Book Review | The Minimalist Home: A Room-By-Room Guide to a Decluttered, Refocused Life

The Minimalist Home: A Room-By-Room Guide to a Decluttered, Refocused Life
by Joshua Becker

Excellent. While Becker goes over quite a bit I wish there was more about the benefits and more about just how to get it done. Details would be very interesting to me as I still struggle with just how much to let go of and how to get the family onboard.

Above is my review from Goodreads right after I finished The Minimalist Home: A Room-By-Room Guide to a Decluttered, Refocused Life. Since reading this I have read more on minimalism, and they all seem to state that if we can model minimalism for our family members then eventually they will see all the benefits, and want to make the transition with us. So far, I have found this minimally successful.

Over the course of an average lifetime, because of all the clutter we live in, we will spend 3,680 hours, or 153 days, searching for misplaced items. Phones, keys, sunglasses, and paperwork top the list.

Joshua Becker

Josh Becker is kinda famous in this minimalist world. He has a great youtube channel and has influenced others to start their own.

Joshua Becker – What is Minimalism

Minimalism is — the removing of unnecessary possessions so we can better live the life we want as a family.

Joshua Becker

In the book among many other things, he discusses the endowment effect, which is the tendency to consider an object more important than it really is simply because we own it. For example, if I have an Anaheim Ducks mug, I may want to keep it, but if I saw the same thing in a store, I wouldn’t want to buy it. If I don’t like it enough to buy it then why do I need to keep this thing?

Never organize what you can discard.

Joshua Becker

I really love this one. How often do we see something in a drawer and just move it aside or look for a way to better organize it, when we really don’t need that thing at all?

You don’t need more space. You need less stuff.

Joshua Becker

Another great point that Joshua makes it all the time we waste watching tv. He states American’s on average watch 35.5 hours of tv a week. That’s almost a full-time job! Think about what you could do with that time, other than earning an extra income.

Another great one, that American family spends $1,700 on clothes annually. Is that really necessary? I mean, I don’t think anyone really cares what I wear? As long as my clothes fit I don’t think I need any more.

In 1930, the average American woman owned nine outfits. In 2015 that figure was 30 outfits–on for every day of the month.

Joshua Becker

Joshua also tackles the hard one, kids’ toys. He states that toddlers with fewer toys focused better and played more creatively.

Another favorite of mine is the garage. Joshua says, for a quarter of Americans the garage is so cluttered that we can’t even fit our cars in them.

How much did you spend on the holidays this year? Joshua estimates that the American family spends about $1,000 for the winter holidays on gifts. How many of those gifts are then donated or simply thrown away?

He just keeps going, I love all these bits of data he throws in to prove his point and I want to read more of his work. I subscribe to his youtube channel and will continue to follow his work. 4 stars for this book. A must read, if you haven’t gotten to it yet.

Book Review | Just Ride: A Radically Practical Guide to Riding Your Bike

Just Ride
Just Ride: A Radically Practical Guide to Riding Your Bike by Grant Petersen

Excellent common-sense advice from someone who knows what they are talking about. Ever wish you could sit down with the bike shop owner for a few hours and pick their brain. This book is your chance. Great advice and makes sense to this Unracer.

Just Ride: A Radically Practical Guide to Riding Your Bike by Grant Petersen introduces us to those people who cycle not to race and not to get faster, but maybe just to get somewhere or to have fun. The recreational cyclist.

There are a lot of very expensive bikes and expensive gear. What Grant seems to set out to do in this book is to tell you that it’s not really needed to have some fun on a bike. Just because you have a bike doesn’t mean that you need to increase your FTP or find your optimal cadence. You can just ride to have fun and that can be enough.

You have way too many gears For all-around riding over a variety of surfaces and terrain, you need eight gears

Grant Petersen

I love this! Another one is to make it easier going up hills Grant suggests just standing up, you don’t have to shift down necessarily. There is nothing wrong with just getting up and letting your body weight on the pedals help propel the bike up the hill.

Look at the land as something to pass through, not to conquer

Grant Petersen

“Your bike will go where your eyes look”. Great advice. Another one he mentions you can turn with your hips, turn your hips in the direction you want to go and you don’t need to turn the handlebars. I’ve tried it and it works.

No matter how much you like it, bike riding shouldn’t be your only exercise. Ride your bike half of the time, then work the muscles that bike riding doesn’t

Grant Petersen

I highlight the quote above because I am guilty of this. I do add in yoga but really only so I can ride more without such stiff hips.

Just ride is a great book that reminds us that riding a bike doesn’t have to be complicated, expensive, or hard….just ride.

Book Review | The Joyful Vegan

The Joyful Vegan
The Joyful Vegan by Colleen Patrick-Goudreau

I first discovered Colleen through her podcast. Her podcast is very popular and it came up when searching for vegan. Through the podcast, I learned that she has also written some cookbooks. In the book, she tells us that she is giving the animals a voice through her work on the podcast, cookbooks and she also does virtual vegan cooking lessons through her website for a charge.

In the book, The Joyful Vegan Colleen walks us through the stages of becoming vegan and helps us understand that it is really all about compassion. Compassion to all beings, not just the animals. As anyone who is vegan knows we get a lot of questions and most people think veganism is extreme. Colleen reminds us all that we were once meat-eating folks ourselves and we all awaken in our own time. Be patient with those asking questions and making comments about our new lifestyle as we were once like them.

If you are so moved she also lays out what you can do to help be a voice for the animals by being an advocate. The book is well laid out and Colleen writes well. I wish I would have read this book sooner as it helps remind us that compassion is really about humanitarianism not just for the animals but for all people. By being good to the animals we will be good for the people as well.