, uh, she's finally a teenager. I was talking to her about this yesterday, like, how are you feeling? You're, you're never going to be a preteen ever again. I said, I'll be a post teen for the rest of my life. But she was, she didn't really seem to, it wasn't, it was just a number. Like, okay, yeah, like people already think I'm a teenager. She looks like

• 3:32Joshua Fields Millburn?

  she's 17 all of a sudden. And so people have already assumed she was a teenager for a long time. But as a kid, I, when she was younger, it was easier for her to do something that on the grand scale of things, if I look back in the rearview mirror now at something she left on the floor and I would get frustrated by, I never blew up and outraged, but I would, I'd have some, this weekend, as a matter of fact, we have a, a boundary in our house. You don't leave dirty dishes in the sink overnight. And she broke that boundary on Saturday night. And she actually did a great thing. She moved some dishes that were in her backpack that she had taken to her unschooling field trip and she brought them in, put them into the sink at the

• 4:16Joshua Fields Millburn?

  end of Friday or Saturday night. And so Sunday morning I wake up and there's dishes in the sink. And that is totally foreign territory to me. For a second, I thought someone broke into the house and just left some dirty dishes there in the sink. Totally trivial matter. And yet that can easily frustrate me. But when my daughter Ella is going through something serious that is also important to me, it's important to her, it's important to me. I find that I'm able to approach it much more soberly. What do you think that is?

• 4:51Speaker 02

  I don't know. That's interesting. I'm kind of fascinated with the idea that like, you take that to be trivial. I wonder if it's more a matter of like, her putting dishes in the sink was hyper important, that it wasn't trivial. But what would have been trivial would be for you to have made a big deal out of her making the mistake.

• 5:11Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yes.

• 5:12Speaker 02

  Right? I think our values are everything. I think they're the most important things in life. And yet, sometimes people don't know our values, or they disappoint us by not living up to our values, or they just, you know, have personal weaknesses that result in them slipping up. And I think it's trivial when we react as if it's the end of the world, merely because someone has failed to live in accordance with everything that's hyper important.

• 5:40Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah, and so maybe it's both at the same time. The dishes in the sink, totally trivial. But the values behind what you're talking about there, that is, in fact, sacred. So, happy birthday, EJ. I love you.

• 5:54Speaker 02

  Happy birthday.

• 5:54Joshua Fields Millburn?

  We've got a lot to talk about today, TK. Coming up on this episode, we're talking about what to do with, speaking of sacred things, what to do with sacred things that feel like clutter. Also, what minimalist brands work well for home furniture? How to simplify everything in five weeks? Plus, so much more. Also, last week, we ran out of time on page three. So this week, we're returning to page three to take a look at how clutter is harming your health and how to fix it. Let's start with our callers. If you have a question for the show, we'd love to hear from you. Join the program. It's 406-219-7839. Or you can email a voice recording right from your phone to [email protected]. Shout out to our Patreon subscribers.

• 6:39Joshua Fields Millburn?

  If you haven't done so already, join the Patreon. There's a seven day free trial right now. You can check out, we have over a decade of podcast archives over there on Patreon. We'd love for you to join us there. Let us know if you're a Patreon subscriber so we can prioritize your message if you give us a call. Our first question today is from Stan.

• 6:58Speaker 03

  Hello minimalists, Stan here in Connecticut. I have a very specific group of things that I am finding it particularly difficult to part with. My father was a master mechanic. He could build or fix almost anything. And when I was little, I would be his apprentice, granted, not always willingly. But at his side, I learned so much. And today, I'm much the same as he was. If there's anything that breaks around the house, or there's something that needs to be installed, I'll do it. I'll do it even if I don't know how. As my dad would say, "The job will show you how to do it." In the basement, I have all his tools, most decades old, very well made, and with his

• 7:42Speaker 03

  name etched onto each one. There are more than I can use or need, but every time I pick one up in my hand, I can sense that he once held it in his hand. I can hear him laugh and hear him curse. It's like we're still doing things together. He's been gone for 25 years, but every time I use his tools, and they are still his tools, he is with me. So the issue isn't the letting go of these tools as things, because after all, I know that's what they are. They're just things. The issue for me is that in a time when everything seems to be disposable, these are not. They have become sacred things to me, totems from another time that still hold the spirit of my dad.

• 8:27Joshua Fields Millburn?

  So TK, Stan is dealing with these, he's calling them sacred things. And that's a particular story. They're sacred to him, obviously. Now, if Stan gave these tools to me, they wouldn't be sacred to me. Now, they could potentially still be tools, and maybe I'd get a lot of value from them. But it seems to me that it's not the tools that are sacred, because when something is truly sacred, it no longer feels like clutter. But he's calling in, so maybe they're getting in the way in some way? But what is sacred here is he taught you how to work with your hands, how to use tools. I love that quote. The job will show you how to do it. There's something sacred in that, right?

• 9:08Speaker 02

  Oh, yes, man. I have to use that. I mean, what a legacy. Just that quote alone. I'm gonna remember your father by way of that for my entire life, I hope. Because what a powerful statement. The job will show you how to do it. You know, I relate to sacred things being cluttered. So when I think of sacred, I think of something that mediates transcendence, something that invokes, you know, that which is highest in myself, or something that reminds me of what my core values are. And yes, I'm using like spiritual sounding language here, but you can think of that even in terms of, you know, my father's hammer makes me think of him and what he meant in my life and his work ethic and the connection that we had.

• 9:52Speaker 02

  And that is sacred, right? It's a meaning that that sort of transcends the materials out of which the object is made, right? And I have things like that, but with my wife and I living in such a small space, we often get gifts, right? And one of the things I love, I love Byzantine icons. I love iconography and they look so beautiful and they're often referred to as windows to heaven, you know, and they're great, you know, for meditation. But we have such a small place, I can't receive another icon. And sometimes people will give things and it's so nice. And I look at it and I say, this is so beautiful. I wish I could keep it, but it would be clutter in my home

• 10:34Speaker 02

  because I already have more than what I have room to contain.

• 10:38Joshua Fields Millburn?

  You already have enough.

• 10:40Speaker 02

  Already have enough. And so that tension can be real. Something is sacred, but I already have enough and I need to maybe let some of these things go. Now, I wasn't sure if the need to let them go was the practical need of not having the space. If there's some guilt that says you ought to let them go. I didn't quite get what it was that that made Stan here feels like he has to let them go. So I just want to throw out there. There's nothing wrong with things.

• 11:12Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yes.

• 11:13Speaker 02

  And with using things as props and permission slips to call forth those aspects of ourselves that make life meaningful and remind us what things are all about. We are incarnational beings, right? We're not just spirits. We're not just disembodied souls. We're not just intellects. We are bodies. And anytime we can have things that by touching them or tasting them or looking at them, you know, call, call forward our humanity, that can be a very valuable thing. So if they're not bothering you in the sense of getting in the way, that sounds like a very powerful thing to keep. But if you need to get rid of some of them, then maybe you can, you know, make your Hall of Fame list or your, your Mount Rushmore and say, what are the top five things?

• 11:57Speaker 02

  Cause I'm going to keep my dad around, but I'm not going to keep all of these things.

• 12:01Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah. So a few questions I would ask if I were in Stan's shoes, you started with where you were going is, are these getting in the way? And if so, that doesn't mean you have to get rid of them right away. The question is contextual, right? If you're keeping them in the bedroom and your wife is like, what are we doing with all your dad's tools from 25 years ago? We need to find a different place for these and then they won't get in the way. Right? But also are they getting in the way metaphorically? Same question here, but are they getting in the way in the sense they're weighing you down? Yes, because maybe you've put them in the garage and you use them occasionally. And these are some of those rarely used things. In fact, I just wrote an essay, a short essay about rarely used things. And hopefully I'll be able to return to that here in a moment because I think it'll be useful

• 12:45Joshua Fields Millburn?

  or instructive for, for Stan. But there are some of these things that we rarely use. And so they're out of sight, they're not out of mind, they're in the back of your mind. They're taking up space here and, and they feel heavy. And I think the reason someone like Stan calls in is because it feels too heavy right now. And if you're walking with a really heavy backpack, you have too much in the backpack. The question then isn't, do I throw the backpack off the side of the mountain? The question is, how much is enough? And I think that's where you were going with this. It's like, what's the Mount Rushmore list? And it doesn't have to be four items. It could be 40 items or 400 items. But if it's too much right now, it's not all or nothing. The question is, What is enough when it comes to these tools?

• 13:28Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I'm thinking about this because Sunday night, man, I, I was really struggling, man. My brother's wife sent me a bunch of pictures. Apparently my mom, unbeknownst to me, I had no idea. My mom, before she passed, she put together a scrapbook and gave it to Jerome. And it was a beautiful scrapbook. It had like our old report cards. It had a termination slip when Jerome got fired from a job we were working at together. It had cute little notes, but it had a bunch of photos of us as teenagers. I sent one to Savvy D. I had Savvy D's haircut. I had a buzz cut. I was like 15 years old. It's 1996, so 30 years ago. And I, I'm going through those photos and I'm like, wow.

• 14:13Joshua Fields Millburn?

  There is a sacredness to it, not the photo itself, but the, the memory that it triggers within me. And I think Stan sees that with these tools as well. And so Sarah sent me these pictures of all of these different, Sarah's Jerome's wife. She sent me pictures of, of all of, all these pictures, pictures of the pictures, right? And in fact, Savvy, put that, have Tomcat put that on the screen here. You can see this hilarious picture of me and Jerome in my 1996 baggy clothes era, buzz cut era. And I'm looking at those and I'm just overwhelmed with emotion. And a lot of it's not emotion that I want to keep returning to, right?

• 14:54Joshua Fields Millburn?

  So sometimes we hold on to things and they just trigger these emotions that we don't want to experience. And that might be where Stan is right now. Maybe every time he goes to use the tools, they're really useful, but it's also really painful. And if that's the case, then a hammer from Ace Hardware might do a better job for you. Not physically as a tool, but it may not amplify the grief because it's not adding value if it's getting in the way that way. But if it's amplifying joy. Then we're talking about a different story. But at some point, we also know that too much will extinguish the joy. So getting back to the scrapbook. Let's say my mom gave that scrapbook to Sarah. Well, to Jerome, and Sarah has it.

• 15:36Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Okay, well, how many more of those would be value adding? I know that if my mom had made a thousand scrapbooks and gave them to Jerome, that wouldn't be a blessing. That would be a burden. That'd be a library. In fact, it wouldn't even be a scrapbook anymore. It would just be an inventory of images. Right? And so we know that the number isn't zero. And we know the number isn't a thousand scrapbooks. It's somewhere in between. Maybe it's one, maybe it's even two. But beyond that, you have some diminishing returns. And with tools, it's a little bit different. But even with tools, you're going to have diminishing returns. And so I want to return to the rarely used things. I just put this essay out in the Simple Newsletter.

• 16:21Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Make sure you subscribe to the Simple Newsletter. It is free, no spam, no junk, no advertisements. We just start your week off with a little bit of less. And you can subscribe to that for free at theminimalists.com. But this is called Rarely Used Things. When it comes to letting go of material possessions, it helps to separate your rarely used belongings into three categories. First, the just in case items are the things that you no longer use. Chargers for devices you no longer own, clothing that no longer fits, old textbooks you no longer read. But you keep them around anyway, just in case you might need them in some hypothetical future.

• 17:04Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Personally, I let go of 99% of my just in case items using the 2020 rule because most of them are clutter.

• 17:14Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Emergency items, on the other hand, are my one exception to this rule. These are important objects you hope you'll never need. First aid kits, jumper cables, firearms. But you keep them for emergencies only. And then we have the third category, just for when items, just for when items are different. Some possessions don't fit neatly into any of the rules that we have, like the seasonality rule, also known as the 90-90 rule. Thankfully, I haven't needed my ball peen hammer, slip joint pliers, or laser level recently, but I'm certain I will use them again. The same goes for my umbrella, paint roller, and funeral suit.

• 17:56Joshua Fields Millburn?

  So I hold on to these things just for when I need them. The key is honestly assessing which category an item belongs in. Because if we aren't careful, we can invent endless stories that keep us clinging to clutter. And so when I think about Stan TK, I'm thinking about these three categories. If you're holding on to these sentimental items just in case, and they are weighing you down, then I'm going to look at it and say, I might want to let go of some, at least some of these things, right? What about the things you never use anymore that are there from your father's toolkit? Okay, we know that you can safely get rid of those things. Are any of them emergency items? Probably not.

• 18:40Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Most emergencies aren't, and so most emergency items we'll never actually need. You can't plan for every single emergency, but I do have some things in case of emergency. But then the just for when items, these might be some of your father's tools. Well, I have a lot of tools that are just for when. They don't fit into the 90-90 rule. I haven't used the ball peen hammer in the last 90 days. And if I'm being honest with myself, I'm probably not going to use it in the next 90. But I know that I've used it enough that having it on hand is useful. And so I hold on to it just for when I will need it. But I have to be honest with myself. And the difference here is, this is a practical way to look at it, but it's also seems to

• 19:21Joshua Fields Millburn?

  me that it's quite tangled up into the emotions we have here. And so I think the sacred things that I still hold on to, they carry meaning without carrying me down, without dragging me down. And...

• 19:39Joshua Fields Millburn?

  That's why I was so surprised by those photos that I saw of my brother. It opened up this sort of chasm in me that didn't exist before. Although ironically, a chasm is, it did exist before and now it doesn't exist. Like when you have a chasm, think about an earthquake that just splits the whole earth open. That chasm is defined by what isn't there, right? And I find the same thing with those photos for me. And maybe these tools for Stan. Maybe it opens up this chasm and it shows you what isn't there anymore. And that's painful. And so, yeah, while I want access to those photos, I don't want to dwell on those photos.

• 20:20Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And I think having a thousand scrapbooks would weigh me down in ways that would create a chasm that I think would be pretty difficult to get out of.

• 20:28Speaker 02

  You know, I want to follow up on your story about your mother and her leaving behind that scrapbook because I think it also illustrates an important lesson for those who are thinking about keeping things or thinking about leaving things behind for those who might appreciate them, because this does come up a lot. I can imagine a number of people listening going, oh, should I go ahead and keep all of those children's photos? Should I save all the little things like the pink slip from school, the termination slip from the job that they lost? And I think part of what makes your mother's gift meaningful for someone like Sarah is that it carefully follows an economic principle, which is valuable things, in order to be

• 21:13Speaker 02

  valuable, must be sufficiently abundant and sufficiently scarce. You have to have that right balance. If it's too scarce, then no one can access it and it loses its value because we can't get to it. If it's too abundant, then we won't value it because it's just junk. And we all know what it's like to have someone give us stuff and it felt like a junk dump. It felt like, oh, this person's dumping their old clothes on me. They're dumping their books on me and it just doesn't feel intentional at all. But your mother took those pictures and there were more pictures that she did not include and will never know. What happened to those, right? And she took a certain amount and she didn't just say, I'm keeping these, but she put some effort in it.

• 21:56Speaker 02

  It's a, it's an expression of her creative energy. It's what she thought was important. That termination paper, she thought that was funny or interesting and wanted him to see that later and be able to laugh about it. And there's a certain measure of craftsmanship in it. And so if we keep things, part of the lesson there is to try to keep them in a way that's intentional and doesn't require everything. And that expresses our creativity in some kind of way. And that's also a rule for leaving them behind. For me, I can relate to a part of, of a process of grieving that involves hanging on to something. Most people know that I listen to Christmas music every day. That doesn't mean I only listen to Christmas music every day, but I play a Christmas song at least once every day.

• 22:41Speaker 02

  And it's a form of aesthetic libation for me. It's because of my Uncle Cleat and his role in my life, the way he represented Christmas, the way he would pimp his, his furniture store out every Christmas, every holiday season and make it look like the North Pole. The way he was very jolly, looked like a black Santa Claus, represented all of those things to me as a kid. And when he died, it was listening to Christmas music that made me feel connected to him. And so I listened to a Christmas song at least once every day as my nod to him, as my wink to him, and as my reminder to myself to keep alive that joy, that sense of humor, that place playfulness, that spirit of Christmas that he represented for me. Now for me, I don't have an inventory. Right?

• 23:25Speaker 02

  If, if I had to have a thousand records that couldn't fit into my apartment in order to honor my Uncle Cleat, then that wouldn't quite work. But I have a way of honoring him, a way of holding on to him that also involves a certain mode of letting go.

• 23:41Joshua Fields Millburn?

  You have a way of holding that sacred without it getting in the way.

• 23:44Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 23:44Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And I think that's the tension that Stan is experiencing right now. There's something getting in the way, whether physically or mentally. And the question then isn't, do I get rid of all of this? The question is, what's the best way for me to honor him? In a sacred way. And Stan, I'd love to send you a copy of our audiobook, Very Very Simple. We talked about some of the rules that we live by as minimalists. There's 12 tools for a simpler life in Very Very Simple. You can find it over at veryversimples.com or we'll send you a copy. Also, the audiobook is now up on Audible, and we have a paperback edition that is out now as well. So you can check that out. We'll put a link to it in the show notes. You can find it on Amazon, or you can ask

• 24:29Joshua Fields Millburn?

  for it at your local independent bookstore and they can order a copy for you. Very, Very Simple, 12 Tools for a Simpler Life. All right, before we get back to our callers, let's do a What Would Joshua Own? question. This one is from Tani.

• 24:46Speaker 04

  I have always struggled with the idea of intentional design in my space. My family will tell you that it looks like I haven't furnished my apartment because I'm not very confident when it comes to decorating. I usually try and keep things simple and buy things from Ikea or Target. For clothing and other basics, I really appreciate brands like Uniqlo and Muji for its clean, minimal design and household items. I'd love to hear more about your own approach when you're choosing a brand and what your go-to brands

• 25:30Speaker 04

  are. Are there specific brands you use for your household decorating and furniture? And also, things like cleaning products and soap? I've heard some people mention brands like Public Goods as an example, and I'm curious, what's your take on that? Thank you so much.

• 25:53Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Well, Tony, we talked about cleaning goods last week, as a matter of fact. So you can go back and listen to that episode. In fact, I even touched on public goods a little bit there. So this is exactly why I started this segment, the What Would Joshua Own segment? Because it's like, I'm kind of not certain, but I still want to be super intentional with the things I bring into my home. And I want it to look tasteful. To me, the beauty of minimalism is the bones are the beauty. The simplicity is the beauty. It's kind of hard to curate an aggressively simple space like the studio that we're in right now, because a lot of that has to do with what I don't bring into the space, what I refuse to let enter the door. And as soon as we make one or two or three concessions, before you know it, that's where

• 26:37Joshua Fields Millburn?

  the clutter builds, whether it's visual clutter. It just feels like, oh, there's something going on here that it feels off, right? And so this is kind of why I wanted to start this segment. Now, with respect to brands, I can talk to you about some brands that add value to my life, but I do have this essay called Brand Agnostic. We'll put a link to it in the show notes. I'm not going to read that right now for the sake of time, but it basically talks about how I don't follow a particular brand just because it's a brand. I'm not loyal to a brand. I'm brand agnostic. But sometimes, at its best, a brand is a shortcut to things that are quality, that I know maybe match my aesthetic sensibilities.

• 27:19Joshua Fields Millburn?

  One thing to think about, though, sometimes someone will go into a minimalist space and they might say, "This room feels so empty." That's true, it does to them. Always append that when someone walks in with an opinion, just let them know they say, "I feel this room is so empty," or "This room feels so empty to me." The "to me" is silent there, but that's really what they're saying, because someone else might walk into the room and say, This room feels so calm. This room feels so peaceful. Now, to me, is also true there, but it may be mapping on to your own aesthetic sensibilities. What are you going for, for, from your room? Do you want it to be calm and peaceful?

• 28:03Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Do you want it to be vibrant and a party vibe? And that's fine, too. But what are, what are you trying to curate in your home? And so here's a picture of my living room here. We'll put it up on the screen, have Tom Cap put it on the screen here. I just took this picture and the funny thing is I didn't move anything. I didn't change anything. This is my living room and it is not empty, but it is spacious, right? And there isn't a whole bunch of stuff on the walls. And I've posted things like this online before. In fact, we have entire home tours up on Patreon that I've done of my current home. And when I post something like this online, inevitably someone will say, this looks so calm. Well, yeah, to you it does. To me it does too, by the way.

• 28:49Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And someone else say, oh, come on. Minimalism doesn't mean you, you can't paint anything. Totally agree with you.

• 28:57Joshua Fields Millburn?

  You can paint your walls, whatever color you want to paint your walls. My walls are painted, they happen to be painted white. And that's fine. And my couch is angular and beige and, and that's from Bo Concept, by the way, who I have no affiliation with. But I will say that I had some bad customer service from Bo Concept when I first bought a couch from them. But it turns out like even that was, that was one person. And then I went to a different location, talked to a different person and it was wonderful. And so sometimes we have a bad experience somewhere. It might be because of one person. And so keep that, keeping that in mind as well. You might be loyal to a brand, but it's really, you just really like the Starbucks barista. And he's making your coffee just the right way every morning.

• 29:41Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And you're not loyal to Starbucks, you just happen to like Jeff. And that's totally fine, but recognize as soon as Jeff leaves and you may not have the same customer experience. So it's, it pays to not be overly loyal to a, a corporation or brand. You did mention Muji. Have anything from Muji, but I know our friend Kristen Ziegler. It's like her favorite place. If you look at some of the stuff here in my, my living room, like I said, my couch is from Bo Concept. A lot of the furniture is from Design Within Reach or Ikea. Those are kind of my go-tos. Design Within Reach and Ikea, they're both accessible and they're not overly expensive, but they produce these timeless, minimal pieces that work well in my space.

• 30:24Joshua Fields Millburn?

  But of course, I'm still always asking myself, okay, who am I buying this for? Is it to impress other people or is it for me? Is this actually going to add value to my life? Is this the best use of my money because of buying a couch? And it costs a couple thousand dollars. That's a lot of money, man. I want to make an informed decision with respect to that. And so I look for brands that align with my style, but also high quality, it's going to last for an appreciable period of time. And so when I think about my living room here, I also think about how I use the space. And a few things you'll notice in the photo here is we have a TV. We went without a TV for 12 years, but when we moved into this house, we finally decided after about a year or so to get a TV.

• 31:09Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And we use it as a, a electronic artwork most of the day. And then we just rotate paintings throughout. But also lately, and I think you know this TK, I've been sitting on the floor a lot more recently. And as a result, so is my wife and daughter. And so we're using the couch a lot less. We still use the couch pretty regularly. But now I'm sitting on the rug on the floor a lot more often. Or there's a meditation cushion here. Hopefully Tom Cass still has the photo up here on the page. There's this meditation cushion here that I use that I sit on. Or I have a few yoga blocks over there because in the living room now, we're basically doing a lot of different stretching and, and physical therapy. We're seated on the floor regularly.

• 31:49Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And so the ultimate question, Tony, isn't about the beauty of the space, making the space beautiful. It's about making it functional first. How do I plan on living in the space? And then building the room around that instead of trying to cram your life into an idea of how the perfect living room and perfect aesthetic should look. TK, do you have anything to add to that?

• 32:13Speaker 02

  I love what your your earlier commentary about emptiness and space. It makes me think of like a football field. A football field is mostly empty. And that's precisely how you want it to be because it leaves ample space for play. If you went to a football field that had a bunch of furniture on it, or had a bunch of paintings on it, or had a grand piano in the middle, that might be beautiful, but it's out of place and it is clutter. No one wants to see that on a football field unless it's the halftime show and you know, a musical act is getting ready to perform. So even when something can be truly described as empty, that doesn't necessarily mean better or worse.

• 32:57Speaker 02

  It depends on the purpose, the context.

• 32:59Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah, and I think about, you know, if you go into a beautiful sanctuary at a Catholic church in downtown, any city in America, you always have like that beautiful cathedral that still does Latin masses.

• 33:10Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 33:11Joshua Fields Millburn?

  You don't walk in and say, oh my gosh, this place is so empty. You say, this is spacious, this is magisterial. This, I'm overwhelmed with beauty. And the question is, how can I do that on a lower scale in my own home? Well, it's highly subjective and beauty is perspectival in that sense. Now, I think there are some objective qualities of beauty. Most of us see a flower and recognize the beauty within the flower.

• 33:38Speaker 02

  Oh, I want to debate with you versus destiny on objective aesthetic values. You're going to prove that beauty exists independently of the minds that perceive it.

• 33:49Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Ooh, that'd be fascinating. And I think maybe you and I are on the same page there a little bit, that there is a sort of objective beauty, but then there's also subjective beauty?

• 33:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, I suspect that there that not all forms of beauty are in the eye of the beholder. And maybe one indicator that can nudge us ever so slightly in that direction without being able to get into fleshing out the position is. Think about the seeming universality of our perception of the ugly. And you can look at this in horror movies, for instance, if you want to scare people or freak them out, the idea of the monster, there are some pretty predictable patterns you can follow that seem to work pretty effectively, people of any age. There's a way that you can make something look that can freak people out, that can creep them

• 34:43Speaker 02

  out, that can make them uncomfortable.

• 34:46Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah, yeah. And the opposite of that then has to also be true. There are people we look at and universally, we're like, that is a beautiful human being. Right? And basically, everyone thinks that now, you might say, oh, but they're not my type. That's a subjective thing, right? And I think the same thing is true with furniture and paintings and artwork. And it's like, I can recognize the beauty in a maximalist's house and say, oh, wow, you own some objects that are objectively beautiful, but it ain't my type. And that's okay as well. The last thing I will say for Tani is do not underestimate the value of an interior decorator. And especially now, because you think you can go to AI and get everything.

• 35:31Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And you can get some interesting design tips, but not in the same way that if you hire someone that come, I mean, I think about Beulah, who designed the studio space that we're in right now. We brought Beulah here in order to help us make sure we had the level of restraint that we wanted. Basically, we were hiring a clean set of eyes with a aesthetic sensibility that mapped on to our own. And often it's worth it to spend that money once. So you're not spending the money over and over and over, trying out all of these different things. One last bonus tip that has helped me a lot, especially in this living room. We'll put this back up on the screen here. Every piece of furniture that's in this room. Most of it I didn't own beforehand. I own some of these chairs. I own the kitchen table

• 36:15Joshua Fields Millburn?

  that you see on the edge. I own some of these stands over there, but the credenza, the rug, the coffee table, the couch, the side tables, I didn't own those before we were in this house. So what we did is we just took the regular blue painter's tape and we measured everything out. Here's where the nine foot by 12 foot rug's going to go. Cause at first we were thinking, oh, let's just get eight, nine by 12. That's too big. Let's get, let's get eight by 10. And we taped it out. Here's what eight by 10 will look like. Here's what nine by 12. Oh, I'm so glad we didn't just order an eight by 10 rug. It would not have filled the space the same way that, that this rug does. And so planning beforehand and you, you're talking about, and you have to measure twice. So you cut once. This is very similar with respect

• 36:59Joshua Fields Millburn?

  to your purchases. I want to know where it's going and plan it out beforehand. Use some of that blue painter's tape. So you know exactly, we had all this furniture in this living room before I had a single piece of furniture in the living room. It was just an outline of, here's where the chair is going to go. Here's where the rug is going to go. Here's where the credenza is going to go. Oh, that credenza isn't going to fit there at all. We're going to need to find a different one. Right? And so an interior designer can help you with that, but also looking at it for yourself. So you can try to communicate what you're trying to communicate in that space. All right. That is almost the end of page one. We still have an entire switchboard of callers to talk to, but first, real quick, for right here, right now, here's one thing that's going on in the life of the minimalist. Let's talk about how

• 37:42Joshua Fields Millburn?

  to simplify your life in five weeks, TK. This is an intervention.

• 37:49Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Now this, uh, you know what? The 2026 cohort for the minimalist first and only decluttering course. It's called Simplify Everything. It opens this Friday, June 12th. It's five weeks, 17 video lessons, 45 clutter problem areas, 135 decluttering solutions, 50 minimalism resources, a 30-page workbook, and an interactive student forum. We start with the, the physical clutter, but then we move on. To help you with your digital clutter, your calendar clutter, all that busyness, right? The financial clutter and even relationship clutter. Here's what a graduate named Sammy said about the course when she took it last year.

• 38:31Joshua Fields Millburn?

  "It was really exciting to take part in this class. I love that the videos came with easy tips and solutions. Three problem areas, each with three simple solutions. I really liked that approach. It made things seem less scary." Or you might say more beautiful, right TK? "It made things seem less scary. I recently donated 11 bags and boxes of stuff to a local charity. This class has given me the push I needed and I am sincerely grateful." You know TK, we were hesitant about putting this together because we knew the amount of work that would go into creating all of these videos, the amount of money and time and attention and effort and planning that went into it. Me and you and Nicodemus and Jordan No More

• 39:14Joshua Fields Millburn?

  was here and we were just filming these videos, day after day after day, lesson after lesson, take after take, retaking the things that didn't work. I remember the, after the first day, Ryan had spent a whole day filming. He's like, "Okay, I want to redo everything we just did." And I was like, "Oh, man." But you're right. We want to get this right because ultimately we want this to add value to people's lives. I don't just want to put a course out there because everyone's doing courses these days. I want to put something out there that stands the test of time and helps folks declutter, not just the physical stuff. We start there, but then we start decluttering these other problem areas of life. When you were there filming the course with us, did you have any favorite moments that really stood out for you?

• 40:00Speaker 02

  Oh my, I mean, all of Ryan Nicodemus's moments, which is funny because there was a recent comment like, "You guys talk a lot, awful lot about Ryan Nicodemus even though he's gone. Time to let go, maybe?"

• 40:14Speaker 02

  I'm like, "Nope, I'm never letting Nicodemus go."

• 40:16Joshua Fields Millburn?

  The funny thing is he was on the very next episode.

• 40:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's great. And the week you were talking about him, you literally had just hung out with him the day before.

• 40:28Speaker 02

  Oh yeah, that's awesome. But yeah, I love because... Nicodemus just came in here and he was just like, he needed a lot of takes. He was just like, he was just like, it didn't seem like he was having a great time.

• 40:42Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah.

• 40:42Speaker 02

  But then when we went back and watched it, it was just perfect. He was perfect. He was amazing. Everything was great. And, and it was a beautiful illustration for me of something that I think is also part of decluttering. Sometimes the most beautiful outcomes have moments characterized by a process that feels ugly along the way. And, and sometimes you can look at how, how it feels in the middle and you can go, ah, I'm never gonna get there. Ah, this is a drag. Ah, this is too much. But then when you just follow through and stick with it, you look at it and you say, whoa, that was perfect. Did it ever feel ugly? Did it ever look bad?

• 41:21Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Right.

• 41:21Speaker 02

  This is amazing.

• 41:22Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah. And so there's a sacredness to that curation that you're talking about. This whole episode has been a lot about curation so far, whether it's the scrapbook or the tools or us creating this decluttering course. There was a whole lot that made it to the cutting room floor. I, I was thinking about our different processes when me, you and Nicodemus are all going through. He tried to go with your approach first, which is we just turned the camera on and two seconds before we start filming, TK's like, all right, what are we talking about? Oh, uh, just a case items. Okay, great. Three, two, one, action. Let me tell you about a businessman. I'm like, what? How does he do this? And, and then all of a sudden you're telling this beautiful story. I'm like, you had three

• 42:05Joshua Fields Millburn?

  seconds to start talking about this thing. And then I tend to outline, sometimes even script it out. And what I found is Ryan was like, ah, I'll just do what TK's doing. Like, I like how off the cuff he is. And that's why that first day, Ryan was like, oh no, this just doesn't feel, it doesn't feel right. And so he needed to come back the next day with an outline. It wasn't fully scripted, but you realize that, oh yeah, he just needed an outline so that something sturdy to stand on. And he shined throughout that course. And so you can check out the more testimonials. Thanks Sammy for that beautiful testimonial, by the way. You can watch the trailer and find all the details about Simplify Everything at simplifycourse.com. This is the 2026 cohort. It is open for 72 hours only, which means

• 42:48Joshua Fields Millburn?

  enrollment closes on Sunday, June 14th. Simplifycourse.com. We'll also put a link to that in the show notes. Next, much more on page two and page three, but first. Let's take a quick pandiculation break. We'll be right back.

• 43:06Joshua Fields Millburn?

  All right, y'all, that is the first 33% of episode 542. We'll see you on Patreon for the full two-hour maximal edition, which includes answers to a bunch more questions like, after years of battling overeating, Christina wants to know what mindset shifts would help her pursue lasting health changes. And Joy says her camera roll is filled with digital clutter because she's afraid certain moments will disappear if she doesn't record them. And Ton Moi is trying to understand how emotional clutter is different from stress. Plus, a million more questions and simple living segments over on the Minimalist Private Podcast on Patreon. The link is in the description. When you subscribe, you can listen to our

• 43:51Joshua Fields Millburn?

  private podcast episodes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. Plus, you'll gain access to all of our private archives, all the way back to the very first episode in 2015. And that is our minimal episode for today. On behalf of Ryan Nicodemus, TK Coleman, Spire Jeff and Dave, Audio Ben, Tom Cat, Professor Sean, Savvy D, and the rest of our team, I'm Joshua Fields Millburn. If you leave here today with just one message, let it be this: Love people and use things, because the opposite never works. Thanks for listening, y'all. We'll see you next time.

• 44:31Speaker 02

  Spread love.