Book notes: Goodbye, Things by Fumio Sasaki

Goodbye, Things: The New Japanese Minimalism by Fumo Sasaki

Synopsis:

“Fumio Sasaki is not an enlightened minimalism expert or organizing guru like Marie Kondo – he’s just a regular guy who was stressed out and constantly comparing himself to others, until one day he decided to change his life by saying goodbye to everything he didn’t absolutely need. The effects were remarkable: Sasaki gained true freedom, new focus, and a real sense of gratitude for everything around him. In Goodbye, Things Sasaki modestly shares his personal minimalist experience, offering specific tips on the minimizing process and revealing how the new minimalist movement can not only transform your space but truly enrich your life. The benefits of a minimalist life can be realized by anyone, and Sasaki’s humble vision of true happiness will open your eyes to minimalism’s potential.” -Audible

Opening thoughts:

I believe I added this to my list because it was recommende dby Audible and had good reviews. I read the book Essentialism last month so I’m thinking maybe this could be a good follow-up read.

Key notes:

Minimalism:
1. Reducing our necessary items to a minimum
2. Doing away with excess so we can focus on the things that are truly important to us
Minimalist version of this book’s message: there’s happiness in having less, that’s why it’s time to say goodbye to all of our extra things
When you get down to it, we’re all just looking for happiness. The quintessential energy that drives us is the desire to be happy

Chapter 1: Why minimalism?

Everyone started out a minimalist. Our worth is not the sum of our belongings

Chapter 2: Why did we accumulate so much in the first place?

Our self-worth drives our behavior
The problem occurs when we buy things and equate our possessions to value in order to communicate our value to others

Chapter 3: 55 Tips to Help You Say Goodbye to Your Things

Discard the preconception that you can’t discard your things
Discarding something takes skill
- Book reference: The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up
- A week is all the time you need to reduce your possessions
When you discard something, you gain more than you lose
Ask yourself why you can’t part with your things
Minimizing is difficult, but not impossible
There are limits to the capacity of your brain, energy, and time
Discard something right now
There isn’t a single item you’ll regret throwing away
Start with things that are clearly junk. The best way to get used to discarding things is to make it a habit
Minimize anything you have in multiples
Get rid of it if you haven’t used it in a year
Discard it if you have it for the sake of appearance
Differentiate between the things you want and the things you need
Take photos of the items that are hard to part with
It’s easy to revisit your memories when you go digital
Our things are like roommates except we pay the rent
Organizing is not minimizing
Top of the nest, storage, before the pest, clutter
Leave your unused space empty
Let go of the idea of someday
Say goodbye to who you used to be
Discard the things you’ve already forgotten about
Don’t be creative when you’re trying to discard things
Let go of the idea of getting your moneys worth
There’s no need to stock up
Feeling a spark of joy will help you focus
Auction services are a quick way to part with your possessions
Use auctions to take one last look at your things
Use a pick up service to get rid of your possessions
Don’t get hung up on the prices you initially paid
Think of stores as your personal warehouses
The city is our personal floor plan
Discard any possessions that you can’t discuss with passion
- As long as we stick to owning things that we really love, we aren’t likely to want more
If you lost it, would you buy it again?
If you can’t remember how many presents you’ve given, don’t worry about the gifts you’ve gotten
Try to imagine what the person who passed away would’ve wanted
Discarding memorabilia is not the same as discarding memories
Our biggest items trigger chain reactions
Our homes aren’t museums, they don’t need collections
Be social, be a borrower. You can always ask to borrow things that many other people have
- As long as you expressed gratitude, you won’t be a nuisance but maybe even deep in the relationship
Rent what can be rented
- We can start by renting something as a trial, then buy it if you use it a lot and are crazy about it
Social media can boost your minimizing motivation
- We can leverage social media to keep ourselves accountable with our goals
- Sharing can gain encouragement and even help giving away things
What if he started from scratch?
- Reader’s note
  
  : this reminds me of me zero-based budgeting from a book I recently read Essentialism
- This will help make it clear which items are essential
Say see “you later” before you say goodbye
- You can store things away in a place they don’t belong like a garbage bag and see if you can do without them
Discard anything that creates visual noise
One in one out
- One of the golden rules of minimizing: if you want to buy some thing first get rid of another
Avoid the Concorde fallacy
- This refers to the Concorde jet which governments sunk money into, similar to the sunk cost bias
Be quick to admit mistakes. They help you grow
Think of buying as renting
- When you treat items like they are renting, you handle them with more care and then you can recycle them in better condition and you won’t be letting anything go to waste
  - This keeps us humble and allows us to better appreciate them
Don’t buy it because it’s cheap and don’t take it because it’s free
- If you do the math, the value you think you saved or earned when you buy something gets canceled out by the cost of the space it takes up
If it’s not a hell yes, it’s a no
- If you’re wondering about something, it’s probably a sign you should discard it
The things we really need will always find their way back to us
Keep the gratitude
- We should embrace the feelings of gratitude from an item or a gift, not the actual item itself
Discarding things can be wasteful, but the guilt that keeps you from minimizing is the true waste
The things we say goodbye to are the things we will remember forever

15 more tips for the next stage of your minimalist journey

Reader’s note

: Holy f*** there’s more?!

Fewer things does not mean less satisfaction
- We feel greater satisfaction when we own and cherish one irreplaceable item compared to when we own several we aren’t particularly crazy about
Find your unique personal uniform
- Fashion can be fun but chasing trends can be excessive in today’s world
Three we find our originality when we own less
- It’s experience that builds our own unique characteristics, not material objects
Discard it if you thought about doing so five times
If you’ve developed your minimalist skills, you can skip the see you later stage
A little inconvenience can make us happier
- You can
  lower your bar for happiness
  
  by minimizing, which makes it easier to find happiness in all of the extra things
Discard it even if it sparks joy
Minimalism is freedom
- The sooner you experience it, the better
Discarding things will leave you with less, but it will never make you a lesser person
Question the conventional ways you’re expecting to use things
- We can de-clutter surprisingly well if we ignore convention and be creative with our storage and usage of items
Don’t think, discard
- Trust your instincts. The more we think about it, the more our brain will come up with excuses to keep them
Minimalism is not a competition
- Don’t boast about how little you have and don’t judge those who have more than you
The desire to discard and the desire to possess are flip sides of the same coin
Find your own minimalism
- There is no single correct definition for a minimalist. Minimalism is about owning less so that you can focus on what’s important
Minimalism is a method and a beginning

Reader’s note

: Wow this guy really loves lists. For someone who’s all about minimalism, there’s a good amount of fluff in these lists and I feel like they could be condensed a lot. Some points are insightful, and some just seem like quirky or fun talking points that sound cool but have a little impact

Chapter 4: 12 ways I’ve changed since I said goodbye to my things

We save time by not being distracted by marketing and ads for products because we know we already have everything we need

Reader’s note

: I feel like after going through this book, I might be already on the minimalist end of the spectrum, at least in comparison to most of my peers, my community, and society in general. I’m usually very hesitant to buy new things as I take the time and slow down to ask if I really need it. I also don’t really hoard things. Shopping isn’t necessarily fun for me as it is for many other people and I don’t really get hit with shopping ads as much as other people

The qualities he looks for and thinks when he buys are:
1. The item has a minimalist type of shape and easy to clean
2. It’s color isn’t too loud
3. You’ll be able to use it for a long time
4. It has a simple structure
5. It’s lightweight and compact
6. It has multiple uses
Spending less time doing chores and cleaning
Packing and moving can be very quick and easy
Less time spent looking for missing items
Quality time, not quality objects, leads to happiness
Finding time to relax is the ultimate luxury
- Science has proven that relaxed intervals are necessary for us
Less possessions mean you have more time to relax and pursue happiness
- You’ll enjoy life more

Reader’s note

: it seems like the main idea of this book is that the less you on, the less you focus on the material things that you think will make you happy. This will lead to less stress, more time for relaxation, and more time to be happy and enjoy life. Minimalism anddecluttering your life seems to also declutter and clear your mind, thus making you happier

Everyone likes the results of a good house cleaning
There’s no such thing as a lazy personality
He cleans more not because his personality changed, but because he has less things and it’s easier to do so
Making cleaning a habit boosts our confidence and makes us enjoy doing it
Simply by living a more organized life, you’ll be invigorated, more confident, and like yourself better compared to when you stayed in bed the last minute and rushed through everything to get to work
When you like yourself, it can be easier to take on other challenges

“It’s only after we’ve lost everything that were free to do anything”

Tyler Durden from Fight Club

Lower living costs lead to a freer life
Having more things will make you want more, which will trap you in a cycle of greed and want
You’ll no longer compare self with others

“When you realize there’s nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you”

Lao Tzu

If you want to make yourself instantly unhappy, compare yourself to someone else
Experiences resist comparison with others because each experience is different and will lead to longer happiness
- Therefore we should invest our time and money in experiences, not material things
When you stop comparing, you’ll find yourself
- Book reference: The Courage to Be Disliked
Keeping up with appearances only hold us back
- People are less concerned with you or your looks than you think
Minimalists can take risks
Disorganized work areas become a silent to do list and clutter our minds from focusing on what’s important
The happiness of flow
- Book reference: Flow
Fold up your antenna to reduce the amount of information you consume and information overload
He’s observed that there are no overweight minimalists, and people believe that this is an added effect of reducing your things
- He thinks that this helps your chi flow better and help you slim down
Some couples say that fewer possessions helped their relationship because they argued less about things
- Having less things requires less energy and makes you less stressed, which has a positive affect on your relationships
- There will be fewer things to trigger frustration and fiction
It’s important in life to
have relationships where happiness can be shared
- People who have a stronger sense of happiness live longer lives
- The island in Italy where people live long lives is very communal and close knit
We are basically equipped to empathize with others because we feel happy when we are nice to someone
- Because we are social animals that live in packs, we are programmed to
  share happiness when we do something for someone
In general, when you have less things, you’ll have more energy to focus into your interpersonal relationships, which leads to happiness from better connections
Shifting your mindset from needing to hoard things to buying it when you need it will also help you from worrying less about the future
- Worrying about the future is like dreading over the dishes you will wash in the future
Gratitude becomes easier and more possible when you have less things to appreciate and be grateful for

Chapter 5: Feeling happy instead of becoming happy

Our environment only accounts for 10% of our happiness
- This is because we naturally get used to things no matter what our circumstances
50% of our happiness comes form genetics and 40% comes from our actions

Main ideas / Themes:

Benefits of Minimalism

Feeling of
contentment

, not having a need for more material and superfluous things
More
energy and time

to focus on what really leads to happiness: deeper connections/relationships and experiences
Better for your
mental and emotional health

as you’ll feel more relaxed, less stressed, and clear-minded
Becoming
more productive

, less “lazy”, building more discipline
A consistently
cleaner home
Reduced expenses

and living a more economically free life
Caring less about what others think

and not comparing yourself with others
Possibly
lose weight
Better relationships
L
ess worrying

about the future
More
gratitude

Closing thoughts:

Although the book had a lot of fluff and could have been condensed to at least half the length, I thought it was an overall solid book. Good message, good themes/main ideas, and practical tips.

In fact, I decided to take action right away while I was gaining motivation to minimize my own things and ended up cleaning out my room. I must have gotten rid of 1/3 of my things, most of which were just useless clutter. I even went through what was most difficult to sort/discard, which was my pile of sentimental/memorabilia items. These are always hardest to get rid of, but I used my one takeaway to help me part with them.

I think one of the life lessons I learned from reading this book is that sometimes you just need a good book on minimizing/organizing/sorting/tidying to get rid of a lot of your things. I know I had my first major exodus of things after reading Marie Kondo’s book right before I moved into a new apartment, which really helped. This one also helped me sort through, reorganize, and get rid of a lot of things that were taking up physical and mental space for me.

One Takeaway / Putting into practice:

My one takeaway is the thing I used when I was sorting through some of the harder things to get rid of, like all of the small little pieces of memorabilia I’ve collected over the years or the gifts I’ve gotten from others:

Remember that discarding memorabilia is not the same as discarding memories

Some things I discarded were old christmas/birthday/misc celebrations that I kept because it was convenient and to preserve the thoughtful intentions someone had for me when they gave it. But I had to remember that even if I discard the object, it doesn’t take away the experience, the memory, the feelings of gratitude, or the generosity of the other person.

The relationship and what that gift represented is still there. The object played it’s role in conveying the feelings of the other person and I should treasure what it did to me and how it affected me.

However, I still have a small amount of sentimental items, and I’m not sure if or when I’ll ever discard them. I figure if I can keep the amount to a level where I can store in a shoe-box, I won’t feel guilty about the real estate I give it in my life.

Nutshell:

Tips and benefits of living a minimalist life and saying goodbye to most of your things.

Similar books:

Rating:

⭐⭐⭐

3.5/5

Please donate! 🙂

Please consider a small donation to help support my blog ^_^ I love providing free book notes and other content. Any donations help me maintain my website and create content consistently. Thanks everyone for the continued support!

$2.00