The 3 principles I used to free myself from excess stuff without making it a burden on the planet — Moving house is one of the rare occasions in life when we are brought face to face with the reality of all our belongings — right down to the contents of the bottom kitchen drawer. After a few days of wrapping Ikea glasses and packing boxes, I was ready to…

It’s not about where you go, but what you leave behind — It is a truism that travel broadens your horizons. Like most truisms, it is only partly true. Yes, travel expands your world, but it does so by shrinking it. I was reminded of this delicious paradox recently when I did something I hadn’t done in a very long time: checked…

How to shop from the trove of things that are already around you — Every year around the middle of December, I become convinced that I haven’t done enough for Christmas. This is, of course, nonsense. …

Here are 3 changes you can make right now — Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus call themselves “The Minimalists.” They have been featured on practically every major network in America talking about how people can improve their lives by reducing the amount of stuff they have. I am not a minimalist (by any stretch of the imagination), but after…

How the urge to simplify becomes more things to buy — Maybe it started with the iconoclastic act of throwing tea off the boat in Boston Harbor, or perhaps with the misperception that North America was simply a blank space before the pilgrims came from England and the pioneers headed West. …

You don’t have to live out of a backpack or move into a tiny house to experience the joys of a minimalist mindset — Minimalism seems to have become a race to own the least. Have you gotten rid of 40 bags of stuff in 40 days, or 5,000 things in a year, or whittled down your life’s belongings until everything could fit into a miniature house? In an essay on Boing Boing, the…

A strategy for clearing your home of literary clutter — For many of us, books are harder to part with than other objects. Even people who are not regular book readers have this issue. …