Goodbye, Things: The New Japanese Minimalism Kindle Edition

Thank you Fumio for such an enlightening and profound read. I just graduated and have been feeling a sense of urgency for a while to get a good job now I have a good job and to climb corporate ladder, to build intellectual and emotional intelligence, to navigate modern dating, to stay fit and eat healthy and a barrage of other non stop aggressions. Thanks to minimalism and the ideas of this book coupled with spiritual training and meditation I can finally breathe and live in the moment. Things really do block our insights into the space of happiness. You are a great author and excellent teacher. I thank you so much Fumio

A good book to introduce the idea of minimalism in your life, even if you are not considering the lifestyle fully. It makes you think about the value, or lack thereof, of everything around you. Meaningful words.

I've read so many of these books lately. Having inherited boxes of stuff from my parents, I had hoped, based on a friend's recommendation, that this one would inspire me more than it did. Let's not kid ourselves, if you have a lot of stuff, it will take a long time to offload it all and that is a process that requires focus, discipline, rigor, time and support. That is, unless you are someone who is capable of easily letting go (but if you are, you probably don't have a lot of stuff anyway). If you have not read many of these kinds of books, then this one might be great for you. It gives an idea of what can open up for us when we are not spending all of our time and energy shepherding papers and things.It's important that people understand the differences between organizing books and books on reducing your stuff as well as this book which is about minimalism. Organizing books generally offer a little bit of advice on letting go, but mostly how to better store all your stuff. Books on letting go of your stuff, generally advise that you go through things a room at a time and have 3 boxes or bags handy: keep, donate, trash. Minimalism requires discarding with very little keeping. There are lots of reasons to consider minimalism and if that's for you, then try this book out. It is a quick read with handy tips throughout and at the end.

Such a good book. Even if you employ 50% of the advice your life will change. I have gifted this book many times.

I’ve been slowly declutterring for a while, but the habit of buying continues. This book has given me a lot of good advice and insight on my purchasing habits and how I can move beyond consumerism.

Everything in this, if you’ve read books on decluttering and minimalism, read the most popular blogs, this book offers nothing. I wouldn’t say it synthesizes the common suggestions in any useful way either. The author favors stories of depths to illustrate points, and there’s a dash of woo sprinkled in here and there. Like many popular books, studies and other authors are references, but not properly cited to see if that’s what said studies really concluded or not. Not a big deal, just a personal pet peeve of mine. More often than not, “referenced” studies in media rarely say what books mentioning them advertise, so I will need to look more deeply into these claims. For someone unfamiliar with the subject and a beginner, it’s decent. Anyone else, well, no, you’ve read this and you’ve read it better. If anything, the author rides off of other trends and authors as his content. And yes, I can’t say I’m amazed by a bachelor minimalist with a love of expensive gadgets, Apple, and replacing physical clutter with digital clutter instead. Seen it. Brands are frequently mentioned in the other examples too. Don’t buy anything to impress others, right? Yeah, sure. I just don’t buy replacing a laptop with a MacBook Pro and tossing out some expensive clothes for an expensive vacation isn’t still just the same old same old in a new package.The lists were nice, and the most useful portion of the book, as the “journey” portion was dull to me. I think another good portion was about how our possessions can be dangers in natural disasters. This is a pretty big reason to think about minimizing, if even only a little. American households often border on full on hoarding. Hoarders are a danger to themselves because of all their stuff. Is an organized stack of stuff really all That less dangerous if something shakes the house? Something to think about, but also once again, he draws this from another source rather than being his own insight.I’m sure it was a great personal journey for the author, but I think the book would have benefited by either focusing more on the internal journey, which rings hallow for me here; or by focusing more on synthesizing the various material he references and commenting in more depth. I’d read any book he tries writing in the future, as it might have more depth. The main feeling I had while reading this is “you’re onto something there, now go deeper”.

Marie Kondo's books are great, and the idea of "sparks joy" is very appealing - comforting even. But after reading Sasaki's book, the KonMarie method feels like a woobie for someone who refuses to grow up. Sasaki lays (physical product) minimalism bare, and his dictum is more useful to me than Kondo's "sparks joy."“Reducing the number of possessions that you have is not a goal unto itself...minimalism is a method for individuals to find the things that are genuinely important to them. It’s a prologue for crafting your own unique story.”“experience ... builds our unique characteristics, not material objects. So maybe it’s natural that we find our own originality when we strip away all the things that distract us.”“once you are a minimalist who only has what you need, your focus will inevitably shift from others to yourself. Freed from comparing, you’ll start to discover who you truly are.”