PDF Summary:Minimalism, by Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus

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It begins with the question, “Are you truly happy?” and it guides you through the steps to transform your life so that the answer is “yes.”

How to Use This Book

It’s organized into seven chapters, including a chapter on each of five values described collectively as a “recipe for intentional living,” which you can adjust to fit your personal lifestyle. The writers recommend that you:

• Spend a week reading and contemplating each chapter to allow you to absorb the ideas.
• Read the book more than once.
• Take notes, highlight passages, and make lists.
• Act on the recommendations immediately: Make small adjustments in your life that add up to significant change over time.

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He sought happiness through his father’s religion. He married and became a devout Jehovah’s Witness. He and his wife bought a house and planned to start a family, but the couple didn’t get along and the marriage ended badly. Ryan turned again to drugs and alcohol.

Because he was dissatisfied with the money he was making, he eventually went to work for the same telecommunication company Joshua worked for. He worked hard, excelled, and earned promotions.

Joshua’s Story

As a result of the disorder in his home life, Joshua developed OCD—he started obsessing over small things and losing weight.

After graduating from high school, he got a sales job with a telecommunications corporation. He realized his job had long-term growth possibilities, so he worked hard, taking little time off; he became a top salesman.

He got married, built a large house, and continued to work harder and longer. But he neglected his relationship and didn’t spend much time at home because he was always working. Because he still felt unfulfilled he bought things in order to achieve temporary highs.

He remained unhappy and his health suffered — so he worked harder and bought more stuff. Though unhappy,...

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What You Put into Your Body

The term “diet” is typically used to mean a temporary change in what you eat to achieve a specific weight-loss goal. A temporary diet almost always fails when you resume your pre-diet behavior.

However, this book uses the term diet to refer to a dietary lifestyle. A change in dietary lifestyle is a change not only in what you eat, but in how you think about what you eat. A lifestyle change is long term rather than temporary, and it can’t fail, unless you reject the lifestyle.

There isn’t a single, ideal dietary model to follow to live a healthier life. This can be frustrating because it’s easier to be told what to eat, and to have a set of clear guidelines to follow.

It’s also important to note that what you put into your body encompasses more than just food. It includes medicine, or anything you ingest, as well as anything that enters your body in any other way (for example, through the skin).

Remember: The goal isn’t to lose weight or to look better; it’s to live a healthier life and feel better.

Developing Daily Food Habits

Major dietary changes usually fail because people find them overwhelming and too hard to...

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• Name: Put names in the first column: family, close friends, significant others, coworkers, bosses, teachers, for example.
• Category: In the second column, categorize each as a primary, secondary, or peripheral relationship.
  • Primary relationships are your closest relationships (closest family, closest friends). They’re the main characters in your life story.
  • Secondary relationships are similar to the primary ones, except they are of less value for various reasons. They may include close friends, boss, a few coworkers, and extended family members. They’re your supporting cast.
  • Peripheral: The majority of people in your life fall into this category, the periphery. They include most coworkers, neighbors, members of your community, acquaintances, distant family. They’re minor characters, and occasionally extras, in your life.
• Effect: In the third column, indicate the effect of each relationship on your life: positive, negative, or neutral.
  • Positive relationships make you happy and help you grow
  • Negative relationships make you unhappy, frustrated, or dissatisfied. They can stymie your personal growth.
  • Neutral...

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Our cultural norms aid and abet this tendency. One of the first things people ask when getting acquainted is, “What do you do?” This seems innocuous, but the implied question is, “What do you do for a living?” — and you know you’ll be judged (assigned a social status) based on your occupation.

Once you believe your career is who you are, it’s difficult to give up that identity even if you come to hate your career.

(A better way to answer the “what do you do” question is to reply with what you’re passionate about. For instance, “I’m passionate about cooking; what are you passionate about?” It leads to more interesting conversations than the typical answer along the lines of “I’m a director of operations.”)

The truth is, you’re far more than your career; you have passions that you can pursue for a meaningful life.

From Career to Passion

Josuha and Ryan had conventionally successful corporate careers, but eventually they felt stressed and unhappy instead of fulfilled. So they worked harder and turned to consumerism — they bought stuff in an effort to purchase happiness. Eventually they realized this wasn’t the path to happiness — they needed to cut the excess...

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If a change doesn’t last, it’s because you didn’t see enough long-term benefit from the change to stick with it. Or you weren’t unhappy enough with your current conditions to change.

Joshua and Ryan wanted to make dietary and exercise changes. Their leverage was their dissatisfaction with their current out-of-shape condition, plus the satisfaction they were already experiencing from small initial changes they had made (enjoying daily exercise, and noticing small changes in their physical fitness).

3) Take action

Once you have enough leverage, it’s important to act immediately — take just a small step in the right direction to build momentum.

Don’t start with a big step — because if you try to do too much at once, you’ll be discouraged and the change won’t last. But once you begin building momentum, change becomes enjoyable and you want to continue.

Look for little ways to make daily improvements in each area of your life — for example, exercising for 10-15 minutes daily, strengthening a relationship by having one meaningful conversation a day, and spending an hour a day on something you’re passionate about.

Gradual daily actions like these can change your...

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So whatever you’re doing, ask yourself how the task adds value. The question helps you identify how you’re contributing. If you’re not contributing, consider how you could add value to the situation, or how you could add better value.

Over time you’ll start to replace things that don’t add value to your life or other people’s lives with things that do add value.

Unless you contribute beyond yourself, your life will be perpetually self-serving. It’s OK to serve your own interests, but doing so exclusively creates an empty existence. A life without contributing to others is a life without meaning.

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• Growth: It’s easier to keep doing the same things instead of new exercises, meeting new people, or doing something new. You can make improvement more enjoyable by giving yourself “points” or small rewards for stepping out of your comfort zone to grow. Ultimately, the activities will generate their own rewards.
• Contribution: It’s easier to stay home on a Saturday morning than to join a volunteer project. You could make volunteering the more enjoyable option by lining up less pleasant chores at home as your alternative. Or you could bring doughnuts and coffee to share with other volunteers.

There will always be something to tempt you away from doing the things that make your life more meaningful. You can avoid the temptation by turning experiences that seem tedious into something more fun and exciting.

For example, Joshua and Ryan worked on a Habitat for Humanity home building project in the rain. They made it more enjoyable by singing, competing, and doing impressions — they turned a positive activity they disliked into something fun.

Think of a positive activity that’s good for you but that you dislike. Now ask yourself how you could make the...