IGX

Was talking with BD and the GBM this weekend over nachos about minimalism. Three nice reads I've gone through on that subject recently, and I'm glad I read them in the order I did.

1) Essentialism, by Greg McKeown. Got hipped to this from Joe DeFranco's instagram of all places. This is great and kind of a macro overview of the subject as it applies to life and business. Do less and you will do less better.

2) The Slight Edge, by Jeff Olson. This is the closest to a conventional self-help book of the three, probably the most business-oriented (and he talks a bunch about folks like Napoleon Hill), and certainly the most actionable--he's got a worksheet at the end of the book. The slight edge=doing the little stuff correctly day in and day out.

3) The Power of Less, by Leo Barbuta. Slimmest of the three volumes and takes a chapter by chapter approach to treat smaller subjects like decluttering your email, your time, your desk as well as larger subjects like habit creation.

Basically #1 was a great intro, #2 was the book that got me the most fired up to get it going, and #3 helped me pare back the approach and really think about things one thing at a time. (This is a concept I am familiar with, as they say.)

Recommend all 3, in that order.

Would love to hear other recs on this subject.

Nothing

My recommendations (note-- I haven't read any of the books you mentioned, although they sound worth checking out):

Napoleon Hill. There's a reason he's so quoted.

Jeff Sanders' podcast has some good stuff.

I haven't read this, but I know that it's along similar lines.

How To Lose a Girl in 30 Days.

I read as little about minimalism as possible.

I've collected all the books and podcasts on simplifying my life.

T>1200 wrote:I've collected all the books and podcasts on simplifying my life.

I subscribed to a ton of RSS feeds on minimalism until I realized they were all saying the same thing. I would delete them but have been busy and haven't gotten around to doing it.

Graham Hill (who you probably remember from the P&B) has a TED talk that could be used for inspiration.
http://www.ted.com/talks/graham_hill_le ... anguage=en

Thich Nhat Hanh's "The Miracle of Mindfulness" (http://www.amazon.com/The-Miracle-Mindf ... 0807012394)goes in the same general direction of pausing, observing the moment and realizing that you probably don't need another pair of new shoes.

I read Peter Walsh's book "It's all too much" (http://www.amazon.com/Its-All-Too-Much- ... 743292650) years ago and it talks about reducing clutter from your life in a very practical manner, focusing on why we collect the crap we have instead of going through the process of "organizing" things into neat piles. It's sort of GTD+housekeeping, in my opinion. The only problem was when I read his case studies of clients he has worked with, I realized that I was actually not bad and that it's other people who are messed up which I currently get from using Facebook.

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I should have known I would get (and I vehemently applaud) some responses like this.
But the one period response above is the winner. Great stuff.

You're missing the point if you have to read about minimalism to incorporate it in your life.

I'll be honest. I don't like minimalism, I think it's valuable in the short run and detrimental in the long run, generally speaking.

Should be more of a pamphlet, really.

Maybe focus/simplification would be better words. But I genuinely enjoy reading this stuff, even if some of it is non-actionable.

You are neck and neck with nafod with regard to terrible judgment

You don't know the half of it.

Then again, I don't know you. So we're even.