7 books - reduced noise

The average person checks their phone 2617 times a day, contributing to consumerism promoted by companies like Amazon. If everyone followed Western consumerism, we would need 5 Earths. Life Unblocked offers a new perspective on living, with 7 books on minimalism. The Minimalist Home by Joshua Becker helps declutter and redefine your lifestyle. Living a Meaningful Life by Joshua Fields Milburn and Ryan Nicodemus focuses on what truly matters. The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo introduces the Konmari Method. Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport helps regain control over digital habits. Goodbye Things by Fumio Sasaki shares the author's journey to extreme minimalism. The One Thing by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan teaches focus and saying no to distractions. Essentialism by Greg McKeown promotes pursuing less but better. These books create awareness and help prioritize what matters. Minimalism can have a positive impact. 7 Books to Adopt a Minimalist Lifestyle Did you know that the average person checks his mobile phone about 2617 times? They unlock it about 150 times a day, that is roughly once in every 10 to 12 minutes. If you picked up the top 10 companies of the world, I am sure that you are able to guess names like Walmart, Samsung, Amazon, Apple among them. The one common thread among all of these companies are that they are looking to release products that can capture your attention and enable consumerism. In fact, Amazon patented their one-click buying process for 1999 days. It gives them the monopoly when it comes to online buying and promotes the culture of impulse buying, where you buy without thinking much about whether you really need the item or not. How many times have you received a package from Amazon and have no recollection of what you were expecting and when you did the purchase? According to the website theworldcounts.com, if all of the world followed the level of consumerism of the western countries, then we need 5 earths to get the resources to sustain this consumerism. Isn't it time we took control back? Isn't it time we became conscious of the damage that our lifestyles and behaviours are causing on the planet? Are we happy to be exploited by these conglomerates that look to whisk away our hard-earned money by tempting us into making these impulse purchases? Welcome to Life Unblocked, a channel where we aim to give you a new perspective about life, including summaries of self-improvement books and tips to improve various aspects of your life. We hope to inspire you one video at a time. In this video, we are going to take a look at Minimalism, a movement that has been rising in the world and providing an alternative to consumerism. It is a way of living life with enough. Here are 7 books that can give you a complete picture of what a minimalist lifestyle is and how to implement that in your daily life. The first book in our list is The Minimalist Home by Joshua Becker. Through this book, Joshua Becker enters every room in your house and questions whether you have only the essential things in your house. If you have excess, Becker urges you to reconsider that purpose and take action. He gives very useful tips about how you can reduce the things in your house, how you can redefine your lifestyle, and most importantly, how to sustain this new lifestyle of less. He gives a step-by-step process of moving your focus away from things and into the moments of life that really matter. He guides you exceptionally well on how to achieve minimalism. Having adopted the minimalist lifestyle despite having 3 young children, Joshua Becker stands as an example for those parents that convince themselves that minimalism is impossible with kids. In fact, he argues that minimalism can be the best gift you can give your kids as it teaches them a set of values and decision-making skills that can help them throughout their life. Book number 2, Living a Meaningful Life by Joshua Fields Milburn and Ryan Nicodemus. Speak to any practitioner of minimalism and they would refer to these two gentlemen that call themselves the minimalists as one of their inspirations. This book covers the life of both Joshua Fields Milburn and Ryan Nicodemus, telling the story of how they adopted minimalism and how this change helped them rediscover the meaning of life. Having been in the thick of a successful and corporate life, both of these friends realized that having money and things are not what gives life a meaning. Through this book, the authors urge you to live a more meaningful life, one in which you focus more on the things that matter. They also borrow the concept popularized by Marie Kondo and ensure that the things that you surround yourself with should give you a lot of joy with techniques like the packing party and tips such as if you can find an item within 20 minutes and by spending less than $20, discard it from your home. This book is filled with practical tips of how to reduce the clutter in your house and in life. Speaking of Marie Kondo, we move on to book number 3, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo. In this book, she introduces the Konmari Method. This method helps you remove all the things that do not give you peace. Moreover, it helps you unearth the magic in your house. Imagine a house where everything that is within the house sparks joy whenever you see or touch them. Wouldn't that be a fantastic place to live in? Book number 4, Cal Newport's book on Digital Minimalism. This book focuses on adopting minimalism in our digital life while initially focusing on the negative effect of our current lifestyle where we are more and more addicted to our phones and the damage it creates on our brains, our bodies and our relationships. This book helps you to gain back control. While the techniques suggested by Cal Newport are a bit extreme such as going on a digital detox for 30 days, I believe that it is a great way to get more awareness going on about our digital habits and start to regulate them. Book number 5, Goodbye Things by Fumio Sasaki. Written by this Japanese author, this book gives you a first-hand recollection of how the author confronts the various social perceptions which lead him to collect excess things in his house. Wanting to be considered as a well-read person, he has a huge collection of books. To be considered a welcoming person, he buys a huge TV and a lounge sofa set. To be looked upon as a cool person, he buys expensive vintage film cameras and uses them as decors to gather dust in his house. Realizing that all of these things make him miserable, he gets rid of them all, embracing an extreme minimalist lifestyle. The best chapter of the book is where he outlines more than 50 different principles and techniques that can give you the guidance and motivation to reduce your things and take up minimalism. Goodbye Things is indeed a great read. Is minimalism only for the house? Can we implement some minimalist principles at our workplace too? Let us look at a couple of books that adopt the principles of minimalism and help you to become more productive at work. Book number 1, The One Thing by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan. As the title says, this book helps you to focus on the most important things that will help you to achieve maximum results with minimum effort and time. It shows you methodologies to decipher the one thing that matters most and helps you to focus on that. The most important takeaway from this book is that we should practice the art of saying no to distractions. In order to focus on one thing, we have to naturally say no to a lot of other things. This sort of hyper-focus will create the most impact in your work and earn the respect of your colleagues. The last book in our list is Essentialism by Greg McKeown. Introducing the concept of essentialism, which means the relentless pursuit of less but better, the author gives three steps to achieve essentialism. 1. Explore and evaluate. As an essentialist, even though we take up less number of tasks, we need to go in-depth into each of the tasks and evaluate your various options. 2. Eliminate. Remove all activities that do not contribute to that task that gives the highest contribution to the goal. 3. Execute. Develop a system to carry out the essential tasks. Do not jump into execution without a plan. This system should be designed in a way that it helps you to stay focused and avoid all other distractions that come your way. In conclusion, you can pick up any of the seven books that have been shared in this video. Even if becoming a minimalist may not be your goal, these books will create an awareness of what matters to you and help you to focus on this rather than expend your energy over a million things that don't. Minimalism, even in small doses, is sure to have a positive impact, wherever it is applied. Hit like if you enjoyed the video and subscribe for more such enlightening content. Thanks for your time and we will see you soon on Life Unblocked!