502 | The Uniform

The Minimalists talk about the practical issues with curating a simple wardrobe, letting go of troubling conversations, being eco-friendly on a budget, and much more. Discussed in this episode: What should I do if a simple wardrobe isn't practical for me? (2:08) If you had to wear just one outfit every day for the rest of your life, what would it be? (15:07) Right Here, Right Now: Join us at Sunday Symposium. (42:20) Listener Insight: A tip for dealing with half-dirty clothes. (45:30) 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.

• 0:39Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Hello, everybody. Welcome to the Minimalist Podcast, where we discuss what it means to live a meaningful life with less. My name is Joshua Fields Milburn, and joining me here at Earthing Studios in beautiful West Hollywood, California, is my good friend TK Coleman. Hey, hey, hey. Coming up on this free, public, minimal episode, a caller has a question about some of the practical issues he's having with curating a simple wardrobe. And then we've got a question about strategies for maintaining a minimalist uniform. That's followed by our Right Here, Right Now segment and a listener tip. Also, on page three, we're going to talk about seven things to hide to make your home feel less cluttered. You can check out the maximal edition of episode 502.

• 1:23Joshua Fields Millburn?

  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, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. Plus, you'll gain access to all of our podcast archives, all the way back to the very first episode. That is a full decade of archives. Big thanks to our Patreon supporters, by the way. 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 would love to hear from you.

• 2:01Joshua Fields Millburn?

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

• 2:12Speaker 02

  Hello minimalist, my name is Jonathan, I'm a listener from the UK. I have a question regarding the balance between things that bring you joy and things that are also practical, and I'm thinking about work shirts, it's a quite a specific topic, I suppose. I really enjoy white shirts, I think they look better, they go with everything, it means I can have fewer shirts, and they bring me more joy than coloured shirts. However, they stain more quickly, they're more difficult to keep clean, and therefore I need to replace them more often, meaning that there is greater waste. How do I try and square that circle and try and balance things that are meaningful to me with things that are practically of greater use?

• 2:55Speaker 02

  Any help would be really appreciated, thank you so much.

• 2:58Joshua Fields Millburn?

  This is one of those questions that I've never gotten before, and I find it really fascinating, because usually people are saying, "I go into my closet and I'm so overwhelmed, I have so many things that I don't wear, but it feels like I don't have something I enjoy wearing, I don't know what I enjoy, I don't know what my uniform is, I don't know what my style is, and so I've got this hodgepodge, because this shirt looked great on that mannequin, and this belt looked great on that mannequin, and these pants look great on that mannequin, and all of a sudden I have this collage of clothes, some of which look good and are stylish, but they may not look good on me, or at least I don't feel good in them.

• 3:39Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And so even if I have some clothes where I like, "Oh yeah, I really like that", but I put it on, I'm like, "Oh, I don't know", I call this "I hate that shirt rule", Yeah. And the "hate the shirt" rule is really simple, you go into your closet, you grab one item, and you try it on, and if you don't say "Yes, yes, I really like this item", and you put it back in the shelf, that's a sign, "I kinda hate this thing", "Well, I guess I'll hold on to it just in case", "Well, no, that is a sign I want to let it go", "If it's not a 'yes', then it is a 'no'", Here's the problem though, Jonathan has a "yes", he likes simple work shirts that happen to be white work shirts, I know I had a bunch of them back in the day.

• 4:23Joshua Fields Millburn?

  In my corporate days, I counted them when I was simplifying. I had 70 dress shirts, TK.

• 4:28Speaker 03

  Whoa.

• 4:29Joshua Fields Millburn?

  What are you gonna do with 70 dress shirts? That means I could go an entire month without doing laundry and still have more than a month of dress shirts. Now, I worked seven days a week, most weeks. And so, I just bought more and more because I liked a shirt. And many of those were white shirts. So, the first thing to not do is not buy 35 white dress shirts. We know you don't need that many. Now, if there was a compelling reason to have that many, okay. But for most of us, there is not a compelling reason. So, it gets to the heart of Jonathan's question, TK. I'm curious what you would say is, look, I want a simple wardrobe. But what should I do if a simple wardrobe isn't as practical as I'd like it to be?

• 5:10Speaker 03

  If it isn't as practical as you like it to be, it's not simple. Right? Like, simplicity is like speed. It's relative. Are you fast or are you slow? Who or what am I comparing you to? The answer is, I don't know. Are you tall or are you short? I don't know. Next to Shaq or next to me? It depends, right? And in a similar way, simplicity can't be defined by what works for someone else. It's like you talked about with the clothes on the mannequin. Just because that looks good on you, doesn't mean it looks good on me. And just because it looks bad on you, doesn't mean it looks bad on me. And so, when we define simplicity, we have to start with saying, hey, clutter is whatever gets in the way. What gets in the way is what creates an obstacle between me and the results that I want to create,

• 5:54Speaker 03

  me and the experiences I want to have. Simplicity is getting rid of the things or minimizing the things or reducing the influence of the things that are clutter to me. And so, if you find yourself saying, hey, I'm being a good minimalist. I'm following the external code according to the handbook and what people say on the podcast. But my life feels cluttery because my closet isn't lining up with what I need, even though I'm keeping all the minimalist happy. Well, that's not simplicity. That's legalism. That's rule following. So, you gotta bring it back to yourself and say, what do I need? And find the simplest version of that.

• 6:29Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I think there might also be an unrealistic expectation here. And I get it. Because, well, I just relate with Jonathan's question in the sense that I would hope to have a complete wardrobe. In the sense that once I've purchased it, now I have the the perfect wardrobe and it's perfect forever. I want this thing to be permanent, but what happens? Clothes get ripped, or they get stained, or they get lost, or they go out of fashion, or I grow, or I shrink. And this thing doesn't fit me the way that it used to. And what happens when we do that? We find ways to responsibly let go. Letting go doesn't mean you have to throw the thing out. It means you can upcycle it, you can recycle it, you can donate it.

• 7:09Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I quite often will take old black t-shirts like this one I'm wearing, cut it into rags and use it to clean my grill. And so it has a second life beyond its usefulness as a piece of clothes. Letting go doesn't mean simply throwing something away. There are other uses for these things. So the unrealistic expectation might be that as soon as I curate a wardrobe and I've got my 33 items because I followed Courtney Carver's Project 333, and that's it forever. Maybe you'll live with 33 items forever, but I can almost guarantee you it's not going to be the same 33 items in perpetuity. In fact, I can tell you this as a fact, the average American throws out about 88 pounds of clothing each year.

• 7:54Joshua Fields Millburn?

  When most of those clothes can be resold, reused, donated, repurposed in some way. Of course, there are some that can't, that do, that will end up in a landfill, but the vast majority does not have to end up in a landfill. And that's where Jonathan is ultimately right now. He's realizing that to be practical means I'm still gonna have to swap these out from time to time. And yes, that white shirt that I really want to wear, that I feel good in, the one that I enjoy, it may get stained or dirty or need to be replaced slightly more frequently. However, there's another story on top of this. You're being intentional with your choice now. You're finally asking yourself, okay, what are the appropriate clothes for me?

• 8:37Joshua Fields Millburn?

  So you realize that minimalism is not a radical lifestyle, it is the practical lifestyle. On the other side of of simplifying. If you've identified what your outfit is or what your several outfits are, what your style is in general. And that can be white dress with purple polka dots every day. That's my style. And to you, I say, that's wonderful. If you really enjoy that and you feel great in that, that's wonderful. And in a way, that becomes more practical than the prescription of you must wear the black pants and the black shirt every day. Well, that's not practical. That'd be radical if I forced that on to you. And so minimalism is not about forcing a particular outfit or wardrobe or uniform on you.

• 9:19Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Instead, it's about letting go of those expectations and realizing if I want to be practical, I'm still going to have to replace these clothes from time to time.

• 9:28Speaker 03

  And we can capture that approach by distinguishing between two different questions. One of them being, am I, am I being good enough? Am I being a good enough minimalist? Am I being a good enough this or that? And then the other is, am I investing in that which makes me come alive? And that's a different way of thinking, right? Am I being a good minimalist? I mean, will you ever get to a point where you feel good about that if you're grounded in anything other than what makes you come alive? Because there's always someone out there with an opinion about how you could do your life more efficiently. I mean, what are you going to become like the quantum physicist minimalist where you reduce everything to the, to the, uh, the atoms and molecules, but then you go, you break underneath that and you're like, oh, boy, we have all these subatomic particles.

• 10:10Speaker 03

  Now we gotta simplify that. Like, I mean, you're, you're never going to simplify things down to the most, like the fundamental unit, right? And so at some point, you gotta say the stopping point isn't determined by, is it possible to make it even more efficient in theory? The stopping point is determined by, is this what best supports what makes me come alive?

• 10:32Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Right, because the simplest outfit is just to strip all your clothes off and be buck naked, to go without an outfit altogether.

• 10:37Speaker 03

  That's simple relative to managing clothing, but then that produces complexity in other areas of life.

• 10:44Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah, it's going to increase your pain in so many other areas of your life. And so I think back to one of my favorite lines from our last Netflix. Film, less is now, it was not in the film. And it was Erwin Raphael McManus. And we talked about it on the podcast later, but he said that beauty is essential. And when I think about aesthetics, he understands aesthetics really well. And there are certain people, he comes into the studio dressed exactly like us, but you can tell like aesthetically, something's different. The cut of the shirt is different, the cut of the pants, the way he's wearing it. And part of that is him and his essence. But the other part is he recognizes how important aesthetics are.

• 11:27Joshua Fields Millburn?

  They're not secondary, or I'm sorry, they're not in the background. They're in the foreground for a reason. A flower is beautiful to attract the birds and the bees, not the other way around, right? And so they know that in order to be pollinated, in order to spread their seeds, so to speak, in order to get out there in the world. Aesthetics are an essential part of what they do. And I think that's what Jonathan is wrestling with right now. And so if I get practical with you for a moment, let's keep it simple here. Let's say that you decided, you know what? I have three pairs of pants and I have 10 white shirts. Now, those numbers are arbitrary, you can adjust those boundaries as you see fit.

• 12:10Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Once you have that, you realize that there's a certain number of them I'm going to have to replace every year. And maybe it's half of them, maybe I need to replace all 10 shirts every year. That's fine, I do that with my black shirts, I have 10 black t-shirts. And I just replaced like eight of them. They were getting old and raggedy and literally I turned some of them into rags to clean some stuff. So they were, they ended up being rags. But I know that eventually I'm gonna have to replace them, but you know what happens? I'm no longer throwing out 88 pounds of clothing every year. It doesn't mean I'm not getting rid of some clothes. But by consuming less, I'm producing less waste as a byproduct. Even if I wasn't thinking about being eco-friendly, these decisions are far more eco-friendly.

• 12:55Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Minimalism isn't about being a zero-waste person, I respect and admire that lifestyle. Unless it gets in the way, if that becomes a type of clutter, you just throw your hands up and say, if I can't be zero-waste. Well, then screw it, I'm just going to throw everything out and be completely wasteful. That is missing the point of minimalism.

• 13:13Speaker 03

  That's absolutely right. You find this when the conversation shifts to things like a task management or time management systems, to things like working out and dieting. You always have to find the approach that is most suitable to your rhythm of life. Your combination of strengths and weaknesses, your responsibilities, your tolerance for pain, your capacity for risk, your lifestyle, all of these different things. And that looks different for every person. So simplicity is not the absence of complexity. Simplicity is about the presence of that attumet with what it is you truly prioritize and commitment to it.

• 13:52Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Spot on. I'll tell you what, Jonathan, I'd love to give you a copy of The Minimalist's third book. It's an essay collection. It's called Essential. There's 150 essays in there. We call it the best of The Minimalists. We took a lot of the essays from our blog and put some new essays in there as well. We refined them, retuned them. There's an entire chapter in there about, in fact, the second chapter has four different essays about clothing. I think you'll find some value in that. So if you'd like the book, book or the ebook, we'll send that over to you, or the audiobook version of Essential as well. Anyone else can find that over at theminimalists.com. Just click on books and you can find all of our books on our website. Before we get back to our callers, TK, it is time for the lightning

• 14:33Joshua Fields Millburn?

  round. That's where we answer the Patreon community chat's question of the week. And we tend to answer these questions with a short, shareable minimal maxim. You can find this episode's maxims in the show notes over at theminimalists.com and every minimal maxim ever at minimalmaxims.com. We'll also deliver our weekly show notes directly to your inbox, including five new maxims every Monday for free if you sign up for our email newsletter at theminimalists.com. We'll never send you spam or junk or advertisements, but we will start your week off with a dose of simplicity. All right. Check this out. Question of the week this week might be one of my all time favorites. I love this as a thought experiment.

• 15:14Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Here it is. If you had to wear just one outfit every day for the rest of your life, what would it be? Just one outfit every day for the rest of your life, what would it be? Now TK, before we get to our pithy answers, let's see what some of our listeners had to say. The most common response and Nate and Alexis and Denise and Lirinda and Rachel and several other people said, I would wear jeans, a T-shirt and sneakers. That's keeping it simple. Now, a T-shirt could be anything. It could be an old concert T-shirt. It could be a plain black T-shirt like the one that I'm wearing. It could be whatever you want it to be, right?

• 15:56Joshua Fields Millburn?

  It can be a simple T-shirt. It could be highly designed. It could be trendy. It could be oversized. It could be tight. You get to decide what that is, but the simple minimalist outfit of jeans, a T-shirt and sneakers. I think it's a great way to start this out and I think that I'm the same way. My favorite outfit, black T-shirt. It could either be long sleeve in the winter or short sleeve now in the summer. Pair of black jeans for me and some black boots instead of, instead of the tennis shoes. I really enjoy wearing those black boots like the ones we were out in Fargo recently. And I had to stop wearing my boots recently because I've been having this weird shoulder pain. So I switched to wearing sneakers and sweatpants and I dislike that for a few reasons.

• 16:39Joshua Fields Millburn?

  One is I don't like the synthetic fibers that are in these sort of Lululemon sweatpants. I like just having a pair of nice cotton blue jeans or black jeans, actually.

• 16:50Speaker 03

  What did the boots affect your gait and like it hurts your?

• 16:53Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah. And so as I'm doing this PT, my physical therapist recommended for a period of time until I've fixed this shoulder issue, which is actually a pinched nerve in the neck. It's causing all this shoulder pain that you wear these specific kinds of shoes. That are going to help reinforce that and then eventually you'll be able to get back to the boots with no problem. He's like, I've had people go back to four inch heels without a problem. We have to get you there first. So who knows? Maybe a year from now I'll be wearing four inch heels.

• 17:18Speaker 03

  I like boots, Josh, personally.

• 17:20Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Me too, man.

• 17:21Speaker 03

  It's just, it's you, man.

• 17:23Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I, well, I remember being on tour and it's just so simple. One pair of jeans, a few t-shirts in my bag. That's all I really need, a jacket if it gets cold. You've got those boots on every day. I've got these old Timberland boots and I've had them resold a bunch of times. They don't even make this particular pair anymore. And so you bring it to a cobbler and they put new soles on it and they polish up the leather real good and fix any, any tears or rips if they can. And man, I, I just, I enjoy that more aesthetically, but also I like the comfort of it, like the, the worn in feel. For me, it's, uh, it kind of feels like home. DK, would you discuss, uh, maybe some of the, we were in Fargo recently and we were preparing for that TEDx talk and that's coming real soon. Y'all, we'll email you a link if you're on our email list.

• 18:08Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Once that is, is out, I'm really happy with the way it turned out. It could not have turned out better, but we were in your hotel room, I think the night before, and you were talking about, I don't know which shirt to wear on stage. And you recently had a bit of an epiphany while clothing shopping.

• 18:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, so when it comes to clothing, you know how some people, they don't get humor? They, they just don't understand jokes. Some people, they don't get like conceptual analysis. That's not how they think. That's me with fashion. That's me with clothes. I don't get it. And I've never really aspired to get it. And I just tend to like comfort. And one of the benefits of being on audio is you don't have to think about anything, right? And so I, I just have never prioritized the way I looked. And I, you know, when I, when I went shopping, which is not something I, I do very often.

• 18:58Joshua Fields Millburn?

  That's not a phrase I've ever even heard you say.

• 19:00Speaker 03

  No, man. I mean, I, I, I'd go into like Target and get like a pack of the three Hanes, like black t-shirts, like 10, 12 bucks or something and call it a day. Wouldn't even try them on. It's like, it fits, it doesn't, it is what it is. This is what I'm gonna wear and this is what I'm buying.

• 19:16Speaker 03

  And what's funny though, is when you take some time and you walk into a nice store. And you try on a nice shirt, it hits different, man. Like, the way the clothing feels on your body. I remember Professor Sean was talking about that shirt that he invested in. And it's funny, because you, you, you buy things, you buy cheap things, and you buy them a lot more frequently. But then you buy like one sixty dollar shirt, one seventy dollar shirt. It's like, man, it's nice. It feels really good. Now, a shirt like that, I can't just walk into the store like I do Target and just be like, let me get this, you know, whenever I need. But it's like, it feels so good. And I was telling Professor Sean this, I said, you know, I'm just gonna have to put myself on a schedule and bill my wardrobe, piece by piece, with nice little things.

• 20:00Speaker 03

  I'm not where I wanna be, but I wanna start investing in having a vocabulary of clothing. Not because I'm overnight infatuated with how other people see me with respect to fashion, but after going shopping and trying on different things, I can kind of begin to get it. How the clothing that you wear affects the way you feel, the way it feels on your body, the way, just all of that stuff, you know?

• 20:22Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah, I think we, we know that intrinsically, if I were to put on, give you a shirt that was just way too small, like three sizes too small, and like if I wore one of my daughter's shirts, and she's twelve, I, I would feel so uncomfortable in it, right?

• 20:38Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 20:38Joshua Fields Millburn?

  We know that, but then, we, we kind of just like, oh, this is good enough. And I understand that, like, I don't wanna neurose over my clothes all the time. The reason I wear, I wear these Los Angeles apparel t-shirts, it doesn't work for everyone. Nicodemus, when he tries them on, he's like, ah, I just don't like the way it fits me. And that's totally fine. And finding a brand, not out of brand loyalty, but as a shortcut to I know what works well for me. I really like these shirts too, because they're not made in a sweatshop, they're made here in Los Angeles, so they don't have to travel across the country. But then also, they're really high quality. And they're made by people who get like 401K benefits, and, and different things that I like about that. But that wouldn't mean anything if it was a crap shirt. And it's like, yeah, okay, I'm paying all these people for a shirt I don't like.

• 21:21Joshua Fields Millburn?

  It happens to be a shirt that I like, it's not super expensive. Because they're also, just because you spend a thousand dollars on a t-shirt, doesn't mean you're gonna get more quality either. That's a bit of an economic fallacy.

• 21:31Speaker 03

  Absolutely. I, I gotta tell you about this though, I bought a new pair of shoes for the first time in a really long time. I went into, um,

• 21:38Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Allbirds.

• 21:38Speaker 03

  Allbirds.

• 21:39Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah.

• 21:39Speaker 03

  That's it. See, see, you know, fashion, man. You're like, I told you that like two weeks ago. He remembers. Allbirds. And I walked in, I wanted something simple. I didn't want anything that attracts a lot of attention. I didn't want anything that looked like an amusement park. I, I, it looks cool on other people, but I didn't, I didn't want anything that looked like a circus was happening when you looked at my feet. And when I walked into Allbirds, it's, everything was just so simple, just black or white soles, and the shoes were just simple and sleek.

• 22:08Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah.

• 22:08Speaker 03

  And I walked in and I was like, oh, man, I want that one. And he's like, all right, what's your size? And we, I tried it on. I was like, I tried on one. I was like, this is it. Let's get it. And I, I, I completed the whole transaction in like 60 seconds. But when I put those shoes on, it felt like something was hugging my feet. It felt so good. And people are gonna be like, man, TK just discovered clothing. But it not only affects the way you feel in the sense of like, oh, I like the, you know, the, the sense of this fabric being against my skin, but it also affects what you want to do. I wanted to go walking, you know?

• 22:41Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Wow.

• 22:42Speaker 03

  Like, there are certain things you put on, they, they make you want to go to work. They, they make you, they make you want to go work out. There are certain things you put on, they make you want to go to sleep. They make you want to sit on the couch. And so that's another thing I've become insensitive to. This clothing thing, man.

• 22:54Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Oh, yeah.

• 22:54Speaker 03

  And there are many things.

• 22:57Joshua Fields Millburn?

  There are many things you put on that you immediately want to take off. And I call that the hate that shirt rule. We talk about like, as soon as I put something on, if it makes me be like, oh, I don't want to wear this outside, then I don't wear it outside, but I also don't keep it. I don't hold on to it just in case I might want it someday. I remember when I was starting to declutter a lot of my clothes, I had lost a lot of weight in my twenties, right? I lost about a hundred pounds as a teenager. I gained a lot of it back. And so I had some really big shirts, like this shirt is probably a large. And, but I had a bunch of like, double XL shirts that I needed at the time because I was obese.

• 23:36Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 23:37Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And I kept them in my basement in all of these storage bins, but I didn't know why. Like, what was the plan? In case I gain all the weight back and then want to dress in something that is Longer fashionable a decade from now. It's like I wasn't, I didn't think this through. And I think part of what way, why we hold on to especially old clothes is there's a story about, oh yeah, I can wear that again, maybe. But then there's this other story of like, I don't want to deal with it. And so I would just hide it in a box, a bin. And before we know it, the attic is full. The guest bedroom closet is full, the garage is full, the storage unit is full of a bunch of clothes that we're never going to wear again. And because I was selfishly clinging to those clothes, I didn't let go of them.

• 24:21Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And that allowed, didn't allow anyone else to get value from them either. Now, of course, this is not a sponsorship, any of the brands we talk about today, we don't get paid a penny for telling you about Allbirds or, or Los Angeles apparel or whatever else. But I want to get back to our listeners here. Joanna said, I like the answer given by the person who said that a silk nightdress is akin to a hug, or maybe a pair of TK shoes is akin to a hug. I find most clothing extremely uncomfortable to the point of continual agitation. This is making me think differently about how to approach my current wardrobe. I have plenty, but I often feel like I have nothing to wear.

• 25:05Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Okay, why do we, first off, why do we make ourselves so uncomfortable? Is it to impress other people?

• 25:13Speaker 03

  I guess that's a factor, but I'm not sure if that's entirely wrong. Anytime we do something that's unhealthy, it's because there's something at the foundation that's legitimate, right and good, but maybe we've deviated from an in-depth, healthy understanding of the best way to approach that thing. And, you know, in the course of life, there are various social games we play. Imagine if you're a football player and you got to put on cleats because that's part of the game that you want to play. You're good at it, maybe it's how you make your living, maybe you enjoy the benefits of the sport. But like, are you wearing a helmet because you like that? Because you think that's comfortable? Are you wearing cleats because that's the shoe you like to walk around in? No, it may be the case that that's most conducive with the game that you want to play when you're doing that. And sometimes we go to work, we're playing.

• 25:57Speaker 03

  A certain game. If you work at Target, do you like wearing the red polo and the khakis? Or is that something that you can tolerate? Because it's part of the game that you're playing when you're at work. In a similar way, when you go out and you put on the pair of heels, that might be part of the game you're playing. When you put on those white dress shirts, when you go into the office, part of the game that you're playing. And by game, I don't mean something condescending, like, oh, that's bad, or you're being fake. I mean, it's just the way we are trying to create a result that we really care about. And so I think, yes. But I, but I also think life is just contextual. We play many different roles. And sometimes we have to compromise or trade off degrees of comfort. We can't always wear sweats. Uh, in order to play certain social games effectively.

• 26:40Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah, and sometimes the game changes over time. I think about riding on airplanes in the 1960s. You basically had to wear a full suit to get on an airplane. It was thought of as passe to not be completely dressed up, you know, dressed to the nines on, on the airplane. And if you weren't, it was like, what's wrong with you? And now if you're wearing a suit on there, you're like, whoa, what, what's going on with this guy? What's wrong with you? Is there a funeral you're going to?

• 27:05Speaker 03

  Hey, have you noticed this, though? What's weird for me is I have dressed both ways. I dressed to go to sleep on the plane and I've dressed to like, like I'm looking like I'm gonna go to work. Every time I've dressed nice and I put some thought into it. My experience has been totally different in terms of how people treat me and accommodations and so on. I, I don't know if that's just me or not.

• 27:24Joshua Fields Millburn?

  No, I think that's true. There's an expectation there, especially if you stand out there, like, standing out in the 1960s was wearing pajamas. Now pajamas at the airport doesn't really stand out. I'm not there. I don't, I don't like, to me, aesthetics are important, right? And I find pajamas to be aesthetically displeasing to me. And because of that, uh, when I see it on the airplane, I'm like, oh, there's a, a minimum level of effort that I would like to bring to the table here. But then you're, what you're talking about is someone who goes above and beyond that. One of the reasons I wear all black is it kind of looks like formal without it being formal in a way. You go to a really high end restaurant, what are the waiters dressed like? They're dressed in all black usually, and sometimes they might be dressed exactly how I'm dressed.

• 28:07Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Right now, they have a pair of nice pants on, they have a T-shirt on, or maybe a button up shirt, and they have black shoes on, and it's simple, it's elegant. And then if you find a brand that fits you well, you feel good in it as well. However, the comfort thing, I think, is interesting. But then there's also this other aspect to what Joanna was saying about owning too many clothes. So what is it about owning too many clothes that makes us feel like we have nothing to wear?

• 28:35Speaker 03

  It's almost like having too many options. It makes you feel paralyzed, like you can't choose. It's a similar kind of phenomenon, right?

• 28:41Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah.

• 28:41Speaker 03

  You're just drowning in a sea of ambiguity and indecisiveness because you have so much. You're just suffering from cognitive overload.

• 28:49Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah, the paradox of choice. It's like whenever we're on tour and I don't have somewhere to go to shop, the places like the grocery store I usually go to in Ojai, or the one here down the street in West Hollywood, I go into a Walmart when we're on tour, if it's the most convenient thing. And it's overwhelming. And it's like, I feel like there's nothing for me to buy here because there's everything for me to buy here. Iris Ann said, "My uniform feels uncomplicated and natural and comfortable. Right now, it's white jeans, a linen T-shirt, and a cashmere sweater. However, as long as I do not need to restrict myself to only one uniform for the rest of my life,

• 29:33Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I do enjoy sprinkling other outfits, like dresses, skirts, etc., between my quote-unquote 'uniform days.' Uniform days, that's a good title there, Professor Sean, write that one down. Uniform days, or the uniform, right? Because I wear a uniform because it's simple for me and it eliminates that paradox of choice. I just go to my drawer and I pull out, I have two drawers in my closet. One has my short-sleeved T-shirts, the one beneath it has the long-sleeved T-shirts. And today, a short-sleeved T-shirt day or a long-sleeved T-shirt day? Okay, and then what pair of pants is on top? If I'm wearing jeans, I typically only own one pair of jeans at a time. Eventually, I bought a second pair for when I need to get that first pair repaired.

• 30:18Joshua Fields Millburn?

  If for some reason there's a giant hole in the crotch, I don't want to walk into the tailor and say, "Hey, I need these back same day because I'm not going to have any pants until then." So for me, jeans, and then this morning, I'm driving in here and I've got these synthetic pants on that I dislike wearing, but I'm wearing them. Temporarily, right, as I go through this physical therapy, I spilled a little bit of coffee on them this morning.

• 30:42Speaker 03

  Oh, man.

• 30:43Joshua Fields Millburn?

  On the day we're talking about outfits, I spill coffee on my pants. If they were my black jeans, it just adds character. With these pants, it's like, ah, now I have to try to spot treat them. Oh, that didn't get it out. Now I've got a little stain there. Now I'm self-conscious about it. This is the opposite of feeling comfortable. But I think Iris Ann brings up a really good point here. It doesn't have to be a single uniform. You can have a bit of a capsule wardrobe. We talked about that with Courtney Carver. We'll put a link to the episode we did with her about capsule wardrobes and everything she talks about with Project 333. I really enjoyed that challenge. The best dressed people at our live events are almost always doing Project 333 or some version of a capsule wardrobe. But the idea for this episode that we're recording right now

• 31:28Joshua Fields Millburn?

  came from Professor Sean, who's on the couch right now. He has been upgrading his clothes to clothes that he really enjoys wearing. I almost said investing, but I don't look at buying nice clothes as an investment. I look at investing, just the way I look at investing, more strictly, like I'm putting money in my 401k account as an investment. But I can understand colloquially when we talk about, oh, yeah, I'm investing in myself. I'm investing in my own confidence. It just means that that's where I've decided to allocate some money. And Sean, you've decided to allocate some money to your own version of a capsule wardrobe. What does that look like?

• 32:08Speaker 04

  Yeah, TK said so much of what I wanted to say already, but I used to do-

• 32:12Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Welcome to my world.

• 32:13Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. I used to do the jeans and black t-shirt thing for years. And then I actually, this started because over the last few years, I've put on size in my shoulders and chest and back.

• 32:28Joshua Fields Millburn?

  He does CrossFit every day. He's being humble. He's very strong.

• 32:32Speaker 04

  And a lot of my- I used to wear small t-shirts and basically all my small shirts stopped fitting, especially if I like lift my arms over my head and then everybody can just see my whole torso. So, um, so I was like, okay, I, I need to, I need to get bigger clothes. And I decided in doing that to, to, to buy nicer things. And I took inspiration from one of my style icons, Daniel Craig, and his portrayal of James Bond and in other movies. And I was like, well, what are some of these pieces that he wears that I like? And I, I did some research into them and I bought those exact pieces and found brands that I like. And, um, once I kind of was what I was sure of what I like, I just started buying things.

• 33:15Speaker 04

  Three different kinds of shirts, a polo, Henley t-shirt, but just in multiple colors. And, uh, and as I was doing this, like I had a whole list, I want to buy a bunch of these things. And I was like, well, wait a second, I'm building a capsule wardrobe. I don't need to buy a ton. I just need to buy, uh, you know, about 33 things. And I think I settled on like 38 things, but, um, but I still dress very similarly to how I did before. The jeans and the t-shirt, except now sometimes that t-shirt is a polo or a Henley. Sometimes the jeans are a pair of cotton chinos. I'm wearing a lot more cotton now.

• 33:49Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah, yeah. And to me, that, that's important, not wearing synthetics, especially around my private parts. So, uh, my underwear is, is cotton, my t-shirt is cotton. And as soon as I go back to jeans real soon, that will be cotton as well. I just don't want all the synthetics. We talked to Dr. Saladino about that on episode 499. In fact, we did a YouTube video around that, why he talks about the endocrine disruptors. And some of the studies around that as well are really, really terrifying. But, but Sean, back to what you were saying, I, I really enjoyed the fact that you were doing that. But then you, it, I would say it improved your confidence in a way because the clothes look good on you. Just because it looks good on Daniel Craig, it's probably a sign it's not going to look good on me.

• 34:29Speaker 04

  Right.

• 34:30Joshua Fields Millburn?

  But that, that brand happened to look really good on you. And so you didn't just go out and buy, oh, Daniel Craig wears this, so I'm going to buy 38 of these.

• 34:36Speaker 04

  Yeah, but it also kind of, um, you, you talked about as an investment, like it, it pays dividends in how you feel. But I also found it paid dividends in other ways because, okay, if I'm gonna buy the clothes Daniel Craig wears, well, I'm not Daniel Craig, but I wanna look as close to him as possible. There's other work I have to do to do that. You know, I have to make sure I'm, I've got my diet pretty honed in. I've got to make sure I'm, I'm not skimping on exercise, things like that. And then the only other practical thing that I wanted to say, um, that I learned doing this, because I think a lot of guys out there could maybe, could maybe use this practically, is, like I said, I used to do the black t-shirt thing. And black's great, great. Black's classic.

• 35:19Speaker 04

  But also, if you're pale like me and bald, you get a lot of white there, black can actually look kinda harsh. And I learned what looks a lot like black, but a lot softer and subtler is navy blue.

• 35:33Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Right.

• 35:34Speaker 04

  It's almost black. In certain lights, people will think you're wearing black, but it hits different. It balances different. And that's, that's kinda my pro tip is, try out really, really, really dark blue. So dark, it's almost black, but not black.

• 35:47Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And I love that you're just slowly populating that capsule wardrobe instead of being like, you know what? And the same thing that TK was talking about. I don't have to go out today and buy the complete wardrobe. Now, for me, it's simple because it's just like, I've got these black t-shirts. Now, maybe there's someday where I decide to change it. I'm not married to this. I haven't renounced all color. In fact, sometimes people will say like, hey, why are you always like just dressed in all black? And I said, well, the color's in the personality. And people used to say this about our website too. Why is the website black and white? Well, the color is in the words. I want you, I want you to get something out of it. I don't want to distract you from that. Let's do a couple more really quick. Thank you, Professor Sean, for that.

• 36:29Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Lee said, "For exercise, work, lounging, and motorbike riding, I sometimes change four times per day. It's a nightmare, but it's all black." TK, what are the, let's talk about the benefits of having a, a single color palette, because you tend to dress in mostly all black as well. I dress in all black. But I like this point here that sometimes it's different. Like at home, yeah, I'm probably just gonna wear some black shorts and maybe not even a T-shirt when I'm at home. It's just me wearing black cotton shorts and I'm out in the backyard, I'm going for a hike, and I don't have to have superfluous things, but I'm not gonna wear that same outfit here to the studio. But I share some commonalities, right?

• 37:14Joshua Fields Millburn?

  If I need to go to a wedding, I have one suit and it's dark gray, so it's very similar, similar color palette. What is the advantage of having a single color palette?

• 37:23Speaker 03

  Well, on the first level, it just makes your decision process a lot simpler, right? You have fewer things to think about, those cognitive resources can go towards something else. But there's another cool thing that happens, and I call it the muting effect. It's almost like if you say the same thing over and over again, it kind of fades to the background and people don't hear it anymore. It becomes the equivalent of silence. In a similar way, when you have a single color palette, it doesn't really attract as much. It eventually begins to fade to the background and it just becomes a thing that you do. It becomes your thing and it just kind of takes your outfit out of the way. People just accept it, okay, this is a guy that wears all black, but after a few days of interacting with you, it ceases to be interesting and there's no element of performance where

• 38:05Speaker 03

  it's like, alright, I wore a nice shirt and a nice combo yesterday, what am I gonna wear today? And you do see that. That is a real thing where people spend a lot of time stressing about, what am I gonna wear, what's gonna look right? And a single color palette can give you a kind of advantage where you don't have to deal with that as much.

• 38:21Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah, it's a baseline and I think it's, you can also add variety by accessorizing it in interesting ways, or from time to time, changing. Remember episode 400? I wore that purple shirt in here. And people, watch the video version, freaked out. Like, they were upset, they're like, what is going on? Is Josh okay? It's like, it's just a purple shirt, it's a celebration. And so sometimes, like, deviating from the norm, that's how we celebrate. Every day is a, if we're celebrating all the time, then you're actually not celebrating. Celebrations stand out, they recognize something like we were doing that day. One more from Stacy here. Stacy said, if I had to wear just one outfit forever, it would be a two-piece bikini and

• 39:06Joshua Fields Millburn?

  flip flops. Now Stacy completely stole my answer.

• 39:11Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Imagine me coming here in a two-piece and some flip-flops.

• 39:14Speaker 03

  I think you're lying about the flip-flops.

• 39:18Joshua Fields Millburn?

  How about you listeners, if you had to wear just one outfit every day for the rest of your life, what would it be? Let us know your thoughts in the Patreon community chat, which by the way, you can join for free. Okay, give me something pithy, TK. If you had to wear just one outfit every day for the rest of your life, what would it be?

• 39:36Speaker 03

  What you wear reveals what you live for. So when I first thought about this question, I thought, what would be my one outfit? Maybe the Jordan Peterson Joker suit. Just kidding, just kidding. But that is worth careful study, right? How he made that transition from like absent-minded professor to GQ to Joker suit. Anyway, my first thought was, I want to be comfortable. And so I imagine myself wearing sweats and sneakers. And then I thought, oh, wait a minute. It's not comfort that I want. It's, I want to feel good. And there are multiple manifestations of feeling good, not just comfort. I don't want to feel like vegging out all the time. Sometimes I want to feel like running. Sometimes I want to feel like working. And so I thought, okay, what would make me feel good? And there's a pair of black slacks that I bought.

• 40:22Speaker 03

  And when I put them on, they're not like jogging pants. They can go either way. You can dress them up or you can just sort of make them more casual. But when I wear them, I just feel awake and I feel ready to go. I feel ready to move. And I think I would like to wear clothes like that. It's definitely going, it's definitely gonna be black. You know, because I'm like Lil Wayne, black car, black car, you know?

• 40:45Speaker 03

  I'm all black all the way, man. Hook me up with that black car. But anyway, I think it would be like a, sort of a, similar to how I dress now, but a black outfit that's casual, so it can, it can have that professional edge, but it can also be something that's comfortable as well.

• 41:01Joshua Fields Millburn?

  My fifth answer is "Simple is the New Black." That is the title of an article that some outlet wrote about the minimalist way back in the day. And I think that really captures the essence of this episode and really of our style is like, I'm not prescribing you go out and wear all black. I think Sean looks great with his new capsule wardrobe. I also think he looks great dressed in all black, right? And it really depends on what feels good for him. But instead of just saying, "Dress in all black," what's the simple version of what I'm doing here? What is going to complicate my life in unnecessary ways? If I have to go into debt, it's not simple.

• 41:42Joshua Fields Millburn?

  If I have to spend too much money and am forsaking the things that are more important to me, it is not simple, right? If I'm buying just a bunch of clothes to follow a trend, it is not simple. It's clutter, but simple is the new black in the sense that, wow, I can wear that purple shirt every day or every Friday, or I can have a whole color palette of things that I wear. And I can simplify, even if I'm expanding my wardrobe, I can do so in a simple way. That's almost the end of page one. We still have an entire switchboard of callers to talk to. But first, real quick for right here, right now, here's one thing that's going on in the life of the minimalist.

• 42:25Joshua Fields Millburn?

  TK, our next Sunday Symposium is in your neck of the woods. We're in Orange County on August 31st. We just released 200 tickets for that. If the event sells out, please make sure you put your name on the waitlist. SundaySymposium.com will let you know if more tickets open up. Right now, as of this recording, there are a few tickets still available. SundaySymposium.com, we do a free sound bath, some coffee. We do a minimalist talk. We do Q and A. We do hugs afterward. Tell me about Sunday Symposium for someone who has never been to one of our live events. It is so...

• 43:04Speaker 03

  Different from the podcast because we get to interact with the people that are asking questions and there's a possibility for back and forth that we don't get here. And there's just a difference from having other people in the room. The energy is a lot more eclectic. We have time beforehand, we have time after hand to share coffee, share hugs. And what, one of the things I love the most about it is just the way people are able to connect with other folks in the minimalist community. We even had one of the people who works at one of our theaters say, I love working on the days when you have shows because the people who come to your shows are unlike anyone else who comes to these other shows. And this is someone that works a lot of different theater productions. And so that's something really, really special. You come and meet good people.

• 43:48Speaker 03

  Yeah, you get to see Josh and I, that's kind of like the bonus, but you also get to interact with some really awesome friends.

• 43:52Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah, simple gathering for simple people. It's building that community, whether you're in Orange County and you want to come to the August event, or we have one coming up in LA as well in September. You can find the free tickets while they're still available at sundaysymposium.com. And if you can't attend in person, you can subscribe to our true fan tier on Patreon. That's the only place to find recordings of all of our live events. We're talking more than a dozen years of live events. You can find them over there.

• 44:21Speaker 03

  Also, one more thing.

• 44:22Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah.

• 44:22Speaker 03

  It's family friendly. And also, if you're a couple, you know how people sometimes go to the movies and they talk about the movie afterwards, but sometimes it's difficult because movies don't always lend themselves, depending on the kind of film you watch. But if you come to this show with your boyfriend, your girlfriend, your partner, whatever, you're going to have something to talk about when you leave on the car ride home. I think it's so family friendly and great conversational fodder for family members.

• 44:43Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Let me contrast that with this, though. About half the people who show up come by themselves. And that's amazing, too. So you don't have to have someone to go with. You might end up meeting someone there, but you don't have to. You can also be a fly on the wall. You show up and you're really quiet. You're, you're the church mouse in the back and you just sit there and you watch the sound bath and maybe you have a free coffee there and, and you enjoy the presentation. You don't ask any questions, you don't participate, and you just enjoy observing. That's something I would do if I was in the audience.

• 45:10Speaker 03

  That would be you and I if we weren't on the stage.

• 45:11Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Absolutely, yeah. And you'd still really enjoy it. And maybe you'd come up in the hug line afterward, but maybe you wouldn't. Maybe you'd just leave and that is okay as well. Grab your free tickets, sundaysymposium.com. We'll see you in Orange County or in Los Angeles next month. All right, a bunch more coming up here. Look at page two, all these questions. Well, first, here is an insight from one of our listeners.

• 45:34Speaker 05

  Hi Minimalists. My name is Trista and I'm a Patreon subscriber. I had a comment about your previous episode talking about half dirty, half clean clothes. So the way that I do it is if I take a shirt or a dress off and it's good to wear again, I just hang it in my closet inside out. So that way it's obvious to me that I've worn it before, but it's also not just parked somewhere in my way. So I hope that helps somebody else and thanks for everything you do. You're my friends and you don't even know me.

• 46:20Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Oh, Trista, thank you so much for that useful comment. Very, very helpful and I'm happy to be your friend and I hope to meet you someday. We can know you in person. We'll see you at one of the live events. For anyone else has a listener tip or insight about this episode, send a voice memo to [email protected] so we can feature your voice on the show. Up next, page two and page three, but first, let's take a quick pander-culation break. We'll be right back.

• 46:48Joshua Fields Millburn?

  All right, y'all, that is the first 35% of episode 502. We'll see you on Patreon for the full maximal edition, which includes answers to a bunch more questions. Questions like, "How do I let go of conversations from work so I don't bring them home with me?" "What are 10 ways to be more eco-friendly on a budget?" And "How do I let go of the annoying things that people do?" Plus a million more questions and simple living segments over on the Minimalist's Private Podcast on Patreon. And that is our minimal episode for today. Big thanks to Earthing Studios for the recording space, on behalf of Ryan Nicodemus, TK Coleman, post-production Peter, Spire Jeff and Spire Dave, Professor Sean on the couch, Jordan No More editing the video, and Savvy D on the board over there

• 47:33Joshua Fields Millburn?

  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. We'll see you next time. Peace.

• 47:49Speaker 00

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