Minimalism by Joshua Fields Millburn [Book Summary – Review]


Do you remember what you did the previous week? Were you sick of waking up every day, going to your job, and returning to your house?

Is your home full of tools and child’s play that will divert you from the fears of the 50-, 60- or 70-hour working hours?

Providing that you haven’t noticed this for yourself, it would hardly be delightful to dedicate your life to a work that only grants you a paycheck for you. And to make things worse, what just induces our lives to be confused and more worried and diverted is the pointless things we purchase to make it simpler to get within the job.

As you can see in this summary, it is time to use the experiences of the writers to distract our minds and bodies from fast food, single-use only goods, and instantly gratifying corporate culture. With some easy techniques and a little energy, it can be reclaimed by you like your life, cleanse it of everything that is a gap and useless, and replenish it with sense and aim.


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Chapter 1 – Cash and stressful works are not among the latchkeys to felicitousness.


It is grown up expecting by many human beings that finding a “good business” is all things. Comprehending this view, what depends on how well the job is “right achievement” – which relies widely on the quantity of the paycheck.

However, the fact is: felicitousness cannot be purchased with money.

It will be said to you by even wealthy individuals that more cash comes with more issues; involving feeling stressed, such as applying to casual dining, spending money on pointless devices, and continually considering the future without appreciating the today.

What often comes with the different huge cost is an achievement: too few hours to be with liked people. The people who are grown with rented grants so that their families can waste more time making money are many kids from families of achievement-focused grown-ups.



Therefore, most of the time, money purchases are misery.

A question to you: Is it worth owning stressful work and career?

It was enquired by co-writer Ryan Nicodemus about this problem while running on a job that many think to be an excellent work. He was still on the ascent of his career, and although making him promoted to executive status, the position came with 80-hour work hours and a large quantity of liability and pressure. What joined was alleviating apprehension, anxiety, and dejectedness.

Presently, it is believed by Nicodemus there isn’t sufficient money to justify the cost of stressful work on your psychic well-being. Nevertheless, when you adopt the mindset that a job is everything, it is always felt by you like you have to earn more cash.

It is considered by Both Nicodemus and his co-author Joshua Fields Millburn that they would be felicitous when they reached $50,000 a year. However, after achieving this turning point, the target swiftly increased to $75,000, and later $100,000. There is no point where they were glad.

One of the reasons we desired more was because as paychecks increased so did their financial undertaking and liabilities – in the shape of credits, cars, and mortgages. It was adequate in the final and they both decided to quit their jobs and breathe on less cash.

The time when Millburn and Nicodemus were ultimately felicitous in this case is that. All under the auspices of their choice to embrace a minimalist work and a few exhausting lifestyles.

However, as it will be seen in the following sections, what is more than cash and job is the minimalist ethos; It’s about leaving everything that keeps you behind.


Chapter 2 – To start your transition to minimalism, defray off your loans, and clear up the clutter around you.


Proved that you question to yourself “What are the spuds that brought me down?” the result may not be immediately obvious. However, whether it’s mortgaged, credit cards, or scholar loans, possibilities are you possess some type of debt that is a heavy burden on your welfare.

That is why the initial and foremost step of the minimalist life is to defray the entire loan.

Somewhere among down the line, you may have been tricked by credit card ads or when you are told by a banker to take advantage of a particular mortgage, however, let’s be obvious: there is no such thing as a “great loan.” Whole debts are evil, obvious, and easy.

While it was being prepared by Joshua Milburn for a minimalist living, he followed a tight account and saved two years as best he could to defray his loans. That described there were no 100 weeks of holidays, no restaurants and no luxury goods. However, in the end, it was deserving each minute for the comfort he sensed in defraying off his debts. Presently, he was available to live the vita he desired.

While reducing your financial situation, it should be turned by you as your caution in decreasing your financial mess.



Before anything else, it’s essential to understand that what you have is not a pointless expression of who you are as an individual. Rather, it should be questioned by you to yourself if your belongings assist you to live in the now or block you from making so.

There were four closed boxes in Joshua Milburn’s mom’s home that she hadn’t amplified for ten years. It included all the artifacts John brought home from primary school, from typing with hands tests to scratches.

It was understood by Millburn that she was piling these to keep onto her little boy, the precious and significant things in life are not things, but our recollections and relationships. What doesn’t describe you have to throw everything away is that, but it could be stored by Milburn’s mother as a significant drawing in a single frame instead of four sealed cartons.

By reducing clutter, although we do not just provide ourselves with more physical breathing space, also more mental breathing space. Holding things everywhere competing for our caution can simply make us heavier psychologically.

In the following section, it will be seen by you as to how your shape can get messy.


Chapter 3 – What is too about decreasing the quantity of scrap you put on your body is minimalism.


Any lack of diet or sports programs out there is not found. This amount may seem like a lot. However, it can be avoided by you eating popular diets and short-lived fixes by reprogramming the direction you consider about your body.

Since right now, consider it like a robot mechanism: when you give it large-quality combustible, it will be allowed to perform at its highest potential by you. Under this comprehending, it should look clear that snacks such as processed and prepackaged products should be bypassed.

These types of nutrition are filled with additives and preservatives that join zero nutritional value to your diet. The only thing they ensure is unnecessary calories, particularly sugar that is terrifying for your well-being. Even though this nutrition may flavor good right now, because of them, you can feel bad afterward. Therefore, what overweighs the long-term harm they can do to both your physical well-being and feeling is any momentary satisfaction.

In a great dirt removal regime, dairy products and bread should be also found.



Wheat and pasteurized milk have been consumed by use for a comparatively short time in human beings’ history – but since the discovery of agriculture. Our bodies never planned to digest the large amounts of milk and bread found in the mean contemporary diet.

Therefore, if you own gluten or lactose intolerance or not, it can be beneficial to you by decreasing the consumption amount of these nutrients and replacing them with natural entire foods such as vegetables, fish, and beans. After making this agreement with your regime, what will quickly discover in yourself is excessive energy.

And that’s a great thing to pass for the following step: taking the advantages of the most out of your body.

The thing that runs greatest when you have an ever-evolving mindset is fitness, which defines you’re always targeting for more than used to be – a quicker run time, more reps, or bigger weights.

To have this mindset, you have to desire more of yourself. To assist to make this occur, you can schedule again you’re considering “I should …” instead of “I have to …”.

Don’t say to yourself, “I should go to the gym and run three times this week”; alternatively say, “I must go for a jog at 8 am next day.”

With a little insistence, it can be even achieved by novel things by you.

Although perhaps you can’t do a single lift presently, you can presumably dangle from the bar for 30 seconds. Therefore, do this and then the next day, wait 40 seconds and then keep doing more till you build adequate arm strength to do a lift.


Chapter 4 – Change and recovery need not affect your originality; thanks to them, better relationships can be led.


Most significant people are friends and loved ones. Prove that you are lately thinking lonely or unhappy with your relationships, the time can be for another cycle of reprogramming, this time to be more admitting of others and seem more agreeable to others.

Being eager to change is the initial move in getting this to occur.

Trying and changing others is desperate – even evil to strive – only personal growth is probable.

Nevertheless, presumed that you consider there is nothing false with being your “original self”, the outcome of that finds as you can be rebellious to the opinion of ​​the change. However, it is necessary to get an accurate look at your actions and understand that you are making something that upsets or misleads individuals.

Providing that you are not satisfied with being shy, being a poor audience, or being so fleshy, don’t consider “that’s who I am.” Alternatively, make something about it and be foresighted in developing yourself.

What is not cheating your authenticity is switching yourself; a way to build better relationships. Do you prefer to be alone or would you instead of working on yourself to be a better chatter and more attractive?



Admitting those with diverse views more than yours is a different way to develop yourself.

Don’t consider you need to discover someone who shares and considers the exact things as you – that’s just another misunderstanding. What is not about hobbies and pleasures is relationships; they are amative, so you have to admit that individuals will consider them oppositely from you.

If more individuals were open to new thoughts and ideas about who they were hanging out with, there would be far fewer single human beings in the globe!

Therefore, do not underbear and admit the unique habits of your cherished ones; honor, and esteem them!

Let’s assume your loved ones own a hobby that you discover annoying, such as assembling action characters. Consequently, isn’t silly collection the contrast of minimalist vita? Truly not, particularly provided that they get more significance and satisfaction from that collection. Therefore, don’t discourage them; comprehend that the collection improves your spouse’s life and so should be valued as part of what makes her or his love.

Keeping this in mind, there are four steps in the TARA method that will assist you better underbear (or in other word called tolerate), admit, respect (or in other word called esteem), and appreciate the individual you are with:

  • To underbear their matchless hobbies or urges;
  • Admit that it will every time stay there;
  • Esteem your spouses exert for their entertainment;
  • Appreciate the hobby as a role of your living as it is an essential part of the life of your chosen and liked one.

Chapter 5 – Don’t allow a job to describe you as an individual.


As it is seen the significance of moving away from the opinion that cash and job are the most significant things in life, it should be escaped by us from thinking that our work describes us.

Consider it like this: Humanly, we are complex individuals who are having different interests and abilities, some earn money, others costly. Therefore, you are much more than your business.

Still, what is simple is to drop into the bait of permitting your business status to describe you.

It will find jobs in a specific industry by many individuals and they feel like they need to hold to that industry as if they were a part of them for the rest of their lives. However, don’t forget, work is just a job. The job which can even be a similar anchor that pulls you down is yours.

Think about this: your business isn’t even one of the five most significant features of life. The top five can be arrayed as your well-being, relations, urges, personal improvement, and addition to the community.

These are ways of measuring yourself that perform sense, not your business status or how much cash you’ve earned.



So, it should be avoided by you from the disturbing little talk problem: “Well, what do you make?” This is usually asked at the beginning of a dialogue, as though this is the most significant feature of someone’s vita, and this is not a distinctive way of asking that “Well, how much money do you earn?”

Alternatively, why not try to question them by asking “What are you interested in?” or “What are you insisting on?”

And imagine that somebody says to you “What should you make?” and later, you can answer directly the dialogue by saying something similar “Oh, although I could arrange many things, nowadays, gardening is my present desire. How are you doing?”


Chapter 6 – If decreasing your addiction to cash, you can possess more liberty.


Owning a business for less of your life is one of the main goals behind minimalism. Normally, this describes discovering aspects to be lower addicting on a huge paycheck.

Several ways to assist with this are found, such as involving finding out how to do it yourself instead of purchasing them and selling unnecessary clutter in your house. However, how to exist with a little revenue is the next programming again you need to discover.

At here, there is found the initial step to produce a monthly budget and hold on to it.

Begin by preparing a list of requirements that involves entire your essential household costs like nutrition, pet feed, gasoline, electricity, security, and transport.  These basic needs need to be completed every time, for this reason, you cannot take them around.

Then begin a second wish list that can involve classes such as novel outfits and entertainment. Presently, put aside your more money at the beginning of every month so both sections are given a budget. And the reason that they can be divided by you into various expending accounts is to be sure you don’t go over income.

Don’t forget, each dollar in the budget needs to be taken into account. Therefore, provided that you go on the fun budget to purchase novel shoes, there is a must watch for the following month to go to that eatery by you.

Provide all houses to suit on the budget to decrease difficult emotions and perform things properly. As everyone has a voice, a feeling of shared liability must be found to work it. For instance, as making children a piece of the process, it is known by them that they shouldn’t put pressure on trying to make more money for video games when the cash is reserved for school pieces of equipment.



However, arranging up a safety net anyway would be still wiser.

When you prepare yourself, it will be discovered by you that living comfortably for less money is not hard, however, that doesn’t describe living won’t shock you with something surprising such as an unforeseen sickness or car disruption.

Therefore, it is wise and reasonable to originally create a safety web of rock bottom $500 to $1000. Although it should not be just done by you as soon as probable, you must lock down the cash where it is not simple to spend.

When your loan runs out, it can be added by you to that safety web. It will be seen by you that this fund can rise very fast with your newly discovered budgeting power.


Chapter 7 – Get life more worthwhile and relevant by undertaking the hard work that provides to the community.


Therefore, thanks to that, your entire anchors can be cut off by you and, finally, you got rid of your addictions. Now the single question is: What are you going to do with your fresh discovered liberty?

Even though you own novel plans to be healthful, fit, and sociable, you can’t go distant without a powerful aim in your vita. Moreover, what appears only from a significant life that permits you to actively promote to the community is the actual and correct aim.

Although it may be thought of by you by donating to a donation defines doing adequately for the community, it can happen only if you possess significant and relevant knowledge that you are instantly included.

The thing that you make sure to observe is that the most rewarding actions are the toughest ones.

Which activities are simple are reading a book in the park or swimming in the pool, and, even though the easy activities are enjoyable, not multipurpose.

On the different side of the coin, what can bother us when we’re in the midst of them is tough activities, however, they provide us with great sense afterward. This may involve growing kids or running marathons – even though there are many challenges, the award is worth these energies and they become the most important events in our vita.

For this reason, these are the types of cases that we need to search for and construct our lives, particularly when we provide not only to our lives but to the community as a unity.



Luckily, there’s no lack of charities seeking volunteers for this type of significant business, whether it’s making low-cost homes for the needy people or converting gap plots into city gardens. Although this is tough work, it will be remarkably useful in retrospect.

Even so, these duties can be converted to enjoyable things by you.

Providing that you’re constructing houses for the poor individuals, while sometimes might be rainy or cool and morale might drop, you might still gather unitedly to sing. Else, you can demand sugary hot chocolate with marshmallows instantly.

However, unlike ordinary office work where you don’t even comprehend how your work provides something worth it, this hard work appears with a powerful sense of aim that will gain your days a lot simpler to tackle, no matter how inadequate the conditions receive.


Minimalism: Live a Meaningful Life by Joshua Fields Millburn, Ryan Nicodemus Book Review


You are not your work and you have not obligated as much cash as you consider. You can begin your life over by giving up all the “things” you don’t require and the connections that pull you down. A living will assist you to clear up and appreciate a more significant life.


Escape buying a rental.

Do not get carried away by buying property while renting – it is another loan that joins you to the job. Besides, it usually makes little financial logic; You can presumably purchase three or four old cars a year for the payment of a “cheap” rental-buy car!

Also, when the topic comes to devices like fridges, most of them can be purchased second hand for peanuts. Watch the little ads and seek local charities rather than purchasing novel ones.


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