468 | Minimalist Tools

Ryan Nicodemus returns to The Minimalists Podcast to discuss minimalist tools. Discussed in this episode: What are the upsides and downsides of artificial intelligence as a minimalist tool? (2:26) What's your favorite minimalist tool, and how have you used it to live more with less? (22:56) Listener tip: Letting go of the status quo. (42:48) 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 Recorded at Earthing Studios http://earthing.com/simple.

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'll be fine without it.

• 0:39Speaker 01

  You're listening to The Minimalist Podcast with Joshua Fields Milburn and TK Coleman. Recorded live at Earthing Studios in sunny California.

• 0:47Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yes, thank you, Malabama. Hello, everybody. Guess who's with us in the studio today? My best friend, the lead guitarist of The Minimalists, Ryan Nicodemus. Yes.

• 1:02Joshua Fields Millburn?

  That was my solo.

• 1:05Joshua Fields Millburn?

  You know, it usually feels like an acoustic show when you're not here, but it's good to have the full band back together.

• 1:10Speaker 03

  I was practicing that for a week.

• 1:14Speaker 04

  Did you look in the mirror when you practiced?

• 1:15Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Of course. We got A.B. in the studio, Savvy D. on the board. Actually, Malabama is not here with us today. She's in Chicago at a wedding, but she'll be back next week. Bula's on the couch as well. She designed our beautiful studio space, so we have a guest audience of one. Coming up on this free public minimal episode, a caller has a question about whether artificial intelligence is a minimalist tool or something that is bad for humanity. And then we've got a lightning round question about our favorite minimalist tools, and that's followed by our Right Here, Right Now segment and a listener tip. You can check out the maximal edition of episode 468. That's the full two-hour episode where we answer three times as many questions and we dive deep into several simple living segments.

• 2:00Joshua Fields Millburn?

  That private podcast is out right now. Patreon.com/theminimalists. Your support keeps our podcast 100% advertisement-free because, sing along at home, y'all. Advertisements suck! Listen, we're the callers. If you have a question or a comment for our show, we'd love to hear from you. Our phone number is 406-219-7839, or email a voice recording straight from your phone to [email protected]. Our first question today is from Sarah in the UK.

• 2:29Speaker 05

  This is Sarah, one of your Patreon subscribers. I'm really curious about your take on AI and how that may overlap with minimalism and the way that we choose to organize our lives and how we interact with the world around us. There's some great tools emerging that can really help you get into depth on topics, like text to speech tools that can help us really dig in and read more, or that can help us find more papers about something we're researching. But I'm also seeing a lot of tools that are really keeping us at the shallow end of what we're looking at, particularly things that are summarizing emails for people. And I can already see ways that the workplace is getting shallower and shallower.

• 3:13Speaker 05

  Very much reminded me of Cal Newport's book. And just really curious as to what thoughts from each of you are as to how that's going to impact you going forward. Thanks much.

• 3:25Joshua Fields Millburn?

  TCAD, I'd love to start with you because we're talking about sort of two sides. What are, what's AI going to be useful for as a tool? Is it a minimalist tool potentially? Does it simplify our lives in some way? And when I'm talking about minimalist tools, that's really what we're talking about here is what tools can simplify our life so we can live better with less? And so let's start with the positives. Let's talk about how artificial intelligence, how artificial intelligence might be the best tool for minimalists.

• 3:59Speaker 04

  Yeah, well, the first positive is to say, I don't know. I think we need to reclaim, I don't know, as a positive thing to say. When something new emerges to say, I don't know where this is going. I don't know what's going to happen next. That's not a statement that we need to be afraid of. That's not a statement that says, I'm afraid. That's not a statement that says, I'm copping out. We don't need to make up an answer in order to have a basis for some kind of determined optimism. Because determined optimism isn't the belief that things are going to be okay because of magic. It's, hey, no matter what occurs, I'm going to do the best that I can to figure out how to relate to the tools and the possibilities that emerge

• 4:44Speaker 04

  in a way that is healthy and in a way that draws my creativity. So that's the first thing. I don't know. Second thing is, no matter what the tool is, you can be sure that there are going to be some people that use it in a way that's disappointing to you. And paradoxically, it might be those disappointing uses that in many ways drive the development of the technology and make it possible for you to do the important things that you want to do. So many awesome tools that we have are the result of people playing around with things, experimenting with things that we ourselves wouldn't initiate or endorse or even care about. So you never want to judge a tool by its potential for abuse because everything that you will ever love or create can and will be used by someone

• 5:29Speaker 04

  for purposes that are disappointing than you. One of the things I see when I look at AI is I think about the calculator and I think about the automobile, tools that can do things better than we can do them. If you can run really fast, the automobile can run faster than you. If you can calculate really fast, the calculator can do it faster than you. And you can look at it as competition because it does what you are already doing in a way that's just superior. But you can also look at it as an amplifier of human creativity and say, here's something that not only does what I already do better, but it gives me the power to do things that I have not yet considered. So the first benefit of new technologies is that they challenge us to question our assumptions.

• 6:14Speaker 04

  They disrupt our comfort. And as we get older, this is a really easy thing for us to happen. We get comfortable like knowing how to walk into a room, knowing our way around things, mastering our craft, having a nice, solid sense of identity. We're not like children anymore, where we're just open to everything and we want to try everything. We have concrete knowledge about what we do and don't like. And new technologies disrupt that and say, I'm going to challenge you to evolve and ask yourself, what are you capable of that has never been compelled by previous necessity or interest? And that's the first benefit of these tools. We have to redefine ourselves.

• 6:48Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I think, Ryan, what comes to my mind is that in the wrong hands, any tool can become a weapon. But I want to stick with AI as a tool because you seem to be an AI optimist.

• 7:00Speaker 03

  I just say I'm an optimist in general, but yeah, AI specifically, I'm very optimist about that.

• 7:05Speaker 04

  But on your business card, you should put AI optimist.

• 7:08Speaker 03

  I think I'm probably a little bit more optimist about AI than most other things because I see just the amazing potential in it.

• 7:14Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Now, what Sarah's talked about was some of these things are sort of in the shallow end. And I would agree that a lot of these things in the shallow end, AI right now, like ChatGPT is really useful for really simple contracts. In fact, if I need a contract, the first place I will go is to ChatGPT. I'll still give it to my attorney to look at, but it saves him 90% of the work. And then thus it saves us like 50% of the money or maybe even more. And so it is more efficient there. And so there's nothing wrong with handling some of the shallow end things. I think TK's right, we get in this pattern of this is the way I've always done contracts. This is the way I've always done emails. This is the way that I've always read stories or written stories.

• 7:57Joshua Fields Millburn?

  This is the way I've always communicated, but now this is a new way for us to communicate. But it's also a new tool that, as TK said, I don't know, we're a bit uncertain.

• 8:06Speaker 03

  Yeah. I mean, I think any new tool, especially a major tool like this, and TK brought the calculator and the automobile. I think, of course, like in the beginning, anyone who's in like the inferior technology to this newer technology. AI is a little different because it's like it almost can do anything, you know? Of course, we're going to get scared, but I mean, going kind of back to what TK was saying, just relying on oneself. It doesn't mean like relying on yourself to do everything, but it does mean relying on yourself and believing that no matter what happens, you can pivot. And TK, believing in myself is magic, dude, I would say that. And I do believe in myself, though. So it's like, if I am a customer service representative, we had someone at our Sunday symposium, it was like, oh, they're going to take over my job. Yeah, man, who wants that job anyway, dude?

• 8:52Speaker 03

  Did you like your customer service job, Melbourne?

• 8:54Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I mean, there are some people who do, though.

• 8:56Speaker 03

  I know, it is true, it is true. And that is kind of where I'm going with it in the sense of like, someone who is worried about losing their job. They're worried about it because of the income is potential or probably that's probably every single person. Because they really love the job, you know, and they don't want to lose it.

• 9:15Speaker 04

  Or it's because they don't want to lose it because they don't know what they're going to do afterwards. And that's, I think, where the fear really kicks in is when we know the world's changing, we don't know how we're going to change with it.

• 9:28Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah, and that's the the uncertainty side of I don't know. I don't know what this is going to do for my current situation. The one thing that we're certain of is something's going to change. Even if your job doesn't end, the parameters of your job are going to change when you've introduced artificial intelligence into the picture. I think about any technological advance, that woman who asked that event at Sunday or that question at our Sunday Symposium event, she was talking about, you know, the how scared she was for the change. And I talked to her about when Ryan and I worked in Cincinnati, 100 years before that, it was the horse and buggy capital of the world. All of the best horse and buggies were made there.

• 10:11Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And of course, this guy named Henry Ford came along and he had this thing called the automobile. And it was sort of dismissed at first, like, ah, who's going to want that? That's going to kill a bunch of people. There's no, that's not really going to catch on. And what happened is the horse and buggy folks kept making horse and buggies and better horse and buggies. And eventually, they fell behind because the automobile was popularized and a lot of people found value in it and they'd found less value in in the horse and buggy.

• 10:41Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, that's absolutely right. And, you know, really quickly, Ryan, I agree with you that believing in yourself is magic. And I think that's an expression of determined optimism because you're locating the magic inside yourself rather than outside of yourself. And that's the distinguishing feature of determined optimism. It's not about saying, things are going to get better because of some magic outside there. It's going to get better because of the magic of how I am free to react or respond to it. You know, when it comes to creating value. I think one of the great questions that AI forces us to ask ourselves is, how can I make myself useful to the world? And I think that's a great question to this generation because economically, that is how we make a living by figuring out how we can take our potential,

• 11:24Speaker 04

  harness it in such a way so that we can create value and solve problems for others. And when too much of our conversation around making a living centers around, how can I do what feels good to me? How can I do what I love? It's possible to get a little self-centered that we forget about that other factor. No matter how much you love making music, no matter how much you love writing, no matter how much you love gardening, at some point, if you want to make a living, you have to think about somebody else. And you've got to think about what matters to them. And if you're never willing to play the game of thinking about value in terms of what someone else wants in a way that is ideally compatible with what I want, but in a way that they are free to define,

• 12:07Speaker 04

  that challenges you in a way that produces maturity and wisdom and empathy. And so AI competes with us in a way that makes us afraid that we're going to have to rethink what makes us valuable. And that is scary, but that is a character building journey for humanity. Because we all have things that we love. And you know what? I don't know. This is pure speculation, but it could be possible that AI makes it extremely difficult to make money writing books in the future, to make a living doing research in the future, to make a living doing anything involving like radio or commentary or using your voice in the future.

• 12:44Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Music.

• 12:45Speaker 04

  Music.

• 12:45Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Movies.

• 12:46Speaker 04

  These are all threatening to me. I don't know what I'm doing in a world like that.

• 12:49Speaker 03

  We're always listing up fear here, fellas.

• 12:53Speaker 03

  I'm scared of a lot of things. Hold on, I got things I want to list.

• 12:55Speaker 04

  Hold on, wait, wait, wait. Let me give you more to be afraid of.

• 12:58Speaker 03

  But I mean, this is what we do, though, man. We sit here and we stack fears, man.

• 13:01Speaker 04

  But I'm stacking the fears.

• 13:03Speaker 03

  So you can beat them down.

• 13:04Speaker 04

  Yeah, not so that we can end the conversation there.

• 13:08Speaker 03

  No, no, no.

• 13:08Speaker 04

  And say these fears define me. But I'm stacking the fears to say, look, the threat is real, but here's why it's good for us to face these challenges. Because it brings me to a place where I can no longer be comfortable saying, I figured out my role and I get to do what I love, or I get to do what I'm comfortable doing and I get to make a living. And it puts me back into the beginner's mind of saying, oh. In a world where so many of the things I have found to make myself useful are now done in a superior manner by AI, I've got to rethink this question of how can I make a difference in other people's lives? And that's good for me, even though it's incredibly difficult.

• 13:46Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think what I'm saying about the stacking fears is like, really, it's about, you could just not be afraid and you can just start there and just risk it. And I'm telling you, yes, like, sometimes there's going to be something that is going to get in your way. It doesn't mean don't be afraid and then don't do anything, but it's like, I could go down the stairs right here and be afraid of like, oh, God, can I grab the railing? I don't want to fall down the stairs. I want to, you know, there might be someone coming around the corner. And like, it takes me 20 minutes to get down the stairs, right? Like, there's nothing wrong with that. But that fear is really slowing me down. And I think often, it's like, there are fears we have to, like, hit head on. But then there are times where we drum them up and we start stacking them. Then you always find fears

• 14:30Speaker 03

  to stack. And I'm just, you know, this is a total tangent. This has nothing to do with your comment, TK. It's more about like, anyone listening to this, if you're scared of anything, just try not being scared. Seriously, just try to be like, you know, I ain't going to worry about that today. And I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to worry about, I'm not going to worry about my job with AI. And I'm going to worry about how I'm going to add value. Because the tool itself is not going to, it's not going to do anything than offer you something to help you do your life better or different or whatever it is. So as we always say, the tool is as useful as the user. So that's what I mean. By sitting around and being scared, it's like, maybe it's a signifier. Oh, you know, I might have to look for a different job. Great. Then go look for a different job. But if we sit around, we're like, oh, my God, I'm going to lose my job because of AI. I'm going to

• 15:15Speaker 03

  lose my job because of AI. And they got an email, hey, AI took over your job. We're sorry. Now we're sitting on, oh, my God, I lost my job because of AI. And now we just got like this whole narrative that we're wrapped up in. So Sarah here, I love her optimistic approach to it. If you just want to, you know, get over your fear with AI, just ask yourself, what would Sarah do?

• 15:36Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I think what you're illustrating here is the difference between concern and fear.

• 15:39Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 15:40Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And we can be concerned about something and say, oh yeah, you know what? This is going to change.

• 15:44Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 15:45Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And I can plan for that without worrying about it, without praying for something bad to happen in the future. But I would like to talk about what some of the upsides of AI that you see right now are because she brings up a good point. I thought that AI was going to like help us with all the menial tasks and get all that stuff off the table. But really it's mostly been used for art, which I didn't expect at all. AI art, AI music, AI writing.

• 16:15Speaker 03

  There's been some really good art that has come out of it.

• 16:17Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Absolutely.

• 16:17Speaker 03

  And it's almost like the artists who are learning how to integrate with AI. These are the future artists.

• 16:24Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Right.

• 16:24Speaker 03

  The ones who are bitching and complaining about AI doing their job, they will fall by the wayside.

• 16:30Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah. So let's talk about what some of the upsides of artificial intelligence might be, TK.

• 16:37Speaker 04

  Well, one of the upsides is building on the foundation of how does this technology extend or amplify my ability to do already existing things? And how does it give me the opportunity to do new things I haven't done? Is by allowing something else to do things that it does better than me. I now free up my energy and time to do those things that I actually have the capacity to make history doing. I actually have the capacity to be unique doing. One of the things that kind of compromises everyone's capacity for genius is that as a necessity, we have to do all sorts of things that we're very replaceable on. Anybody could do them, but we just don't have the labor force to do them for us.

• 17:21Speaker 04

  And so every one of us has to spend a whole lot of time in our day doing all sorts of things that, you know, are you uniquely good at getting the mail out of the mailbox? Are you uniquely good at acknowledging an email and saying received? Are you the best in the world at creating invoices? Are you just the most amazing person at downloading a PDF pile of PDF file? No, and you're never going to be the most amazing person in the world at that. You're just doing redundant activities that anybody can do. Once you have the capacity to do those things at scale in a lightning fast way. What happens with your time? What happens with your mind? You know, the other side of this fear that this is going to take away my job is

• 18:02Speaker 04

  this is going to do something that creates value for me and others without requiring my time. And as a result, it's gonna free me up to enjoy more of my time and to figure out something that is actually necessary. And so I, I look at taking away our jobs in some ways as kind of like, oh, that's something that I don't have to do anymore. Imagine if we push that all the way to the extreme. Let's say AI did all the jobs. Isn't that the goal? Isn't the goal to get to the place where our human labor is no longer necessary? Well, what am I gonna do? Uh, I used to build houses, but AI builds houses. Okay. Well, I, I used to clean my house, but AI cleans it for me. Okay. I used to have to prepare my food, but AI prepares it for me. Okay.

• 18:47Speaker 04

  Are you saying we're moving towards a world where your labor is no longer necessary for all the things that you enjoy about life? And now your labor is moving in the direction of you're just doing stuff because you enjoy it? Because it's a creative expression of you, but no one actually needs you to do that? That's freedom.

• 19:04Speaker 03

  Yeah. Amen, man. Well, now it just made me think like, no one's sitting around being like, man, I really miss the printing press. You know? I really miss how slow it took to like type that newspaper. But there were jobs lost when, you know, when that was gone and they found other jobs. And that's really, I think what it comes down to, man. I mean, I think about like the economical possibilities, not like fears, but possibilities. If there are no jobs to be had, like capitalism, little and crony capitalism, doesn't work anymore. So people are scared about like, what happens if we lose our jobs in this economical system? Oh, it ain't gonna work. That's true. But something else will replace it. And I am optimistic that we're all smart enough and brilliant enough.

• 19:48Speaker 03

  And I mean, at least in this room, we love each other enough. There's a couple of people outside this room I love too, man, and we'll figure it out, dude. You know? But it's like, AI is, is here, it's coming. It's like, yeah, I have no reason to be scared of it.

• 19:59Speaker 04

  And it's like, but, but how will I make money if it takes my job? What do you need the money for? So that I can buy all these beautiful things that I want. And, but, but these things are being created really fast and really cheap by this AI. So I don't really need the money as much anymore. I mean, man, we are at a position now where like, you can make that movie. Without having to know how to do graphic design, without having to know a cinematographer, I see this in so many ways as being the democratization of creativity, where you can actually implement and execute your creative ideas and your creative impulses without having to have a rolodex of a thousand people who wouldn't talk to you because you're not rich enough, powerful enough, or geographically well-positioned enough. That is so fascinating.

• 20:38Speaker 03

  Is there a movie?

• 20:38Speaker 04

  Until it destroys us like iRobot.

• 20:39Speaker 03

  No, I love this dude. No dude, like I know there's just gotta be a movie like this. So you got Elon Musk who just like had the robots coming out, putting AI on there. I mean, if we're gonna work on an economical system, which again, I don't think it will work, but a cool movie idea is like, yeah, all the jobs are replaced by these robots. You own the robot and that's who makes your money. That's who works for you. That's what does everything for you. If this movie hasn't been made, make it. TK, make it happen.

• 21:04Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Well, AI could make it happen, right?

• 21:06Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah. All right, I'll just write it tonight.

• 21:08Joshua Fields Millburn?

  You don't even have to write it.

• 21:09Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 21:10Speaker 04

  But you can be the one to tell it.

• 21:11Speaker 03

  I said that with air quotes.

• 21:12Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Well, what I will say to wrap up this question is that I think in a weird world where that happens, where AI takes over all of the labor, it in a way makes real art, I'll just call it that, real art, art by real artists like Buol on the couch here, in a way, it can make that more valuable. We see that all the time where we, we know that like the big corporations sell the most product, but we often want to reconnect with our things because they're artisanal, they're made by an artisan, and they handcrafted the thing. And I think that will be more valuable than ever.

• 21:50Speaker 03

  Dude, that's genius, man. No, cuz it's like, I'm saying the artists who integrate with AI are gonna produce some amazing art, but it's almost like the ones who do the real art, it is gonna be like an artisanal thing. And it will be like a, yeah, I'm looking forward to that.

• 22:01Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Well, I wanna talk to you guys about some more minimalist tools. What I'm hearing from both of you here is that AI has the potential to simplify our lives and therefore it can be a minimalist tool in the right hands. Speaking of minimalist tools, Sarah, I'd love to send you a copy of the Minimalist Rulebook, 16 Rules for Living with Less. Ryan and I wrote this a few years ago. It's some of our favorite tools. Use to simplify our life like the seasonality rule or the just in case rule or the wait for it rule. And you can download it for free over at theminimalists.com on the resources page. Just click resources there at the top. We have a bunch of free resources you can download, including the minimalist rulebook. If you want the audiobook version, Ryan and I read it together and we recorded like a little

• 22:45Joshua Fields Millburn?

  mini podcast about each rule in that audiobook. You can find that over there at theminimalists.com on the resources page. Before we get back to our callers, Ryan, what time is it?

• 22:56Speaker 03

  It's time for the lightning round where we answer the Patreon community chat's question of the week. Oh, Malibu, I'm coming back. I'm coming for your job.

• 23:07Joshua Fields Millburn?

  This is actually artificial intelligence, Ryan. He's not even in the studio with us today.

• 23:10Speaker 03

  Josh Meldren is lying.

• 23:14Joshua Fields Millburn?

  See?

• 23:16Speaker 03

  I am not artificial intelligence.

• 23:18Joshua Fields Millburn?

  During the lightning round, as you know, we each have 60 seconds to answer your question with a short, shareable, minimal maxim. You can find this episode's maxims in the show notes at theminimalists.com/podcast and every minimal maxim ever at minimalmaxims.com. We'll also deliver our weekly show notes directly to your inbox, including seven new maxims every Monday for free if you sign up for our email newsletter at theminimalists.e-mail. We'll never send you spam or junk or advertisements, but we will start your week off with a dose of simplicity. All right, the question of the week this week is, what's your favorite minimalist tool? And how have you used it to live more with less?

• 23:58Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Now, Ryan, TK, before we get to our pithy answers, let's hear how some of our listeners answered this question. Brian said, I don't know if this week's question was asking about physical tools or not, but binder clips immediately come to my head.

• 24:14Speaker 03

  I think he's right about that.

• 24:15Joshua Fields Millburn?

  They're so versatile in my classroom. I use them to bundle student art projects together, hang art projects up on display, and they're even more reliable as chip clips than actual chip clips.

• 24:26Speaker 03

  Oh, my God, he's right.

• 24:27Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Patent pending.

• 24:28Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 24:30Speaker 04

  I love that.

• 24:32Speaker 03

  Do you need to find out who his binder dealer is? I bet he gets all the awesome, amazing binder clips.

• 24:38Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Quick, Alyssa, make sure you buy a bunch of binder clips for the studio. I don't know how we're gonna use them, but they sound like a great minimalist tool.

• 24:43Speaker 03

  That's really cool, though. I love that answer.

• 24:45Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Laura said, "My best tool is the rule of if something is not a hell yes, I'm not taking it." She's talking about freebies here. "It allows me to say no to a lot of freebies when purchasing clothes and shoes and accessories. Thanks to that rule, I can stroll around stores with a sentiment of lightness." I think there's something fascinating about being able to go into a store and not need the things that often trigger our impulse. And one of this, this rule in particular, this tool that, that Laura has here is, well, Derek Severs, "Hell yeah or no." And if you can look at an item, even a freebie, because ah, if it's free, I might as well take it. Ryan, we did a whole episode about freebies, I'm sure you remember.

• 25:30Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And letting go of the need to accept things just because they're free is incredibly freeing. Jessica had this to say. She said, "My favorite minimalist tool is my calendar. The empty spaces remind me that I've carved out time for myself and my family." And so there's like, almost like this photo negative side of things. The busyness can feel overwhelming. We can use our calendar to manage the busyness, but sometimes our tools, we use them to bludgeon ourselves. When Ryan and I both worked in telecom, I remember I got my first BlackBerry phone in 2003, and they told me it would save us two hours a day, because now I could respond to emails while I'm at a sporting event.

• 26:16Speaker 03

  Isn't it funny how like, you say that out loud now? And I'm like, how did we ever believe that?

• 26:22Joshua Fields Millburn?

  But that's the thing.

• 26:22Speaker 03

  We're saving you two hours a day because we're allowing you to work for two hours extra a day.

• 26:27Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah, it just meant I was allowed to work from a different location. Yeah. But what happened is, of course, that work then expands into all off-work hours.

• 26:35Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 26:36Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I heard this great story of someone recently where their boss told them they weren't allowed to work from home anymore. They, everyone had to come back into the office and, and you're not allowed to work from home. And it was a totally remote IT job, so it...

• 26:49Joshua Fields Millburn?

  This person, he could have certainly done it from home, it sounded like.

• 26:52Speaker 04

  The boss was just mad. He had to go into the office, so he punished everybody else.

• 26:55Joshua Fields Millburn?

  That's right. And so the worker was like, okay, that's fine. And but after five, he removed email from his phone, didn't respond to any phone calls. He said, well, you told me I'm not allowed to work from home, so I'm no longer going.

• 27:08Speaker 04

  I love that, dude.

• 27:10Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Taking back my free time.

• 27:11Speaker 04

  Right.

• 27:12Joshua Fields Millburn?

  My calendar is spacious now in the evenings because I'm not working from home.

• 27:17Speaker 04

  Yes, queen.

• 27:18Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yaman said.

• 27:21Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Our friend Yaman said, "The first thing I thought of as a minimalist tool was my Kindle. It saves me tons of space and it is so simple." I know TK, you have a Kindle now and you've had to let go of some books recently.

• 27:33Speaker 04

  Yes, sir.

• 27:34Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I think we'll talk about this soon. TK just moved into a 400-square-foot apartment minimalist.

• 27:40Speaker 04

  Weird flex, but all right.

• 27:42Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And so part of that, you had to get rid of some things that you were adding value before, but they would get in the way now.

• 27:48Speaker 04

  That's exactly right. And it's not because I thought it would make me a better person to get rid of them. It's just the nature of spaces such that you gotta think about how much room you have. And, you know, the math just doesn't math sometimes. And so you have to let go. And so this is a minimalist tool that is near and dear to my heart because it doesn't just allow you to have more books without all of the physical clutter, but it also allows you to take advantage of resources that simply aren't available in paperback. There are a lot of really great books, really great articles, really great journal entries that you can't find the paperback or hardcover for. And it also makes it easier to share a lot of these things as well.

• 28:27Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And a lot of books that are in the Creative Commons, you know, books that are hundreds of years old, that you can download for free. You couldn't get a print version for free because it costs money to print a book, but the PDF or Kindle file, you can download for free. And it doesn't have to be a Kindle. It can be any other e-reader where you have the ability to download some of these free books or even borrow free books from your library on your Kindle as well. You can read dozens of other listener responses in the Patreon community chat. How about you, listeners? What's your favorite minimalist tool? And how have you used it to live more with less? Let us know in the comments. Okay, Ryan, give me something pithy. What's your pithy answer here? What's your favorite minimalist tool? And how have you used it to live more with less?

• 29:13Speaker 03

  Minimalism is a skill that gives us the ability to walk away. So I mean, I guess it's a skill more than anything. I mean, I don't know if you can call that a tool, but the ability to walk away from anything is pretty awesome. And it's not because I don't care about things. It's actually because I care so deeply about things. It's like, I can look at the things I don't really care that deeply about and walk away from them much easier because I've developed this muscle to really filter through all those things.

• 29:39Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah. And the willingness to walk away doesn't mean that you have to walk away from a thing.

• 29:43Speaker 03

  Absolutely not.

• 29:44Joshua Fields Millburn?

  It means I'm here not out of obligation, but I'm here because this is how I want to spend my time, my most precious resource.

• 29:52Speaker 03

  Yeah. I'll give you just an example of like what I'm willing to walk away from. So I'm like working on this book right now and I've tried to walk away from this thing a couple of times, not in the sense of like trying to, because I don't want to do it. It's almost like the pressure of like feeling of like having to do it every single day. And if I'm not working on it on a certain day and like it's just creating a lot of anxiety at times. Right? So I do this experiment where I'm like, cool, I'll just walk away from this thing. I have no problem walking away from it. And it's like, I, I can't, like, I care so deeply about what I'm trying to do here. It's just like one of those things that like I have chosen. This is the boulder I'm carrying. Now I'll set it down some days and I've learned how to do that. But that's what I'm saying. It's not about like me being like, you know, screw this book.

• 30:35Speaker 03

  I'll do what I want. I'm Ryan Nicodemus. I didn't have 25 years old, but you know, 43. I'm like, screw this book. Oh, I can walk away from, I'll do what I want. And then like I do that and it doesn't feel very empowering because I'm not doing what I actually want to do.

• 30:47Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Right. You're, you're illustrating the difference between the willingness to walk away and running away from something because you're afraid of it. Give me something pithy TK.

• 30:56Speaker 04

  None doing paves the way for wise doing. I find whenever I'm stressed, whenever, whenever I'm overburdened, whenever I can't figure out what to do, confused, overwhelmed, whatever it may be. It never fails. When I walk away and take a walk, I get exactly what I need. But it requires me to exercise the courage to do something in that moment of overwhelm that feels so irresponsible. You mean, everybody's stressed? You mean, there are problems that need to be solved? You mean, there are urgencies that need to be attended to? And you're just gonna go for a walk? And when you go for a walk, you can't make any promises like, "But if I go on this walk, I'll figure out how to make $30,000 in the next 30 minutes." You can't make promises like that. Because if you know what's gonna happen next, it's not a discovery.

• 31:41Speaker 04

  You have to open yourself up to discovery. And you get what you need, and it works. But you can never know what that is ahead of time. That's my favorite minimalist tool: taking a walk.

• 31:53Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah, you know what's funny about that is if it was a manual and not a discovery, then you would already know what you're getting out of it. But the beauty of discovery is the curiosity and the not-knowing.

• 32:06Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 32:06Joshua Fields Millburn?

  That not-knowing is what makes you feel alive. That sense of uncertainty, which we often run from, is the very thing that makes us wake up and get out of bed and do what we want to do. My pithy answer is this: my favorite minimalist tool is Ryan Nicodemus.

• 32:26Speaker 03

  That's what I was waiting to hear.

• 32:28Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Damn, I was totally gonna make a joke about that. I'm like, "No, dude, like, don't derail things." But here we are.

• 32:35Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Melvin did it for me. No, I wanna get practical for a moment. I don't have a pithy answer for you, but I have a few physical goods that are great minimalist tools for me. But I say for me as a caveat, because they may be total clutter for you. They could simply get in the way. I've got one of them right here. As you know, Ryan, I've had a lot of shoulder pain recently. You have too. You just had shoulder surgery, which we're gonna talk about on page three here. But this thing I have here in my hand is called a SOBAC, like PSO, the P is silent, like pterodactyl. Oh, cool. Yeah, you know, like psoas muscle. Yeah. So the SOBAC thing is, it was so hard for me to use because my whole paraspinal muscle chain was so, so

• 33:17Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Tight that I had to use it very gently at first, but 70% of my shoulder pain is gone. And I attribute that to this. And I have also done some physical therapy through PRI, which is the Postural Restoration Institute. Both of those are tools. So tools don't have to be a physical tool. It could be someone teaching you, training you, showing you, instructing you of the mechanics to improve the things that you want to improve. Of course, there are minimalist tools like the iPhone or a smartphone in general. And there's, uh, that's a double sided, uh, well, it's a double sided problem really. Cause on one side it's like, wow, this is the best thing. It does allow me to respond to people and connect with people.

• 33:58Joshua Fields Millburn?

  It allows me to organize my life in a way that would have been impossible 20 years ago. But it also allows me to batter myself with distractions. And so if I'm not using it intentionally, it's still a tool. It's a tool that I'm using that gets in the way. It's like, if, imagine if I had a giant toolbox, I rolled in here and started dumping all the tools onto the floor. They'd technically be tools, but they'd really be clutter that we'd be tripping on and stubbing our toes. And that's kind of what's happening with us with many of our things is we pretend they're tools. Or maybe they were useful once upon a time, or I saw it be useful for someone else. But it's no longer useful for me. So it's clutter. It's just getting in the way.

• 34:41Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Another simple tool for me is we cook with one stainless steel pan at home regularly. Every day, a couple of meals a day, that same stainless steel pan. And it's incredibly simple, but I don't need all of these additional kitchen accoutrements in order to simplify. I mean, quite often cooking seems overwhelming because of all of the accessories and the cleaning and all of the aftercare that happens when you're done cooking. But if you just have one simple pan that you need to clean at the end of it, it's way less daunting. All throughout the house, I have like these grounding mats where seated on one right now, or Ryan's standing on one, TK's standing on one. That's been a great minimalist tool for me as well.

• 35:24Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Keeps me grounded even when I'm indoors. And finally, a surprising one for me that was a minimalist tool is look at all the papers we have in front of us. This wouldn't seem like we would, this would be a minimalist tool. We have a printer downstairs, a really simple HP printer that costs next to nothing. But why do we do that? Because of what I talked about earlier. Sometimes those screens are really useful. They're really helpful. But if we're recording an episode together and we have screens in front of us, I've found that they become a smoke screen for the conversation. And so this tool is a surprising minimalist tool. We have a printer downstairs and we print out our production notes beforehand. And then we have them here in front of us.

• 36:07Joshua Fields Millburn?

  So we're not distracted by those glowing screens. How about you TK? What's one physical good that is a minimalist tool for you?

• 36:16Speaker 04

  Man, it's my slim coffee mug. It's portable. It's sleek. It fits anywhere. I can take it anywhere I want and it allows me to get rid of coffee mugs. It allows me to keep it simple. I can drink tea out of this, coffee out of this, cold water out of this. Keeps things at its temperature, but it just simplifies my life because I only need one cup. It's easy to clean out, easy to carry around. So no matter what I'm drinking, when I'm drinking, where I'm drinking, I got one cup and that's just a lot less to do. I used to have, this is coming from a person that, you know, accepted every coffee mug gift. I love the aesthetics of coffee mugs and I used to have about like 15 coffee mugs. And it's just so nice to not have that.

• 36:57Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Well, plus you don't have all the toxic junk from the throwaway cups that are going into your tea or coffee. And also it's not producing all that waste, which may have not been the main reason you did that. But one of the beautiful byproducts of minimalism in general is that when we simplify our lives, when we, when we purchase less, when we consume less, we produce less waste. And so that's a beautiful byproduct of that. I've got something similar here, my fellow mug, although it needs to be replaced soon. It's really dinged up. It looks like I dropped it off of the Eiffel Tower or something. But I use this every day, all day. I keep my coffee in there and I use it in the mornings. I use it in the afternoons. I drink my coffee in the evening still. Don't judge me, Nicodemus.

• 37:38Speaker 04

  No, I just want to make a joke about the Eiffel Tower being in Ojai.

• 37:42Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I didn't realize it was there.

• 37:44Speaker 04

  It's a replica.

• 37:44Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Oh, okay. That makes sense. One tenth of the scale.

• 37:49Speaker 04

  No, it's 10 times as big.

• 37:51Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Oh, okay. That makes sense. Well, how about you, Nicodemus? What's, uh, what's a minimalist tool that you benefit from?

• 37:55Speaker 03

  My fanny pack, dude. I love the, A, they're like in style. Can I believe they're in style? I literally, um, so our friend, uh, he makes them. Uh, he's at the farmer's market in Missoula. And I'm like, I really need something. And I'm like, this was a while ago before I got my shoulder surgery, but I'm really glad I got it now because I literally have one pocket I can get into on the right hand side. Like that's where my back pocket is, that's where my other pocket is. And it's my right shoulder that I got surgery on. So it's been really handy, like bringing that around, being able to carry stuff with me. Um, Ryan just calls it my purse, you know, which is fine. But I was like sitting there looking at him. I swear to God, when I was buying this thing, I'm like, dude, are you sure this is cool? And he's like, yeah, I promise they are. I'm like, you're selling them though, dude.

• 38:38Speaker 03

  I'm like, are you sure? I mean, he was like 20 something. I'm like, are you sure you kids are wearing these?

• 38:42Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah, uh, sure.

• 38:45Speaker 03

  But no, it's been great, man. It's cool. And it's like, he literally like hand stitches everything. It's pretty cool, man.

• 38:50Joshua Fields Millburn?

  So what's nice about that? You don't have to keep a bunch of stuff in your pockets?

• 38:52Speaker 03

  Don't have to keep a bunch of stuff in my pockets. Uh, I can have my like wallet and phone with me rather than like having just a big baldy left hand pocket and you making, you know, dumb jokes about me being happy to see you or not.

• 39:06Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Hey, those jokes are not dumb.

• 39:08Speaker 03

  I'm so sorry. Those stupid jokes.

• 39:10Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Thank you.

• 39:11Speaker 03

  You're welcome.

• 39:12Joshua Fields Millburn?

  All right, we're getting toward the end of page one. On page two, Ryan, we had a question. Someone called in and asked about your move to Missoula. We're going to talk about that and a bunch more. We have a plethora 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. Actually, I have three things for you. One is, this is the 10th anniversary of our book, Everything That Remains. Ryan and I, we moved to a cabin in the middle of nowhere, Montana. There was one traffic light and 3,400 square miles. The day we arrived was October 3rd, and it was the middle of a blizzard. And all you had time to do was write. And we wrote this book called Everything That Remains. We just had the 10th anniversary edition that

• 39:55Joshua Fields Millburn?

  was out earlier this year while we were on tour. We did the everything tour. And now there is the final version of that. If you want to check out the beautiful cover, it's my favorite cover we've done for this book yet. And we've done several covers.

• 40:07Speaker 03

  So good. Yeah.

• 40:08Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Joshua Weaver did the photo for it. It looked like we were, it wasn't like Abercrombie and Fitch models, because we couldn't pull that off. It was more like a LL Bean ad.

• 40:20Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, L L Bean.

• 40:21Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah, we were out in the mountains in Montana and Joshua Weaver just got this great photo of us.

• 40:26Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 40:26Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And then Dave over at Spire Design, this beautiful new cover. We'll put a link to that in the show notes. You could find it at theminimalists.com. It's called Everything That Remains. It's the, the final ETR cover. Also, it's the 10th anniversary. I forgot to mention this. Our first TEDx talk was 10 years ago, Nicodemus.

• 40:46Speaker 03

  And Wayfish.

• 40:47Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Almost 11 years ago now.

• 40:49Speaker 03

  How much we've grown.

• 40:51Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah, yeah, we're taller, better. You're more handsome somehow.

• 40:56Speaker 03

  Exactly, yeah.

• 40:58Joshua Fields Millburn?

  It was called A Rich Life With Less. And it was really the first thing that we created that reached a large audience of people. Millions of people saw this TEDx talk that we did. And then a few years later, we were in Fargo and we did another TEDx talk called The Art of Letting Go. We'll put links to both of those in the show notes. If you want to go back and see what the Minimalists were talking about 10 years ago, check out our TEDx talk, A Rich Life With Less. And then finally, you know, last week was Nicodemus's birthday and next week is TK's birthday.

• 41:29Speaker 03

  My goodness.

• 41:30Joshua Fields Millburn?

  That's what I'm talking about. Yeah. We're here to ask you for minimalist birthday gifts for both of them.

• 41:36Speaker 03

  Neckties.

• 41:37Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I thought it was cuff links.

• 41:39Speaker 03

  That's for TK.

• 41:42Speaker 03

  Please don't send me a necktie.

• 41:45Speaker 04

  Please don't send me cuff links.

• 41:47Joshua Fields Millburn?

  We'll have to get the P O box in Montana. But no, here's the, what we're asking for. For, we only do this once a year. You hear every podcast you listen to. It's like, please like and subscribe and ding bells and do all these other crazy things and share this and hit that.

• 42:00Speaker 03

  We just want you to ding one bell.

• 42:02Joshua Fields Millburn?

  No, I don't need you to ding any bell.

• 42:04Speaker 03

  I'm sorry.

• 42:06Speaker 04

  My goodness.

• 42:07Joshua Fields Millburn?

  We ask this once a year as a birthday gift. Would you be willing to rate our podcast on Apple Podcasts and Spotify? Do the one on Apple for Nicodemus, the one on Spotify for TK. If you could go on to both of those platforms, that helps us reach more people. We have thousands of reviews, but we could really use your review to help push us up in the search recommendations for the Minimalist Podcast. We don't ask you this every episode. We're not telling you to like and subscribe to anything. Just once a year, would you be willing to give us a five star review on Apple Podcasts and on Spotify?

• 42:42Speaker 04

  Also, Ryan needs a new bike.

• 42:44Speaker 03

  It's ready to be new.

• 42:45Joshua Fields Millburn?

  E-bike. What else you got for us?

• 42:48Speaker 03

  Here's a minimalist insight from one of our listeners.

• 42:52Speaker 06

  Hello, minimalists. My name is Ryan. I'm originally from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and I want to share my story and extend my thanks. A little over six months ago, I hit a sort of quarter life crisis. I felt like my career was at a standstill, and I wasn't able to spend enough time and energy doing the things that I loved. When I got out of grad school, full-time positions were hard to come by in my field. So I took on per diem gigs to gain experience and get by. As time went on, I felt burnout from the stress of juggling so many different jobs, not being able to make loan payments, and constantly applying to full-time positions with no resolution. I am really passionate about what I do for work,

• 43:34Speaker 06

  but this job market was really testing my limits. After two years of waiting for a better job, I decided to pivot and pursue travel positions in my field. This will give me the opportunity to live, work, and relax in places I've wanted to travel to for a long time. As I was planning to basically live out of my car for the next few years, minimalism actually came really naturally. I had watched your Netflix documentary last year and just finished your book, Everything That Remains. It was a months-long process, but I was able to jettison about 70% of my belongings between my apartment and my parents' house. When I realized I wasn't able to transport my belongings in my car

• 44:18Speaker 06

  that I was shipping across the country, I focused more on what I realistically could take on the plane. I recently just got set up with my first assignment on the west coast and now have a renewed excitement for my career. I continue to listen weekly on Spotify for additional insights and inspiration. Thank you for your guidance on this journey to live more with less.

• 44:42Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Hey Ryan, thank you so much for that thoughtful comment. For anyone else has a listener tip or insight about this episode or any other episode, leave a comment on Patreon or YouTube, or better yet, you can send a voice memo straight from your phone to [email protected] so we can feature your voice on the show. Alright, that's the first 33% of episode 468. We'll see you on Patreon for the full maximal edition. Ryan Nicodemus is here for all of that. He answers some pretty heartfelt stuff as well. He's had some difficult things happen in the last couple of weeks. We talk about that in depth. We also answer a bunch more of your questions like, "What foods do the minimalists grow at their homes?" We actually grow some food at our homes, minimalist.

• 45:22Joshua Fields Millburn?

  "What should I do if the activities I enjoy require me to accumulate clutter?" Also, "Is it worth it if it weighs you down?" Plus a million more questions and simple living segments over on the Minimalist Private Podcast. Visit patreon.com/theminimalist or click the link down in the description to subscribe and get your personal link so that our weekly maximal episodes play in your favorite podcast app. You also get access to all of our podcast archives, all the way back to episode 001. By the way, Patreon is now offering free trials, so if you'd like to test drive our private podcast, you can join for seven days for free. Check out ryannicodemus.com if you want to sign up for his monthly mentoring messages. Those are coming back real soon. ryannicodemus.com.

• 46:07Joshua Fields Millburn?

  You can get on the email list over there. That is our minimal episode for today. Big thanks to Earthing Studios for the recording space. On behalf of Ryan Nicodemus, TK Coleman, Malibu Bama, who will be back next week, post-production Peter, Spire Jeff, Inspire Dave, A.B. on the couch, Savvy D. on the board, Bueller's here, Jordan No More just walked in the door as well. I didn't mean to make that rhyme, but it did. He just brings it out of me. MC Milburn here. Alright, 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.

• 46:44Speaker 04

  Peace.