3 shirts, 4 pairs of trousers, meet Japans hardcore minimalists

i definitely run into this problem. i need that _one_ envelope. do i really want to buy 50 to shove the rest into a drawer?

Before buying anything, I ask myself "do I really need it? can I live without it?". After living in 12 different places, I was gradually leaving a lot of stuff behind, and I became kind of minimalist in the process, being aware of how much unnecessary extra baggage you carry on your shoulders.

I also think that a minimalist way of life doesn't refer only to things, but also to immaterial stuff like extra fees, subscriptions, debts, mortgages, utility bills, etc. They all add weight to that baggage.

You could combine individual minimalism with communal sharing of seldom-used stuff. I hope technology will make this a little easier as time goes on, if only to combat loneliness in many parts of society.

Nail trimmers can live in your bathroom shelf with your soap and shampoo. Then you only need toilet paper, which should be easy to store in any bathroom.

If you need formal shoes often then storing single extra pair (assuming you just have summer and winter shoes, one pair each) isn't a big deal, but more often than not you need formal shoes so rarely that you might as well rent them for the occasion.

Main idea is to get rid of the stuff that doesn't matter and keep only the stuff that does matter and you get use out of. Sure at the moment sink plunger might not give you joy as a thing, but it sure does when your sink clogs.

Everything in the trunk is stuff that could be replaced cheaply with 30m at a supermarket.

And how many times have you used your sink plunger? It depends on your situation, but one of the tenants of this lifestyle is that you don't actually have to be prepared for that time where you'll need 2 50-foot ethernet cables.

I don't think the sink plunger or toileteries are the target so much as that box you have in your office filled with USB cables. Or your cup full of 19 different pens (12 of which only half-work).

I think the cloud imagery is such a good example too. You have your plunger next to the toilet, but I bet you stuck 4 or 5 other things down there too (some spare parts from installing the toilet seats?)

The way I follow it is that if there's a decent obvious place for something it's a lot less costly for me to hold onto it (like the suit) than for random crap that I "kinda think" I need to keep. And constant re-evaluation of this. If you're diligent and re-evaluating it constantly you should almost never have a "cloud" of things stacked up in a corner.

The garbage? Sure it's wasteful, but if true minimalism brings you happiness then it might be worth it.

There's a hint that this might be rather like how some alcoholics have to throw away all their booze and refuse to ever have any in the house as a necessary step to recovering from addiction. People describe having an unhealthy relationship with their "stuff" and then take drastic action to end that relationship almost completely.

It's only really possible for single, childless people, but I think it's only easy to get into that bad stuff-relationship if you're living by yourself. Otherwise the stuff-relationship is subordinated to the person-relationship, and some balance is achieved somehow. Possibly through daily minor arguments.

For me, it seems unconscionable as I don't have a vivid enough memory to live without artefacts to remind me. What does the minimalist do if you give them a present? Do they feel themselves obliged to throw it away or at least re-gift it? Have they not been through the social ritual of being obliged to wear the sweater / display the item they were given lest it be a snub? Or is that what they're trying to get away from?

(I don't know whether this is official KonMari)

It's allowed to be there, but you don't think of it as a possession: you think of it as disposable. If you need those things when e.g. you're traveling, you buy them there and leave them behind or throw them away. Same thing if you move house. If you lose them you don't worry about it - when you need them you'll buy them. If you end up buying two or three, you don't worry about that either.

> And this is what I didn't get about the KonMari method either: a formal suit doesn't "bring me joy" any more than a sink plunger, but both are necessary.

If you're talking about a suit you wear every day for work that doesn't bring you joy you should try to find a job where you don't need to wear it. If you're talking about having a suit occasionally for weddings or the like it's much better to hire one when you need it - no need to store it, no need to arrange cleaning it, no need to worry about whether it still fits when you dig it out of the cupboard.

You can buy a plunger when you need one - we're talking about maybe $5 every two years.

I just finished reading KonMari. I move a lot for work and wanted some inspiration for cutting down the cruft that I've been hauling around over the last decade.

The minimalist idea runs very contrary to how I was raised in a rural community on the plains. The attitude was that you needed to always be prepared. Which meant keeping spares and extras for anything that you might need. Stockpile food, because a blizzard could delay the trucks and the grocery shelves run bare. Keep a water buffalo or at least several 10 gallon drums of potable water stored in the house because the pump on the well might go out or the well might go dry. Always be prepared for having to go without electricity. Keep several gallons of extra gasoline handy. Keep spares for tools or anything that might break down because you don't want to end up driving 100+ miles to the city to get a replacement (Amazon Prime though has done me a world of service).

I wonder if this article got slashed to the minimum by the editor because I'm actually really intrigued by what things he finds essential and why. But there is nothing in the article other than to assert that this is a growing trend.

Disclosure: When I moved to Japan I gave up all my possessions (either sold or gave away) and at the age of 39 owned only what would fit in my backpack. I've slowly accumulated more, but I keep fighting to keep it as small as possible. I only need 2 pairs of trousers because I work from home ;-)

Please note that I'm not saying this in order to mock you. I'm genuinely interested (and practice to some extent, though nowhere close to you) in minimalist living and saving money.

Maybe a friend buys a welder you could borrow, before you yourself need to use it. What if you need to unexpectedly fix a different problem? (roofing, tiling, etc...) Could you need another tool instead that you hadn't planned for?

I group tools with things like PC hardware, into "under $20", "~$50", "~$100", "~$250" and "~$500". I normally have $500(AUD) set aside for my next project (rather than a collection of tools of similar value), so its always there when I actually need something specific.

I've started working on a hardware MIDI controller with my little brother, so spent around $250(AUD) one afternoon on a soldering iron, arduino, book and a few bits and pieces (buttons, pots, LEDs). I avoided huge packs of LEDs, Resistors, etc... and just bought a few I knew I'd need (10k resistors for the buttons, etc...).

Anything left over, I'll donate or leave with him. If I don't have another HW project, I'll probably give him the soldering iron and multimeter too. Plus, I'll know who to ask first if I need to borrow one in the future ;)

I probably cost myself an additional $100 on this project, but I don't have to pay for a shed, or 'spare room' (like most of my friends have) to store various things, so it probably evens out over time.

You're assuming he washes his clothes on a washing machine

For example someone invites you on a hike but you can't fit decent hiking boots in your two suitcases. Or someone invites you to a semi-formal dinner but you can't fit a proper evening jacket in there.

You can't even hire boots as they need to broken in.

Items don't make the man. The man makes the items.

I'm now back in London and after two weeks I have bought at least three small suitcases worth of new things. It's amazing how quickly things pile up. Once I had the space I started accumulating possessions. I go into shops and come out with things I didn't know I needed.

The only part they got right was getting rid of the items that don't serve you.

The part they got wrong was enforcing the behaviors that don't serve you. No true man (yes yes, no true scotsman argument, I'm aware of the fallacy, just stick with me on this) is served by being a "herbivore" or whatever term Japan uses for their men.

If you look at productivity and creativity rates among men, men that spend significant time on self improvement (eating right, including meat; exercising, including cardio and weight training; meditation and focusing on the now (instead of the irrelevant bullshit the Universe throws at us on a constant basis)) tend to perform much better at any given task.

Japanese men are typically critically devoid of ego, in the sense that they have no personal value, and often commit suicide once they realize they have no value and no one would miss them.

Too many Japanese men go to work every day, and celebrate working themselves to death, as if this is a worthy goal. If you go to work every day, you are living your life wrong. Every day, you should be focused on things that work for you, not against you.

If you have to drag yourself to work every day, you are working at the wrong job. Japan has made doing this a core principal of their culture, and its killing them, and may actually be one of the driving components behind the lost decade.

The reason fertility rates are collapsing, and lots of Japanese women aren't even having sex at all, let alone dating or marrying, is because herbivore men are not sexy. They just aren't. They want big strong men to lead in the bedroom (I'm not even being sexist, there has been studies in Japan about this), and Herbivore men are the exact opposite of that.

Genetically, women are predisposed to want to mate with what we, of the western world, have generally called "manly men": beards, muscles, a certain musky scent, a certain way of unapologetically taking what they want, all signs of health and sexual maturity in ancient man. Japanese men show none of these traits, and are androgenous as fuck.

I'm not saying half the shit the Silicon Valley culture is doing is any better, but it isn't nearly as toxic as what Japan does sometimes.

Don't want the US to turn out like Japan? Go put yourself first, take care of yourself, and enjoy every minute of your life. Do what you find important in life, don't work at a job just because bills need to be paid.