Do Less (15 page)

The easiest way is not to return that next phone call or to decline an invitation to meet up by e-mail. After a few missed connections, the friendship will eventually peter out. If you want a swifter approach, muster some courage, remind yourself that this is for the good of both parties, and sit down with your friend for a candid conversation. The same rules that apply to breaking up a romance—empathy and discretion—apply to breaking up a friendship. It's best not to bring a list of grievances, but rather tell the person you're not the best fit for each other and it is time to move on. If you think a public place will steer the conversation and reactions toward the lighter side, meet in a coffee shop. If you expect tears or worse, it might be best to meet privately. This decisive end to a friendship can be painful, but you will be rewarded with a clean and fast break.

You may feel some guilt at letting go of negative people, but you shouldn't. Friendships are supposed to be mutually beneficial relationships. If neither party is benefiting in a positive way, then it is time to move on. To have meaningful relationships you have to be selective about whom and what you give your time to. To be a good friend to five people, you may need to let go of friendships with three other people. You let those friendships go so that those people can move on and give more, and get more, from the friends they have.

It's said that we are the sum of the five people we spend the most time with. This is a sobering thought if you have relationships that are on the edge of toxic, or if you have friends that you've outgrown or moved on from. Think carefully about your list of closest confidants and friends. Are they positive people? Do they uplift you? Do you do the same for them? Are they supportive and encouraging, or negative? If you are the sum of the people you spend the most time with, what does that equal?

You can be friendly to anyone, but you can't be friends with everyone. Limit your personal social media connections. If you can truly only remember 150 people, why do you have exponentially more connections than that on social media websites? Why are you reading status updates and looking at photos of people you would never invite over to dinner? It's so tempting to think more is better, when in fact more complicates your life. When you have too many friends to keep up with, you can't build or even maintain your most important relationships.

Cull your personal social media connections. Don't say yes to every request or add every old classmate or coworker. If you feel that you can't remove the connection, then simply block the person's feed. When you're just checking social media once a day (or less) you don't want it clogged with the updates of people you don't see regularly.

Surround yourself with good people in real life and online. If you haven't quite found all those good people yet, be patient. As you find more time for things you enjoy and that give back to you and others, you'll start meeting these people. You may already know some of them but haven't quite made the leap to friendship yet. Be patient and keep your eyes open.

Remember when business cards simply had a telephone number and address below a name and title? Today you have three different phone numbers, at least one e-mail address, a Twitter account, Instagram, and maybe even your own website. There are multiple ways to contact you, and you are inundated not only with information but with having to check all these accounts and be available on them.

Turn them off. Disconnect. Make yourself unavailable. Being available and online in seven different places at all hours of the day is the hallmark of the new millennium, and it has made us neither more productive nor happier. In fact, all this availability has only increased our busywork and led to more procrastination and less-meaningful connections. Fight it. Restrict your availability. For personal accounts, decide on an hour of the day, or even a day of the week, to check them and stick to that routine.

While you're at it, reconsider what being unavailable means. When you're unavailable it's because you are doing something so engaging that you don't want to, or need to, stop to update your status or send a photo. When you're unavailable, it means you're truly engaged in what you're doing. You are living life fully. That's worth so much more than responding immediately to a text message.

It's tempting to use “what if” reasoning to leave your cell phone on and close at hand and to check your e-mail and other online accounts multiple times a day, or even multiple times an hour. What if someone invites me to something? What if there is an emergency? What about that news I am waiting on? “What if” scenarios give us the excuses we need to stay connected and be available all the time.

The problem is that these “what if” scenarios don't leave you time to actually do the work you want to do. You are so busy being available, answering every nonurgent phone call and e-mail and text message, that you can't focus on the important tasks at hand. You can't focus on the things that bring contentment and happiness in the short, medium, and long term. Cleaning the kitchen is interrupted by a query from a friend to meet up or borrow camping gear. You're delayed leaving for work because you got sucked into someone's gossipy status update. A phone call comes in just as you were leaving for a run and answering it steals your motivation to run. Was any phone call, text, or status update critical to you? Did any one require you to drop anything you were doing to help with a true emergency? No.

Rethink what's important information for your life. We so often let our quiet and joyous times be interrupted by the most inconsequential of news. We let that expensive meal out or that Saturday morning sleep-in be stolen or tarnished by our smartphones. Using minimalism to simplify your life can bring many changes and one them is valuing your own time and attention more. Your time is valuable, so be deliberate and thoughtful about what and whom you give it to.

You will be notified of a true emergency even if your cell phone is turned off and you haven't checked in online for twenty-four hours. In a true emergency, someone will come to your house or call your family or friends to contact you—just like in the old days. Our “what if” reasoning is flawed and we use it as an excuse to compulsively be online and available. “What if” is often a crutch for us because we fear that we might be missing out on something.

All these avenues for interaction and being online anywhere at any time have led to a very real disorder called Fear of Missing Out (FOMO). Someone who suffers from FOMO obsessively checks e-mail and social media accounts because he is worried about not being in the know or missing an invitation. He can't enjoy where he is or the people around him because, through social media, he knows there are other parties or events happening that he is missing. This disorder can be so severe that it leads to depression.

FOMO can also show up in more innocuous forms. Perhaps you see photos online from a friend's vacation and feel bad that you haven't taken a vacation in a while. Sometimes you will even hear that an event or gathering is happening while you're at another social event and regret where you are. You're so fixated on this other activity or event that's happening that you can't enjoy your own activity. The dinner party that you were looking forward to is ruined.

Another side effect of FOMO: you can't commit to social plans far in advance. You deliberate about saying yes or making hard and fast plans for the future because you're worried that a better opportunity might show up. Although cell phones have been fantastic for last-minute gatherings, they have been anathema to last-minute regrets. Do you hide behind a text message and break plans when they end up not suiting your day or because a better invitation comes along?

If you have mild FOMO, if you're often worried that a friend is doing something more exciting than you are or that you've been left off the invite list, try to let go of the constant checking in and updating. Make plans in advance and when you're at an event, turn your phone off. Wean yourself from constant social media check-ins and updates. Put some barriers up if you need to. Ask a friend to hold your cell phone for you. Eventually, leave it at home. Focus on your own plans and aim to be in the moment more. Engage in the places and people around you. You can't fear that you are missing out on something if you are fully enjoying where you're at now.

Minimalists shop a lot less than other people and with more thought. If you are scared that this life of less means never visiting a mall again, you're wrong. In fact, shopping will be more enjoyable and satisfying than any unplanned shopping spree you've ever had. The secret is very simple: Buy less but buy better.

If you're someone with a closetful of clothes and nothing to wear or a home filled with knickknacks and housewares, none of which bring you joy, your new approach to buying things will feel like a lottery win. Instead of cruising the mall looking for something that speaks to you, something on sale, or an of-the-moment style, you will plan your shopping in advance.

• If you've created a Thirty-Day Buy List, as suggested earlier in the book, you'll know when it is time to hit the mall.
  
• Before you even step foot in a store you will have narrowed down your purchases to a few makes, models, or colors.
  
• Because you have planned for this purchase and waited for this purchase and because you now know, after purging your home and closets of a lot of things you never used and spent a lot of money on, that quality is worth the investment, you will finally be able to buy those things that cost a bit more but last a lot longer. There will be no guilt about the purchase because it was planned and budgeted for.
  
• You won't have to hide anything from your spouse, and you won't have to keep the tags on because it was an impulse buy and you're not sure if it works with anything in your closet.
  

Much of what we buy today isn't made to last a lifetime. In fact, much of what we buy today is meant to break or wear out long before we're done using it. This is called planned obsolescence. Manufacturers build things to wear out after a set amount of use so that you will buy another newer version of the same product. In some cases, this planned obsolescence is designed to correspond to the changing nature of tastes and fashions, but it is also a built-in way for producers to sell more.

If you've ever been disappointed when a computer stopped working well after a few years or your winter coat only got a few seasons' use before the lining ripped, you are not alone. Most of what we buy now is only meant to last a few years under ordinary wear. By contrast, in the early 1900s, consumer products were meant to last almost a lifetime. Clothing was designed to be altered as styles or the owner's shape changed. Fabric was durable and long-lasting and shoes were reheeled and resoled many times. In the 1920s and 1930s, in an effort to end the Great Depression, manufacturers began building things with shorter life spans to get consumers to buy more and stimulate the economy. Today, planned obsolescence is the norm for most goods, from furniture to work suits.

The solution to these cheap and fast goods is to hunt down quality items that will last longer and can be repaired. Just like when you built your capsule wardrobe, look for classic styles from quality manufacturers:

• Invest in a car from a reputable automaker with a history of vehicle longevity.
  
• Buy dishes that are timeless in design.
  
• Get fitted for two excellent bras, one black and one nude, wash them by hand, and get three to five years of use out of them instead of one or two.
  

Be patient when you do have to buy something and wait until you have found something that will do the job, that you like, and that will last.

Buying fewer things of better quality is a long-term strategy for reducing clutter—and it saves money. Think repair instead of replace and recycle instead of throw away.

We see as many as 5,000 advertisements in a day. Television, newspapers, websites, and billboards are all vying for our attention to sell us something. No wonder we find it hard to resist shopping and wanting more stuff when we get messages to buy things thousands of times a day. And that's just from traditional advertisers. What about our friends and peers showing off a new purchase or modeling a new outfit? There is so much pressure in our lives to buy more things and upgrade every little gadget we own. It's another reason our lives are cluttered with things we don't need or use.

One way to live a simpler and easier life: stop wanting so much stuff. This is no easy feat with all the advertising you see, but there are ways to help you want less without feeling deprived. For example, keep track of when you have an impulse to buy something and try to locate the source of your want. Did you see a magazine ad for a car or did a friend show up with a new pair of running shoes? Are you under some other stress and it's making you pine for a kitchen remodel? Think about the reasons you really want something. Often your wants have little to do with practical needs and everything to do with stress or envy.

To stop wanting more you need to put up some barriers to your triggers. If auto magazines have you frequenting car dealerships and leave you dissatisfied with your own very suitable automobile, stop reading the magazines. If you know that watching a home-makeover show makes you feel unhappy with your living room and envious of the designer interiors, stop watching that television show. You have a choice: You can let those advertisements and triggers make you want more, or you can put on your blinders and continue to enjoy your life with what you have.

Another technique for getting over wanting more is to cherish what you have. That goes for both the physical stuff and the things you can't buy. Treasure your good health, your close friends, the roof overhead, and the food in the refrigerator. When you remember everything you do have it's easier to see that you don't need more stuff cluttering your life.