477 | Living Room Clutter

For the first episode in their five-part Household Clutter series, The Minimalists are joined by Joshua Becker to talk about decluttering the things that make a mess of our living spaces. Discussed in this episode: Where is the best place to start decluttering? (4:44) How is our cluttered home harming our family? (8:49) What purpose does your living room serve, and what gets in the way of that purpose? (28:08) Listener tip: Minimalist rule to declutter excess coffee mugs. (43:57) Letting go after the recent Los Angeles fires. (46:22) 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, Malibu, hello, everybody. Welcome to the first episode of our new five-part Household Clutter series. Today, we're talking about living room clutter. Joining us in the studio to tackle this topic is Joshua Becker. Joshua is the founder of the popular blog Becoming Minimalist, and he's the bestselling author of five books, including The Minimalist Home. Coming up on this free public minimal episode, a caller has a question about the many ways his clutter is harming his life and his family's life. And then we've got a question about the things that get in the way of enjoying our living rooms. What is the clutter in our living rooms? We'll talk about that. Let's follow our Right Here, Right Now segment and a listener tip.

• 1:30Joshua Fields Millburn?

  You can check out the maximal edition of episode 477. That's the full two-hour episode where we answer three times as many questions on Patreon. The link is in the description. When you subscribe, you can listen to our private podcast episodes on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or your favorite podcast app. Plus, you'll gain access to all of our archives, all the way back to episode 001. That's a full decade of podcast archives. By the way, big thanks to our patrons. Your support keeps our podcast 100% advertisement-free because, sing along at home, y'all. Advertisements suck. Let's start with our callers. If you have a question or comment for our show, we'd love to hear from you.

• 2:10Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Our phone number is 406-219-7839, or you can email a voice recording from your phone to [email protected]. Our first question today is from Demeter.

• 2:22Speaker 03

  Salut les minimalistes, je suis Dimitri et je suis un patron depuis longtemps de Bulgarie. Je m'envoie cette enregistrement pour la série de couleurs de la maison. J'ai un problème avec mon mari et ses habitudes concernant les possessions matérielles et la façon générale de nous accrocher à notre maison et à notre relation. Nous avons un appartement de deux étages magnifique et spacieux qui est extrêmement détruit à ce moment. Comme nous avons des personnalités très différentes et je suis le plus ordinaire et je suis un minimalist par cœur, j'ai essayé de faire de nombreuses conversations avec ma femme mais rien ne semble changer. Je suis craint que cet environnement soit mauvais pour notre fille de deux ans

• 3:06Speaker 03

  et c'est en plus un effet mental négatif pour moi puisque je suis assez introverti et j'aimerais pouvoir venir chez moi à un endroit où je me sens sûr et calme. Je reste souvent au sommet jusqu'aux petits heures du matin pour nettoyer les choses et nettoyer et je suis presque à la limite, soit physiquement soit mentalement. À l'époque de cette enregistrement, ma femme refuse de me parler plus. Évidemment, personne ne veut que leur famille se sépare mais je suis préoccupé que c'est ce qui nous attend à cause de cette incompatibilité. Je m'envoie des photos de notre salon pour que vous puissiez avoir une vue de la situation.

• 3:50Speaker 03

  Ces photos reflètent le détruit non seulement dans notre salon mais dans l'entier de l'appartement aussi. N'hésitez pas à les partager avec la communauté Patreon, je n'ai rien à cacher. Toutes les informations seront très appréciées. Encore une fois, merci pour tout ce que vous faites. Vous devez m'aider dans les moments difficiles de ma vie et je suis sûr que beaucoup de membres de la communauté se sentent de la même façon. Prenez soin et au revoir.

• 4:19Joshua Fields Millburn?

  All right, so we took a look at the photos here and we're not going to share them personally because we don't have your wife's consent to share them with our online community. If you share them, that is totally on you. I will say this, we took a look at the photos and the situation doesn't seem as dire as what I hear in your voice, but I think there's something else going on here. And I want to address that question in a moment about the cluttered home and how it's harming your family and how it's harming your relationship. But the reason I wanted to have Joshua Becker here today, we're starting this five-part clutter series and we actually asked him, where's the best place to start the series? We'll give you any of the topics. Is it cabinet clutter? Is it bedroom clutter? Is it garage clutter? Because you actually started in your garage. I started with sentimental items.

• 5:03Joshua Fields Millburn?

  We started in the worst places to start. And what you told Mallory was like, no, no, no, let's not start with the garage. Let's start with the living room. Why did you say that?

• 5:14Speaker 04

  I was in my garage when I heard about minimalism. The first thing I claimed to declutter was my car because we had pulled all the cars out to clean out the garage and I pulled the car in and I was looking around, there's all this junk in my car that didn't need to be there. And so it didn't take very long at all and I took everything out of my car. Got in the car the next morning to drive to work and it felt entirely different from how it felt before. It was like clean and calm and there wasn't like a red ball rolling around in the backyard and coins jiggling and water bottles and everything.

• 5:56Speaker 04

  And I'm like, this feels so nice. And my first thought was, where else can I have this feeling? And so the next room that we decluttered was the living room because it wasn't going to be difficult. It was going to take some time, it was going to take more time and effort than the car, but it wasn't going to take as much time as going through the basement or the storage shed or whatever it might have been. And so we did the living room next and finished it in a day, couple hours and sat down on the couch and it just felt so amazing. I remember mentioning to my wife, I said, I feel like the air is able to flow through this room like it never had before.

• 6:39Speaker 04

  And so when I encourage people to declutter, if they're working through their entire home, the first thing I say is you don't start by trying to get rid of the hardest thing in your home that you would ever have to get rid of. It's always what we think of. Well, what am I going to do about sentimental things? How am I going to go through my paper and my books? Start with the things you know you can get rid of, and then start in the easiest, most lived-in areas of your home. So your car is a great place to start. The living room, the bedroom, those are usually the two best rooms to start in, whichever one's going to be easier, because you can get the win. Like, you can finish the room, and you spend time in the space, and you can feel the difference, and then it motivates you to go to the next spot and the next room,

• 7:24Speaker 04

  and eventually getting harder and harder through your entire home.

• 7:28Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Well, we just looked at Demeter's photos, and we saw his living room. And while it was certainly filled with stuff, it wasn't as, I didn't feel as overwhelming as I thought. When you looked at those photos, what did you see?

• 7:43Speaker 04

  I agree. I didn't, it was not as bad as I thought it was going to be, listening to the voicemail message. And I was trying to think, how are we going to have this conversation? And what needs to be said? And is my regular advice going to be helpful to people? And then I saw the photos, and I'm like, yeah, I think my regular advice would be, would be just, would be just fine. And honestly, I don't know. Honestly, I think he probably needs to hear the tough love more than, more than his wife, from what I, from what I could hear there, right? So.

• 8:17Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Okay. Well, let's talk a bit about that. Before we do, and we're talking a lot today about living room. Is living room one word or two words? There's a debate that's going on here in the studio. Important question, Joshua.

• 8:27Speaker 04

  Two rooms, two, two.

• 8:29Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yes. It's two rooms. Uh-oh.

• 8:33Joshua Fields Millburn?

  That's my problem. I only have one living room. Two, two words. What, are we debating? It's one word? Yeah, well, I like to combine words all the time. So, all right. He had the tie breaking vote here. I feel like you colluded with TK Coleman before we started recording here. All right, let's, uh, let's have this tough discussion here because clearly there is a, a separation between him and his wife. They're certainly not on the same page. I don't even think they're reading from the same book at this point. She refuses to even speak with him. That's really difficult. The stuff is never about the stuff. There's something else going on here. If he was one of your clutter counseling clients, what would you tell him, TK?

• 9:14Speaker 05

  I would say never assume that just because you've done something a lot of times, that you've done it in the most optimal way, in the way that's most conducive to the results that you want. Despair is often preceded by this sense of, I've tried so many times. I've tried everything. I've said this over and over again. And then when you unpack, okay, well, what have you tried? It reminds me of the story that you had with your daughter, right? Where she says, I've literally tried everything to get more customers. And you say, what have you tried? She tried two things. And so sometimes our everything isn't the same as the universe's everything. And that's good news, right? The universe's everything is a lot bigger. You know, if, if my conversation with someone involves, for instance, trying to get them to agree with me about how much of an idiot I think they are,

• 9:59Speaker 05

  I could have that conversation a hundred times, a million times, and it's only going to get worse because that's not a quality conversation. So, why is the conversation failing? We've got to ask ourselves, well, what's the goal of this conversation? Is it to get her to see how terrible she is? Is it, is it to get her to acknowledge that she's just being totally inconsiderate? Is it to get her to see that your way is right, that she's a really messy person and needs to change? What is the goal of this conversation? If we don't have a life giving goal, if we don't have a goal that can genuinely feel like a win for both parties, it's really not going to go anywhere. And so one thing that I would try to do is to create a conversation where I'm not just going into it thinking about what's in it for me,

• 10:42Speaker 05

  but I'm also prepared to listen to the other person tell me, what is in it for them right now in this life that they are living that feels so incompatible with what it is I want? And then try to prepare a way to create something that can still honor that. The other thing I'll say, and I'll, I'll pause after this is that. There's no shame in acknowledging that there are people who can reach the members of your family in ways that you can't reach. Sometimes we feel the pressure to be all things to all people. And so we feel a sense of loss in acknowledging or admitting, hey, maybe there are some people who can hear my wife better than me on some things. They can say certain things to her better than me on some things. Oh, boy, that's gotta hurt, right? That kind of feels like you're not enough.

• 11:27Speaker 05

  But there's no shame in that. Sometimes the best way to have a conversation with you and the person that you love is to introduce a trusted third party who can help the two of you hear each other and speak to one another. And it sounds like if she's not talking to you anymore over this, you might be at that point where that's a worthy consideration. And it's a lot more common than you think.

• 11:47Joshua Fields Millburn?

  There's quite a bit of resentment here. I can hear it, right? Obviously, if someone stopped talking to you, there's resentment. Sometimes on the show, we say our material possessions are a physical manifestation of our internal lives. So there's a lot of external clutter, like there is in the living room. We see in these photos. There's probably a lot of other clutter in your life. There's certainly some emotional clutter here. I can hear it. Some mental clutter, maybe. Certainly some relationship clutter that's going on here. Now, Joshua Becker, with respect to this situation, comparing it to your own, when you first stumbled into minimalism, your wife didn't know what minimalism was. And you started simplifying. But my guess is you didn't go to her and drag her through the house and force her to start simplifying as well. In a way, you set the example for her.

• 12:34Speaker 04

  Yes, my wife was on board with minimalism. My wife was on board with getting rid of things. But the way I usually explain it is if my wife, if Kim, wanted to get rid of half of our stuff, I wanted to get rid of 80% of our stuff. And so the easy things left the house. And then I'm like, let's keep going. And she's like, I think we're at a good spot right now. Which I think is usually how it is in most relationships over any issue. Like, generally speaking, we're going in the same direction. But what does that actually look like? We want to discipline our kids the same way. But when do we actually do this? And when do we actually do that?

• 13:17Speaker 04

  So I think compromise is always going to be an issue.

• 13:22Speaker 04

  Which leads me to one of the things that I needed to learn with Kim that I might mention here, and I have one other thought, but let me pop this in right now. I had to learn to trust my wife in the areas of the home that she was responsible for. And the best way to articulate this is one day, she, our kids were young, six and two, when this started, and at one point she came in with some bags of children's clothes. And I was really passionate about owning less. And I'm like, did you really have to buy more clothes for the kids? And she's like, do you even know like what size they wear?

• 14:05Speaker 04

  Or how many pairs of pants our son has? How fast they grow? Or what shoe, like, I'm like, no, I have no idea. And she said, trust me, they need new clothes. And it was really an eye opening moment for me where I was like, okay, if she's going to be in charge of that, then I need to trust her in, in making those, in making those decisions. Things like the, you know, whatever it is, if you're the guy that does all the carpentry, or, you know, if you're the, the woman that has the in-home business, you know, whatever it is that the person might be in charge of, I think finding some, some trust and love and I think can be helpful in whatever area that might be if, you know,

• 14:48Speaker 04

  there was a lot of toys in the photos and, you know, maybe you're picturing a different environment for your, for your two year, for your two year old, but she's got a different thing in mind. And if she's in charge of it, then I don't know, a little bit of trust has to be put in place there.

• 15:04Speaker 05

  You know, one thing about, I'm sorry, one thing about that trust is that it's easier to have when you listen, when you make yourself a student of that other person. And, and sometimes we're too eager to try to influence people in a different direction without taking any time to learn why their current direction is so important to them. And so why is it that the house is the way it is? Why is it important to not make these changes? To be able to say, I'm going to hear that out. I'm not going to refute any points. I'm not going to argue with anything. And I'm not going to assume that by listening, I'm conceding all of the points, but I'm just going to listen and try to learn.

• 15:37Speaker 04

  That was gonna be my second point. I think probably a dose of humility is required in this relationship. And I forget his name. Sorry.

• 15:47Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Demeter.

• 15:48Speaker 04

  Demeter. I would, I would challenge him in, in some way to...

• 15:54Speaker 04

  The one thing I always tell couples when one wants to complain about the other person's clutter. Number one, it's always easier to see everyone else's clutter than it is to see your own. But the second thing is, no matter how bad you want them to change in this area of their life, there is something that they want you to change about your life that you're not budging on either. And so knowing that you're not the perfect partner in the family, like this is something that she struggles with, but there's something that you're struggling with and remembering that and keeping that in mind. I, I think focusing on the, the positives of what she

• 16:35Speaker 04

  brings into the family and into the relationship. Maybe she's not the tidiest of the two, but maybe she's the fun one. Maybe she's the spontaneous one. You know, seeing that value and seeing what she brings and then being, I don't need her to do exactly the things that I want her to do in taking care of the home, but hey, this is what I'm bringing to the relationship. Like I'm bringing this healthy perspective and I'm keeping you from going further down the road than you would have. And yeah, I think humility and love and patience and forgiveness and yeah, just approaching these conversations with the right, with the right voice and the right humility, for sure.

• 17:19Joshua Fields Millburn?

  If he were on his own, obviously the practical side of this would be a lot simpler because he feels a sense of chaos right now. He comes home and it feels chaotic to him. And that's what important to recognize. It probably doesn't feel chaotic to her. Or if it does, it's subconscious. It's certainly not a, a conscious chaos. And so you want it to feel calmer, but that's not that specific. Because I can go remove one thing from your home and it's gonna feel

• 17:47Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Calmer, but you're still going to feel a level of chaos there. And so I'd get really specific. What does calm look like for you? And that will allow you to understand where is that that middle ground of compromise? Because if Joshua Becker wants to get rid of 85% of his things, and Kim Becker wants to get rid of only 50% of the things, well, you know, you have that, you have so much in common right now. What are both of you willing to let go of? That is a great place to start, although you can't start if you're not communicating. So TK, what gets them on the same page to just be able to have a conversation around this right now? Because that conversation has been tainted. For me, it's understanding the benefits. Like, maybe she doesn't even understand the benefits of simplifying.

• 18:30Joshua Fields Millburn?

  If you don't know why you want to simplify, then you're just being forced into it. You're being dragged into minimalism. You should declutter. You're being moralized to for your material possessions. And owning a material possession is not moral or immoral. The question is, is it practical or useful to you? Does it amplify your joy or does it get in the way? And if it gets in the way, it's clutter. But just because it gets in your way, Demeter, doesn't mean it's clutter for her, because it may not get in her way. So how do they have that conversation? Where does that conversation even start?

• 19:03Speaker 05

  It starts with honoring the uncomfortable silence that has now entered the conversation. When someone that we love and that we need to talk to stops talking to us, that instinct is to try to control the situation, to try to pressure them, to try to talk them into talking. And when you dishonor the silence that people say they need from you, it often makes them feel disrespected, alienates them even further. And so I would start with something along the lines of saying, "I know you don't want to talk to me right now, and I respect that. I know we've tried to have conversations about this topic, and it's gone wrong, and it's felt really bad, and I understand why you would not want to talk with me."

• 19:48Speaker 05

  I would like to try again, however. I've done some thinking and I feel like I can show up differently. And I promise you that if you give me another chance to talk about this, I'll do my very best to listen and to be more charitable. In fact, I'm willing to say that even if I have some things I disagree with or I need to ask of you, I won't do that in our initial conversation. I will listen to you. I'll ask questions to make sure I understand. And whatever it is I have to say in response, I'll give that some time to think about. If you're up for that, if you're willing for that, I would love that. And I'm willing to wait until you're ready for that. Now, if you can't get a conversation from that,

• 20:30Speaker 05

  we've got a much deeper issue than how we should clean the living room. Okay, we've got a really fundamental issue that tells us things might already be too far gone to save, or we might not be able to have a conversation unless we go back to that third party that I'm talking about. But I would start there. And if you get the conversation, I would keep my word. There's no expiration date on being able to say I disagree. I don't know where we picked that up from, but you can come back three days later. You can come back a week later and say, I've been thinking about something that you said, and I remember you said this sort of thing here, and I have a concern about that. In fact, when you do it like that, it often makes you appear a lot more reflective and considerate of what they had said.

• 21:15Speaker 05

  So there's no expiration date on disagreeing. I would keep my word and I would listen. And I would ask, why has this conversation been so difficult for you? What is it about the way I'm expressing myself that's rubbing you the wrong way? Tell me a little bit about what you do at home, how you use this space and what your vision is. What's your vision for the room? How do you want to come home? Are you happy with it? Because I only talk about my unhappiness. I want to know, is there anything that you're unhappy with? You know? And I would start there and I would listen to her vision. And then I would walk away from that. I would thank her for expressing herself to me. I would thank her for taking the risk when she felt so uneasy of sharing her heart with me. And then I would walk away and I would ask myself, number one, how can I support my wife's vision?

• 21:59Speaker 05

  Number two, what am I willing to compromise in my own pursuit of peace? Do I need absolute organization? Or is there a certain amount of messiness, or what I consider to be messiness, that I'm willing to tolerate? What am I willing to do to contribute to the realization of my own desire? And how long of a process am I willing to commit to? What kind of ugliness and pain and discomfort am I willing to put up with in order to realize a vision that can work best for both of us? And I love to talk with you about this in more detail, but those would be my three starting points for how I begin having a conversation.

• 22:32Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Well, Demeter, I'll give you a one hour clutter counseling session with TK Coleman. Anyone else is interested, just head on over to theminimalists.com.

• 22:40Speaker 04

  I'll take one.

• 22:42Joshua Fields Millburn?

  He's good, right? He's so good.

• 22:45Speaker 05

  Teach me how to dress, teach me how to look good.

• 22:49Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I do want to get practical before we move on to the lightning round here. Anyone else is interested, by the way, theminimalists.com, click counseling at the top if you want a clutter counseling session with TK Coleman. Relationship clutter, material clutter, spiritual clutter, et cetera, et cetera. Joshua Becker, let's, let's get practical for a moment because in your book, The Minimalist Home, you talk about us spaces. This is one of those us spaces, a shared space, right? And there's also personal spaces. And this may be one of those things where you have to concede more in a shared space versus having your own personal space. But is there a long-term solution in which you have both? You have us spaces and you have your own personal space that you can retreat to,

• 23:32Joshua Fields Millburn?

  whether it is an office or maybe it is a separate apartment at some point. It is possible for a married couple to live apart half the time. I know personally. And, and so I recognize that this is a shared space and I want to honor that space. But also, if you want that calm, you want to be able to retreat into that calm. I think that's important. Let's get practical for a moment. If he was living by himself and you saw those photos, it'd be much easier. What would you tell him to do at that point?

• 24:00Speaker 04

  If he, if he wasn't married?

• 24:02Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah.

• 24:03Speaker 04

  Well, he could just do whatever he wanted, right?

• 24:05Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Right.

• 24:05Speaker 04

  Is that the question?

• 24:06Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I think so, but, but quite often it's so overwhelming. When you see that much stuff in a space.

• 24:10Speaker 04

  How would someone declutter a space like that? I want to go back to, well, I should, I should answer the questions here. Thanks for having me as a guest.

• 24:20Speaker 04

  Your whole us, personal space. When I was writing the book, The Minimalist Home, my editor was the first one who asked me the question. And he said, Joshua, what is the purpose of home? And I thought to myself, that is a great question. Like, what is the purpose of home? I don't know if I've ever even sat down to think through, what is the purpose of my, of my home? And so it gave us some thought. And of course, we settled on home is where you go for rest. It should be a place where you find acceptance, a place where you can be yourself, a place where you get to escape the world and just be yourself and be accepted and loved and rested.

• 25:03Speaker 04

  But home isn't where you stay. Like, the goal of home isn't to spend the rest of your life at home. The goal of home is this is where I rest and I recoup and I'm accepted so that I can go out and make the biggest difference in the world for good that I possibly can. Like, home is, a port and home is a launching pad. And it was really helpful to think through, so how do I create a home then that serves both of those purposes? And then we start going room by room through the book. And this is where I got to your question. And so then we start asking, like, what is the purpose of a room? Like, what is the purpose of my living room? And what's the purpose of my bedroom?

• 25:48Speaker 04

  And what's the purpose of the toy room or the den, whatever it might be? And then what are the possessions that I need? What are the things that I need in the room that support that purpose? And what are all the things that I have in the room that are actually distracting from that purpose? And keep the room from fulfilling what it's supposed to be and what it's supposed to do? And of course, this can get messy with multipurpose rooms. But still, this is the bedroom and this is where I work. Okay, then what do I need in here that accomplishes those two things? And so when you think of us spaces and personal spaces, right? Like, especially as your kids get older. I always think the, the one advice I have for like teenage kids, when someone's like, what do I do with my teenager? I always say, explain to them the difference between,

• 26:33Speaker 04

  this is the family room. We're all living in the living room. We're all living in the kitchen. So this is how we're going to live in these places. Your room, you can keep whatever you want.

• 26:45Speaker 04

  To some margin, obviously.

• 26:48Speaker 04

  Like, your room can be your room, but this area that we're all spending time in needs to be in a certain spot, and so take your stuff back to your room. And so, as I'm thinking through my home, is that, you know, anyone's thinking through their home, maybe you do need the personal space that you can create, the corner, the room where, okay, this is where I can escape all the clutter, this is where I can find my calm, I need this to be the best version of myself that I can possibly be. And the other rooms are gonna look a little bit different, because my wife needs it to be different, or whatever it might be.

• 27:20Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Listeners, if you have any insights for Demeter, we'd love to hear them. You can send a voice recording to [email protected]. We'll air your voice on a future episode. Before we get back to our callers, Malabama, what time is it?

• 27:32Speaker 01

  You know what time it is. It's time for the lightning round, where we answer the Patreon community chat's question of the week.

• 27:38Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yes, indeed. Now, during the lightning round, we attempt to answer your question with a short, shareable, minimal maxim. You can find this episode's maxims in the show notes over at theminimals.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 theminimals.e-mail. We'll never send you spam, or junk, or ads, but we will start your week off with a dose of simplicity. What's the question of the week this week?

• 28:10Speaker 01

  What purpose does your living room serve? And what gets in the way of that purpose?

• 28:13Joshua Fields Millburn?

  We're getting right back to your question, Joshua. Let's talk about the purpose of a living room. What did some of our, before we get to our pithy answers, I'd love to hear from our simpletons, what does some of our listeners have to say?

• 28:27Speaker 01

  RW said, "My living room is the room that should make any guest feel welcomed and relaxed. Almost everything gets in the way of that, especially random toys or socks left all over."

• 28:37Joshua Fields Millburn?

  All right, Becker, any decluttering tips for random toys and socks that are strewn throughout the house?

• 28:44Speaker 04

  Well, this is where the wonderful advice that everything should have a home and everything should be in a place where it lives. And if you have too much stuff, then that's when things get strewn all over the house. But when the toys go to the toy box and the socks go to the drawer, then it's easier to do that and to involve the kids. I just want to say, what makes a living room hospitable isn't the things in it or the things not in it. It's the love and it's the welcoming nature of the host. I've been in very cluttered homes where I felt incredibly loved and even more hospitable than homes where there's no clutter. So it's not about the possessions, it's about the heart, for sure.

• 29:23Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I was just in Virginia this last week, and I was in three different people's homes doing interviews for The Minimalist's next film. And one of them was the most pristine house I've ever been. It's Kristen's home. So she's gonna be on the podcast in a few weeks. Amazing home, Kristen Ziegler. She runs Minima Online. And she's a professional organizer. And it shows in the space. It shows in her drawers and cabinets. But she's also hospitable. And then I was in someone else's home, I won't call them out on the show, and this person had a rather full home, brimming with stuff, but also super hospitable. And it didn't feel like, oh, this is unwelcoming because there's too much stuff here. Yeah,

• 30:05Joshua Fields Millburn?

  of course, my house wouldn't look like that, but it's not my house at all. And back to the socks thing, you could just go without socks. If you get rid of the socks, then there won't be socks strewn throughout the house. I donated a bunch of socks recently because I realized I don't really wear socks anymore. So why do I still own these socks? I remember when I lived with Nick Ademas back in Montana, and he owned like 17 things, and I think 13 of them were socks. They were all in different areas of the house. There'd be one on like the kitchen counter, there's one in the living room, there's one in my bedroom. How did you even get into my bedroom? Why do you have all of the, they're all mismatched socks all over the house? He didn't own anything except socks that were strewn. So it's possible to be a minimalist and still have these things strewn throughout. And when I talked

• 30:50Joshua Fields Millburn?

  to him, the five words that have changed my life so many times is, would you be willing to? Hey man, would you be willing to pick up these socks? Oh man, I didn't even know they were there. It's not like he was, had nefarious intentions. He wasn't trying to just tick me off. He was, he was just not paying attention to it. He didn't care about it. It wasn't a problem for him. Just because something was a problem for me doesn't mean it's a problem for everyone else. Now Joshua Becker, you, your home, you wear shoes in the home. You are a shoe house. Is that still the case? I remember being in your house and you're like, um, because we just have different philosophies around this.

• 31:29Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 31:30Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I actually love the fact that you are a shoe home. Talk to me about that.

• 31:33Speaker 04

  This was from 10 years ago or 12 years ago? Oh, my, uh, my kids make fun of me all the time that I wear my shoes at the house. Yeah. I, I, I think I'm the only one that, that wears shoes in the house, but yeah, I didn't know that was a thing that people didn't do.

• 31:49Joshua Fields Millburn?

  It's just a comfort thing.

• 31:52Speaker 04

  They also make fun of me for pulling up my socks all the time. That's the big thing. Every time I look at you, you're putting on socks or pulling your socks up or something. Uh, yeah, no, I typically keep shoes on and even got in trouble walking to the studio here with my shoes on.

• 32:06Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Sorry, we kept you. What else we got, Bama?

• 32:10Speaker 01

  This one comes from Rebecca. My living room exists for us to gather and visit in. We have an open discussions and enjoy movies there, but I would say the biggest source of clutter is the mounds of blankets and laundry that get heaped onto the couch and left out.

• 32:25Joshua Fields Millburn?

  This is like the halfway laundry thing Becker. Sometimes we'll, we'll wash the laundry and then of course, the most difficult part is the folding of the laundry because we don't actually have to wash laundry, have a washing machine. We're not out back like beating the laundry and, and scrubbing it on a scrub board. We just don't do that anymore. So we wash it and we put it in the dryer and then it needs to be folded and quite often it just ends up on a couch or a chair. Any insights around that?

• 32:53Speaker 04

  Well, I think you just gotta know that the folding of the laundry is the last step of the process. It's not done until it's folded and put away.

• 33:06Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah, I think for me, like, it's, I don't procrastinate on it. I simply do it as soon as it is done and then it gets put away because otherwise it's always going to be taking up space in the dryer or on a couch somewhere, but it's also taking up space in the back of my mind and that's a problem.

• 33:22Speaker 04

  And, you know, laugh at me, but I actually think the wording is helpful that this is part of the process. And I learned it when we started hand washing dishes after meals and, because normally you just throw them all in dishwasher and run at night and then put away in the morning. But we started hand washing the dishes after every meal and I literally just began saying, hey, this is just part of the process. You cook the meal, you eat the meal, and then you clean up the dishes. And I think the same, and literally the mentality is, it's not over until it's cleaned up and put away. And I think just literally saying, okay, folding the laundry is part of the process. It's the last step. It's not done until it's done.

• 34:04Joshua Fields Millburn?

  In our house, we have something called setting the stage rule. We take five minutes every night. It might take a little bit longer if there's still laundry, but we set a timer for five minutes. What's, how do we get this stage back to zero, basically? Set the home so we wake up the next morning in a decluttered home. I don't have to deal with it first thing in the morning when I'm making my coffee. I don't want to trip over a toy or I don't want to start folding laundry at 4:00 a.m. when I get up. And so I don't have to deal with that in the morning. I'd rather deal with it before going to bed and it makes waking up a whole lot more pleasant. What else you got for us?

• 34:37Speaker 01

  Anna said, "My living room is designed for me to relax and decompress. What gets in the way is my corner desk area that's filled with Post-it notes and paperwork."

• 34:46Joshua Fields Millburn?

  So this is another one of those things where you have these multi-purpose rooms where a living room and then you cram a desk in the corner and all of a sudden you also have an office in your living room. And paperwork clutter is a big deal. We have something we call a scanning party to deal with a lot of the paperwork. We'll put a link to that in the show notes, but I'm wondering, Joshua, do you have any insights around paper clutter or desk clutter in general?

• 35:10Speaker 04

  Oh, my goodness. Best work advice I ever got. Clear your desk every night.

• 35:16Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 35:18Speaker 04

  I was in the Philippines randomly on a train with a guy who told me he cleans off his desk every night. And it it literally changed my life. You you show up the next morning and you got a clear desk, a clear space. Like, obviously, I always think any rule that we mentioned like doesn't happen 100% of the time. But but when I'm done with something, put it away, clear your desk every evening. And then you get to start fresh in the morning and you get to pick your project that you're going to work on, even if you're pulling out an old project that you're not done with. I I love it. And yeah, it's a good one.

• 35:54Joshua Fields Millburn?

  We call this the no piles rule. We have a YouTube video about it. We'll put a link to that in the show notes as well. But it's pretty simple because any flat surface, like a desk especially, becomes this repository for stuff, for paper clutter, for mail, for handbags, wallets, credit cards, receipts, all these things. And by their cell, if it's just one piece of paper, not a big deal. But then it's 10 pieces of paper and then it's another envelope and it's a bag. And before you know it, a weekend, you just have this mausoleum of dead paperwork that you have to do something with. But if you're just handling it each night, there's no piles there because if you're dealing with it, they don't pile up in the first place. What else you got?

• 36:35Speaker 01

  Katerina said, "My living room serves as a space for connection and relaxation. As a family, we decided to declutter, to let go of what wasn't serving us and bring in more functional furniture. These changes have transformed the space and it's been such a delight to fully enjoy its intended purpose."

• 36:51Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I love this. I feel the same way. By the way, if you want to take a look at my personal living space, we've been doing, we hopped back on social media this year and I've been sharing photos of my living room and the rest of the house as well over on my personal Instagram stories. It's just @joshuofieldsmilburn. Well, we're also sharing some decluttering tips on the minimalist Instagram reels, some different videos about purchasing tips, decluttering tips, et cetera. But let's get back to this purpose of the living room. The living room is a room for living, obviously. I mean, that is tautology at this point, but when I come home, it's the main place that I often spend time. It's there or the bedroom. That's why you said, starting this series with the living room, it's the

• 37:34Joshua Fields Millburn?

  easiest place to declutter because it's one of the places you spend the most time. So you notice the, the lack of clutter most there. If you go up and try to clean out your attic first, it might feel good or it might feel overwhelming, but once it's completely tidy, you still don't really get to experience that, that clutter free state in your attic, unless you're just going up to your attic every other day, just to see how organized it is. How about you listeners? What purpose does your living room serve and what gets in the way of that purpose? Let us know your thoughts in the Patreon community chat, which by the way, you can join for free, even if you don't subscribe to the private podcast. Okay. Give me something pithy TK. What purpose does your living room serve and what gets

• 38:18Joshua Fields Millburn?

  in the way of that purpose?

• 38:20Speaker 05

  Useful space beats a flawless one. So I like to go to open houses and when you go to these places, they are so immaculately organized and designed and it creates the appearance that organization is an aesthetic, but that's not ultimately what's going on. They organize it in a way so that when you walk in, you say, wow, I can see myself living here. I can see myself having a conversation in that room, doing my work in that room. The purpose of the aesthetic is to create an experience for the user. One of my favorite stories, this rich young ruler comes to Jesus and says, what must I do to be saved? What? This guy has it all. He's got everything that we're seeking. Jesus says, you know the answer? Follow the commandments. He goes, I've been doing that since my youth. Wow.

• 39:04Speaker 05

  What an impressive guy. And he says, you're missing one thing. Sell your stuff and give it to the poor. And the guy's grieved and he walks away. He was flawless, but the one thing that was missing from his life is that he was flawless for himself. He was perfect for himself. He was very self-impressed, did all the right stuff, but who's it for, man? Who are you doing it for? Who are you achieving for? Who are you working hard for? Who are you using your status and your power to serve? In a similar way, we can have these living spaces or these lives that are so flawless and so perfect and so neatly organized, but who the heck is that for? How is that making a difference in anyone else's life? So for me, my living room, my kitchen and every other room in my place is for one thing, to remind myself that life is about more than

• 39:47Speaker 05

  me and my comfort. It's about how I'm showing up to make a difference in someone else's life. And what gets in the way of that is my preoccupation with making it flawless so that I feel self-important about my flawlessness.

• 39:59Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah. An ideal living room creates the space for living well. And that's gonna be different for me. I just talked about Kristin Ziegler, when I was in her home, her living room has next to nothing in it. And that's what living well looks like for her. However, if you have an artist, my friend Havila, for example, she has paintings and art supplies all over the place because that's what living well looks like for her. I think back to our first documentary, which Joshua Becker was in, his whole family was in it when his kids were really little. And there's an architect in there, his name's Frank, and he said, whenever I build a house for someone, I don't ask them, do you want two

• 40:40Joshua Fields Millburn?

  living rooms? Because they say, yes. I don't ask them if they want a three-car garage because they say, yes. I don't ask them if they want four bedrooms because they say, yes. Do you want a den? Yes. Do you want a basement? Yes. Do you want an attic? Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. More, more, more. It's why the average home being built is over 3,000 square feet. And I don't pathologize square footage. I think it's totally fine to have a big house. But the question is, what do you have it for? He said, I don't ask them, do they want these things? I ask them how they live their life. And I build a house around that life. And I think the same thing could be true, Joshua, about a living room. What is the life I want to live in this living room? Any thoughts on that?

• 41:23Speaker 04

  Yeah, I think the living room is, you know, the spot where you spend time together as a family. It's, you know, tends to be the place where you hang with your guests or people that you're having over. And so just thinking like, what do I, what do I want this room to serve? I have a friend and he, he has a family library. They have 20 books. This is a great project. I've been going through it in my own life. 20 books that he wants all of his kids to read. And so they got rid of the television and they put in these 20 books. And another friend who like just real into music and he's like, I'm just putting in instruments in my living room. Like, what is the value? Most of us just put in

• 42:07Speaker 04

  the couches and we face the television and that becomes the culture of the family and it becomes a thing that we promote, as opposed to thinking through, how would I design this differently so that we have conversation in this space so that we don't always just look at the TV, but we get to look at one another?

• 42:25Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah, we have some questions coming up about television as well. I went 12 years without television in my home and we brought it back a few years ago. And I've learned a lot from that. And I'm interested to hear your perspective on this as well, because one of my favorite television tips comes from Joshua Becker. Well, we'll get to that on page two, I believe.

• 42:45Speaker 04

  Did you have to catch up on all your American Idol champions over those 12 years? So much been watching. Left off with Kelly Clarkson and Clay Aiken and yeah, a bunch of excuses to pick up on.

• 42:58Joshua Fields Millburn?

  All right, let's end of page one. We got a whole lot more to talk to, a lot of people to talk to as well. But real quick for right here, right now, little segment we do, we talk about one thing that's going on in the life of the minimalist. I'm excited to announce we did this Spotify collaboration. It's, we're just thrilled to announce that finally, we've been working on this with the fine folks over at Patreon for a couple of years now. And our Patreon subscribers can now listen to the minimalist private podcast on Spotify. Yes, you've been able to listen on an Apple Podcast or Overcast or your favorite podcast player up until now, but never through Spotify. But now- Now you can listen through Spotify. So many of you have been asking for this and it is finally here. Of course, you can still listen on Apple Podcasts or on the Patreon app or wherever you prefer to

• 43:43Joshua Fields Millburn?

  listen to podcasts. But if you're a Spotify listener, you can now listen not just to the Minimalist Podcast, but the Minimalist Private Podcast via Patreon. So head on over to patreon.com/theminimalists to listen to the Minimalist Private Podcast. Malabam, what else you got for us?

• 43:59Speaker 01

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

• 44:03Speaker 06

  Hi, everyone. This is Jackie from Redding, Pennsylvania. I have a tip to share. It's called "One in, one out." I love a good mug. When I realized I have far too many for my single life in an apartment, I started the "one in, one out" rule. So I would only buy exceptional mugs that I adore. Then to slim down my collection, I actually intensified it with the "one in, two out" rule. People balk when I say that. They're like, "How could you?" But now I only have my favorite 12 handmade mugs. And it's easy to resist buying new ones. When I stand

• 44:47Speaker 06

  in the store, I think to myself, "Do I like this mug? Better than the ones at home?" Not even close. This also makes it easy to part with mugs I receive as gifts. And it works well for clothing, collectibles, and many other belongings. Thanks, minimalists, for all you do.

• 45:06Joshua Fields Millburn?

  What a lovely tip, Jackie. We have a version of this we call the "one in, 10 out" rule. When you're just starting to declutter, it's like, "I've got this whole closet full of clothes I don't want anymore, but I still kind of want to buy this new shirt." Okay, great. I'm gonna buy it, but I'm also gonna get rid of 10 other shirts that I have in my closet. Now, obviously, you can't carry that rule on in perpetuity. You'll get to some baseline where it feels really good. I thought she was gonna end at negative one.

• 45:31Speaker 01

  I just hold my coffee in my hand and just...

• 45:36Joshua Fields Millburn?

  But 12 mugs, that's, I mean, maybe she has 11 friends come over. For me, that would be a lot of mugs, but it sounds like it is the appropriate amount for her. She talks about, I think about the comparison of, what about this mug? Well, this mug make me have, well, I like this one more, but you know what? They say that comparison is the thief of joy, but maybe joy is the assassin of comparison. And you see the joy that she has from these mugs, and now she's not comparing them to some other mugs that you might see at a yard sale or at Target somewhere. Anyway, Jackie, thank you so much for that helpful comment. For anyone else who has a listener tip or insight about this episode, or any other episode, you can leave a voice memo with us. Just send it over to [email protected]

• 46:19Joshua Fields Millburn?

  so we can feature your voice on the show. Before we get to page two, I wanted to read a quick comment from Lee on Patreon about the recent LA fires. You want to read that one, Bama?

• 46:29Speaker 01

  Sure. Lee said, "In the future, when people have had time to heal, I hope Californians can realize that losing their homes isn't losing everything. I hope they can see that rebirth can be healing and freeing, no matter how it occurs. God bless all people affected by the fires."

• 46:46Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I've had several friends who had to evacuate their homes during the fires over the last few weeks. We recorded our last episode the day it started, then we took a break because I had to head out of town to do some filming. So we took a week-long break. So this is our first episode that we've recorded since the Los Angeles fires. And there are entire neighborhoods, entire cities that were completely devastated by this. And it's a catastrophe. And yet, at the same time, I will say that the media didn't do a good job making us feel any better about it. In fact, it felt far, far worse because of the way it was amplified by the media. If you lived in, I had friends in North Dakota, I had friends in Texas, and Arizona, and Ohio, and New York, and

• 47:29Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Florida, all texting me thinking that everything in LA had burned down. Because when you see that, and it's constantly fed to you, it feels even more overwhelming. And this is a total tragedy for a lot of people, but I love What Lee said here, Lee's talking about, you know what? When you lose everything, but you still have your life, you still have your health. Maybe you didn't actually lose everything. It puts things in a perspective. Also, I lived in Montana for five or six years and there were fires there every summer. And I remember when the, the fires were really, really big. It caused a lot of devastation, like half a million acres would be on fire at once.

• 48:11Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And I ran into a guy at a coffee shop there, Zoo Town Coffee, downtown Missoula. And he said, my house just burned down. So, oh my God, I'm, I'm so sorry. And he said, ah, what are you gonna do? I was like, what? He's like, yeah, it's just stuff, man. I'm like, oh yeah, I'm one of the minimalists.

• 48:32Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 48:33Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And he's like, it's just stuff. And I'm like, do you have somewhere else to stay? He's like, I'll figure it out. And I told Bex this, this past week, and my wife, and she was like, yeah, of course. That's how people in Montana often act. It's just like, ah, we'll figure it out together. There was, uh, maybe he underreacted, but I don't think he did. He was reacting appropriately for him. He wasn't holding on to that because if you hold on to something like that, you can certainly get dragged. Doesn't mean that he didn't go through some sort of grieving process, but also recognize that he made it out of the house and his pets made it out of the house and his family made it out of the house and they were fine as a result. So, big thanks to everyone who reached out to us to check on us, make sure we were safe, make sure we're okay. Yes, our whole team is fine.

• 49:18Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Uh, we still have some friends who have been affected and we found some ways to contribute to a few different charities that are helping out with some of the relief efforts and helping out the, the first responders and, you know, it's, it's been a difficult time for a lot of people, but we are okay and we're gonna make it to the other side of this. Thank you so much for your concern and for everyone who reached out. We really appreciate it. Up next, we have page two and page three, but first let's take a quick pandiculation break. We'll be right back.

• 49:46Joshua Fields Millburn?

  All right, that's the first 38% of episode 477. We'll see you on Patreon for the full maximal edition with Joshua Becker, which includes answers to a bunch more questions. Questions like, what are 10 signs that you own too much stuff? How can we take breaks from television viewing to spend better quality time together with our friends, family, and loved ones? And how does furniture affect whether a space feels cluttered or spacious? Plus, we've got a million more questions and simple living segments over on the Minimalist Private Podcast on Patreon. Big thanks to our guest today, Joshua Becker. You can check him out at becomingminimalist.com. You can sign up for his newsletter there, also his

• 50:27Joshua Fields Millburn?

  YouTube channel, youtube.com/joshuabecker, where you can find all of his videos about simple living. And that is our minimal episode for today. Big thanks to Earthing Studios for the recording space. On behalf of Ryan Nicodemus, TK Coleman, Alabama, post-production Peter, Spire Jeff, Inspire Dave, Savvy D on the board, and the rest of our team, I'm Joshua Fields Milburn. If you leave here with just one message, let it be this: Love people and use things, because the opposite never works. Thanks for listening, y'all.

• 50:57Speaker 01

  We'll see you next time.

• 50:59Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Peace.