JobsWorth

JobsWorth: OVERTIME- Is Minimalism For Me?

• John Hawker • Season 1

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Craving a life less ordinary? Imagine a lifestyle not defined by possessions but by intention and simplicity. This promise is at the heart of our conversation with special guest Charlie Brown. Together, we break down the misconceptions surrounding minimalism and offer a fresh perspective on this intriguing lifestyle. Charlie opens up about her own minimalist journey, offering a counterpoint to societal pressures and proving that minimalism is not a privilege, but a choice.

We venture into our own experiences with minimalism, recounting the challenges and rewards of letting go and living unconventionally. From the pressures of societal norms to the joys of decluttering, we examine the essence of a minimalist lifestyle. In this episode, we'll share practical advice and personal anecdotes – a survival guide of sorts for those ready to tread the minimalist path. So, tune in as we redefine success and fulfillment, and prepare to be inspired.

You can find Charlie’s musings on minimalism and much more here:
https://simpleandstraightforward.substack.com/

https://charlie-brown.medium.com/

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John Hawker:

Jobs worth over time is minimalism for me?

Charlie Brown:

I think that was when we really actually found the movement, and it wasn't because we had so much, it was because we didn't have enough. There was a point when we had £300 to live on for a month. So once we paid rent and bills and everything like that, our discretion we spent was £300. That was the month that I was like I think we're going to really need to cut back. And I found this sort of thing called the Minimalists online and the first thing they said was the biggest way to get a pay rise is to not spend so much.

John Hawker:

Welcome to another edition of Jobs Worth Over Time, a shorter podcast episode where one of my previous guests shares tips, insights and advice on a specific topic. Following a huge amount of interest around minimalism, after my conversation with digital nomads Charlie and Sam Brown, I invited Charlie back on to tell us more about her experience of finding minimalism, the challenges she faced when transitioning to a minimalist lifestyle, the common misconceptions about the term and her tips for those just starting out on their journey. Whether you're after actionable advice or simply curious about the practicalities of adopting a more simplistic way of living, the next 30 minutes will leave you with plenty to think about. Cheers for coming back on and agreeing to do this. So many people were left asking me questions or just raising the point around, wanting to learn more about minimalism. So can you give me a definition and it doesn't have to be the dictionary definition of what minimalism is? So can you describe what it is in your context, what your definition is?

Charlie Brown:

The way I see minimalism is a structure upon which you build a life, the structure being very intentional, with not only what you own, but what you don't own, also what you do, how you spend your time, and trying to bring it down a little bit from what we have become to think of as normal. Normal tends to be bigger, the better. Buy more stuff, always be getting bigger houses, bigger cars, bigger everything, and it's kind of saying hang on a minute, is that really where we should be as human beings? Is that really where we're going to find satisfaction and feel contentment, or is it going to be if we go a little bit lower down? So that's a very roundabout way of saying it.

John Hawker:

I think it's perfect, though. I think it's perfect and it's probably the most concise way that you can do it when you put on the spot and ask for a definition, and it resonates One of the things that came into my head then. As you were saying, is there a certain point that you have to reach in life, in that I call it like ladder theory, this drive, this sort of societal pressure that we have to force us up the next rung, the next rung, the next rung whether that's bigger house, bigger car, more things, a higher paid job, whatever that is Do you have to hit a certain level before you're forced to think I need to reverse a bit? Is it a privileged position to be in almost to get to that point and say now I need to take a step back? What's your view on that? That's just something that came into my head when you were describing it.

Charlie Brown:

So I think it's different for everybody. I definitely don't think that you have to be privileged to be a minimalist, even though I know I appreciate that that's a big criticism against the movement. So for me I would say it was completely the opposite. The reason I found minimalism was not because I had got so far that I was like, oh no, I need to reduce. It was because I didn't have enough to be able to live a decent life.

Charlie Brown:

I think it's probably the best way of putting it. So, like when I started, I didn't have a career, which was bothering me because I was 28. I hadn't managed to find anything that worked in my career. I was earning no money, and then we started the shots are shot being a very wine shop, which only really happened because we started minimalism a little bit before that. But we didn't know that that's what we would do. We didn't think about the fact that we were. We were cutting stuff down because we had a bigger purpose in life, which was to open the store.

Charlie Brown:

Once we opened the store, we had no money because when you start businesses like that, you have no money. I think that was when we really actually found sort of the movement. I mean, my husband found movement of minimalism and it wasn't because we had so much, it was because we didn't have enough. There was a point when we had 300 pounds to live on for a month. So once we paid rent and bills and everything like that, our discretion we spent was 300 pounds. That was the month that I was like I think we're gonna really need to cut back. And I found this sort of thing called the Minimalists online and the first thing they said was the biggest way to get a pay rise is to not spend so much.

John Hawker:

And I was like, well, if there's any month that this is going to work it's gonna be this month and that's when we started.

Charlie Brown:

So it really started from a point of necessity, not from a we have too much, we need to. But some people definitely do do that. They definitely get to a point where it's overwhelming and it's too much. We started from nothing Understood.

John Hawker:

It sounded as you've described it there, that the journey towards that more minimalist way of living had already started without the minimalism label attached to it. And then, by going down that rabbit hole, as a lot of us do in any given topic, you start to learn about the pros and that that might be a way of living that aligns with how you wanna do it moving forward, but based on, as you say, necessity, which is interesting. I'm gonna be really honest. I was, my interest was piqued about minimalism during our conversation and I'm probably in that former camp in that I feel like I have been stuck on the ladder, just pushing for more, pushing for more, and then the pandemic did a number on me completely, where I was just forced to reset and I think it did for a lot of people but forced to reset and think about what was important and the words you gave me last time we spoke, which is intentional I absolutely loved it Just wanting to be more intentional about the way I was living, and a lot of that is down to, or plays a part in, how I'm spending money, the material possessions I've got. So I am probably a little bit more in that former camp. I've got no shame admitting that. Maybe it's nice that we're sort of occupying both ends of the spectrum there to a degree.

John Hawker:

I guess it does become necessity, though. If you really commit to it enough. It is necessity that you're doing it for. Okay, thank you for that, cause it's interesting to know the genesis and how you came across it in the first place. What were some of the biggest challenges? I mean, it sounds like you were living with the challenges there, which is how you're making 300 pound last for the course of a month, but when you said right, we are now going to adopt more of a minimalistic way of living. What were some of the biggest challenges that you faced, charlie?

Charlie Brown:

So I think for a lot of people they worry about the getting rid of the stuff. How do you get rid of the stuff you know, or how do you avoid acquiring more stuff? And there are definitely ways you can do that. For me, that wasn't actually the biggest challenge. For some reason, I like throwing away stuff.

Charlie Brown:

I don't know, like I think, once you start getting used to doing it and you're throwing away the right stuff, I really enjoyed that because it gave me like a sense of clarity and like a sense of I get very anxious when there's a lot of stuff in the house anyway, so that wasn't really a problem. The biggest problem with adopting a minimalist lifestyle, I think, is the social pressure to not so I think that you get an awful lot of pressure from, yes, friends and family. Sometimes I've heard stories of you know people's families being really, really anti it because it's seen as not ambitious, it's seen as I, if you're saying, well, I'm not going to continue to go up the ladder for the sake of, I'm not going to buy the new car, the new house, I'm not going to get the promotion Because everything becomes you know you need to earn more money, but a promotion might not be right for everybody.

Charlie Brown:

And that social pressure is really, really difficult. Because I always say like you have to have like a fuck you attitude if you're going to adopt this, because you're going to come across so much stuff, and not just from your immediate peak family, but from like the world from society, from what you read online, from Instagram, from TikTok, from even you're like watching films on TV or watching programs on TV.

Charlie Brown:

you know all this stuff. Everything is based around the idea that you're always going up and you're always getting bigger and better. Bigger is better. That social pressure, I think, is the biggest challenge and it's always the biggest challenge. So, me being 39 years old, my husband Sam's 41,. We live in a one bedroom apartment and we rent it.

Charlie Brown:

For a lot of people that's unthinkable as being successful, whereas for me that's completely intentional. To live in a one bedroom apartment and renting is completely intentional Because that gives us a life that we want, that gives us the force of the life that we want. But social pressure says that's not a life. This is especially case in places like America, like the UK, like Australia. It's much less here I'm in Porto now it's much less in Europe.

Charlie Brown:

You know, people don't always buy the next big car for instance here you know that sort of thing, but in the UK the pressure was huge and we felt it everywhere.

John Hawker:

I'm gonna go out and just stretch that slightly further Again, the pocket of the UK that you know I currently live in. I feel like there's even more of a magnifying glass there as well, so I completely understand that.

Charlie Brown:

And then I think that pressure is always there. There's always that idea that you need to get out of that, that you need to become more successful, but the problem is it's creating success with big completely agree and actually sometimes, by the time, you've realized that what you've been doing is just chasing something bigger.

John Hawker:

You've I don't know, a crude 10 years of your life and you're looking back at it, going what was I doing it all for? And that's where I really started to embrace, on the back of our conversation, that word intentional. Are you living intentionally? Are you doing something knowing that there's a goal there, or doing something that supports the way you want to live your life? Half the battle is having the time to take a step back and think are you living life in the way you want to live it, rather than just Getting swept up in this, this current and then these societal pressures?

John Hawker:

I think we've kind of touched on some of the misconceptions that people have, because we definitely brought it up about the Misconceptions around the term digital nomad when we had the last conversation. I think we've touched upon some of the common misconceptions about minimalism proliferated, I think, in a big way by a term that you've coined Small. Is this right? So the social media abetted lightweight living? So is it? Is this the way? And I've read one of your articles which is why I can reference that. Can you talk to me in a bit more detail about that. So this is really, I guess, focused on the, I guess the light that social media shines on minimalism and kind of giving this this wrong perception of it, do you think?

Charlie Brown:

so I really wrote that piece when I was getting quite annoyed by Looking online about minimalism and finally it was all quite surface levels the problem with social media is it makes everything very Small, it makes everything very lightweight.

Charlie Brown:

It doesn't often dig in, and I think with minimalism, one of the problems with that is that people show aesthetics and this is a talking about misconception. This is a big misconception that minimalism is really about aesthetics. It's about having white walls and it's about having very little in your house, and I think it comes back to the idea that minimalism is deprivation and it's not deprivation, it's abundance, but it's just abundance of certain things.

Charlie Brown:

But, that's not what social media shows and that's not what a lot of minimalism writing shows. And this is this is why I wrote that that particular piece, because I was just getting irritated by by just seeing the same thing a day in, day out about what minimalism is, which is just throwing stuff away when it's not. There's so much more to it than that. I think that's one of those misconceptions that people have interesting, isn't it as well?

John Hawker:

because if we talk about a platform like Instagram and how that might reflect minimalism, I guess there's only so many ways you can do it. One of the strongest images that you can put up there is something that's sparse or white or that is scant and Nothing there, and that definitely builds this perception that it is a life lacking a number of elements rather than, as you say, life of abundance.

Charlie Brown:

And I think it doesn't really reflect Most people's journeys through this either.

John Hawker:

Yeah, going back to the point you said there about kind of you think about minimalism and then you've got these images of white walls. It always for me it was that kind of very sparse gallery with, for some reason, like one picture hung on a white wall, and that's always the, the imagery it kind of evokes in in my mind, or did before I started doing a bit of reading, primarily instigated by your writing as well. The picture is definitely changing, but I think for a lot of people they probably have us the same thing that pops up in their mind.

Charlie Brown:

I think there's a real problem that minimalism comes from an art movement. There's a problem with the word, really. I mean really, though. Should we should change the word? It was always coined by art, so it was meant to be this idea of a very sparse thing. Then it was coined by movement, which is now what we would think of as minimalism. There's definitely should be a better word, although I don't know what it is, and it's so much easier. So, if you want people to understand what you do, then you say minimalism, but then it comes with so much baggage, so it's a bit of a problem really.

John Hawker:

Can I ask how much does the kind of environmental impact or sustainability? Has that shaped the way that you continue to adopt that lifestyle?

Charlie Brown:

Yeah, 100%. I think that was a really big key thing at the beginning. I didn't want to contribute any more than I had to. There is an argument that we can't do that much because it's things like power plants and big business that is fueling things like climate change. But that's only being fueled because we buy stuff. Really or we buy too much stuff.

Charlie Brown:

And also it's about wanting to feel okay with what you do as well and feeling like you are contributing. So I definitely thought about that. The biggest time I thought about that environmental impact was when I got rid of all my stuff. In the UK, A lot of people don't always think about the sort of life cycle of a product, and particularly the end bit. So you buy something, but what are you going to do when you need to get rid of that thing? And when we left the UK, I was faced with that because I had to get rid of everything very, very quickly and suddenly you're really aware about how every little thing you've ever bought what's going to happen to it at the end? Is it going to go to landfill?

John Hawker:

which isn't great.

Charlie Brown:

Is it going to get donated but never really used anyway? Where's it going to go? And that really bothered me and that still bothers me and it still defines how much I buy now. Even now I'm not buying a lot of stuff because I'm like, well, what happens when I finally want to get rid of it again? And I will, because we intend to stay imported for a bit, but eventually I know we're going to continue our travels. It's getting rid of everything again. So I think that end life cycle is really important. I was also really aware of it with things like transportation. So now I don't own a car, I don't need to own a car. I live in the middle of a big city. It's very liberating to not have a car. I'm very happy with that because it means I'm not contributing to that side. We had one car.

John Hawker:

Sam bought it.

Charlie Brown:

And again that was really important to us that we had a small car that didn't do too much from the way of environment and stuff. So it's definitely an issue. I think it's something that a lot of people who look at this are worried about and care about.

John Hawker:

Yeah, I completely agree. An interesting point you made in one of your articles you talked about and I'm going to I think I'm quoting it, but I might not be but mentioning this feeling restless even after achieving what many would consider the end of minimalism. So, getting to the end point, can you describe what you thought that was and then why it didn't transpire that you'd kind of completed it, and then what you do day to day? I think you talk about the journey. So focus on the journey rather than the destination as well. So I know I've thrown a lot at you there.

Charlie Brown:

But I again, I wrote that at a very specific time, I think, after we'd been traveling for quite a while and I, you know I was talking about the end of minimalism as people would see it. So people would see the end of minimalism maybe as when you get rid of all of your stuff and you get rid of as much as you possibly can.

Charlie Brown:

There is no more to minimize. And I was in that position for a really long time because we had got rid of all our stuff. We had a suitcase, we were traveling you can't put anything else into a suitcase so stuff became completely not part of my life whatsoever. I couldn't even think about it because I didn't have any way of buying anything else or acquiring it. So I replaced things when I needed to, but that was it.

Charlie Brown:

It is a really strange feeling because suddenly you've got more time on your hands than you realize, because you know stuff takes up an awful lot of time and when you get rid of that you're suddenly like, well, what are you going to do with that time? And also, yeah, I just found out that I really like I like the process of getting rid of stuff. As I said, it's a very nice feeling and that's well documented that getting you know decluttering actually gives you a sense of control on it and this the studies have suggested it is very good for your brain. I missed that. It's a really stupid thing to miss. You don't always get to that point and that's also fine. I happen to get to that point because a very specific way that I was living. It's a complete, constant process, especially if you're in your sedentary. You stay in one place, you have a home, you buy things, you have to get rid of things. You have to be completely intentional all the time so to be able to not overdo it.

Charlie Brown:

But it's always a constant thing. That was just a very specific thing that I was feeling at that point.

John Hawker:

Yeah Well, this is a great thing about writing, isn't it? You're leaving a stamp there for people like me to go back and read at some point, and it's there's always going to be context, it's always going to be relative to the situation and the time. But I think, again, it's a good message to be putting out there that minimalism isn't just the process of just chucking all your shit out. There has to be this, this maintenance. How easy is it to maintain that habit of not accruing and collecting items? Do you find that easy? Now, charlie? Is there anything you do to maintain that?

Charlie Brown:

I find it relatively easy because it's a complete habit. It's been a habit for sort of 10 years or so. I don't find that part of it too hard, but it could become hard and especially since I stopped and started to live here in Porto, I start to think, oh, I could buy some of those things, I could buy more crockery, you know, this sort of thing. So it's definitely become more of a temptation since stopping the way I think about it and I've written about this before I called it the five pillars.

Charlie Brown:

There are five things that I identified in my life that matter a lot to me and I'm very happy to buy things around that. So my five pillars are exercise, food, wine and coffee as a thing, travel, friends and family and writing. So anything around those five pillars I will happily buy stuff. But interestingly those five pillars are very experience led, so I don't actually need to buy that much stuff for it. I don't need to buy much stuff for exercise because I run. I need a pair of shoes and an outfit and that's it. You know, freed wine and coffee. I spent an awful lot of money on freed wine and coffee, like most of my money, but that's an experience.

John Hawker:

Yeah, that's a really good point. So when you're making decisions on what to discard, I guess there aren't many things that you're buying or acquiring that you'd need to discard anymore, because, again, it's become habitual.

Charlie Brown:

Yes, but I mean, of course, at the beginning there was lots we all agree stuff and it was just sat around. So, when it comes to discarding, there's quite a lot of information online about various rules and different ways that you can do for discarding. So there's one called the 1990 rule, which is basically, if you haven't used something in the last 90 days and are not going to use it in the next 90 days, do you need it? So that helps for, like, seasonal clothing.

John Hawker:

Great point yeah.

Charlie Brown:

I did things like I would look at something and be like well, I don't know if I need it or not, so I'll put it in a box and in six months time I'll come back to that box and if I haven't opened it, or a year's time, even if I haven't opened it, then it then it goes.

Charlie Brown:

So Sam was saying this morning when we were talking about this, who was saying I really remember the first thing we threw out was when he went into a a cupboard and brought out a box that had gone through house moves with us and we'd never open. I didn't even open the box, I just threw it in the bin Like I don't. I still don't know what was in that box, but so that's because that was using that rule. It was basically saying well, I haven't used it in years, so why would I need it now? If I opened it, I may have gone.

John Hawker:

Oh, I want to keep that, yeah, okay, so talking about this practically, then, for anyone that is just starting to look at minimalism or embarking upon this journey towards minimalism, what is some of the advice or guidance that you could give based on your own experiences?

Charlie Brown:

I would say don't do it all in one go. That's really important because it's just too. It's too overwhelming. Really. People worry about that a lot. They worry they're going to regret throwing something out. So I would just say just do it slowly, and then the slower you go and the more experience you get with it, the better you get at knowing yourself and knowing what really does matter to you and what what you should keep and what you can throw away.

John Hawker:

So don't don't do it all in one go, Don't do it in a day.

Charlie Brown:

If you're starting out like a big first declutter, take, take a few months over it yeah. I would say it's really important, because otherwise it can just get way too overwhelming. And I would say, like, start with like easy wins. I started with stuff that I could sell as well, because that's quite nice, because then you get a little bit of money back as well which?

Charlie Brown:

really helps, and then you can think about what to do with that money, like buy something, buy a nice bottle of wine. The other thing I think is always being very careful about the sunk costs fallacy, because if you think about how much money you've put into all the stuff that you own in your house, it will be a lot.

Charlie Brown:

And it can be quite scary to throw that stuff away because you feel like you're throwing away Money, which you are really, and there's not really any way of getting around that, like you may have bought stuff that you've never used and therefore it was a waste of money, and it's about trying to make your peace with that and just knowing that you're going to save an awful lot more money in the future by not re-acquiring all this stuff again Anyway stuff that you don't need.

John Hawker:

The exercise that you went on to identify and define your five pillars, Charlie? Did that just come naturally? Was that something that you picked up on? Was that advice that you were given to do that, or did you just that's your own concept? Because I think it's really that's a really useful tool and a really useful thing for people to try and do.

Charlie Brown:

I think that was just being very mindful of how I spent my time and how I enjoyed spending my time. Travel, I knew, was a huge priority, even before I did it full time. It was a massive priority for us. People would always say you're always going on holiday, you're always going away, and it's like, yeah, yeah, because that's how I prioritized.

Charlie Brown:

And this was when I was 21, 22, always prioritized that, so that was a really easy one. Exercise became a really big part of my life, I don't know, five years ago, because, a I realized I needed to do more, and B because generally there's no downsides into exercising and it's extremely good for your brain and it makes you feel better, and running or walking and things like that it's just so good for you. So I was just working out stuff that I really cared about, stuff that's just priorities really, but it's just taking time to learn what those priorities are. It can take a bit of time to work it out and it can be masked by different things and you think that you really love this thing. But is that thing what you really love or isn't the feeling it gives you? Because you get that feeling from something else, I don't know. It's a bit of a process.

John Hawker:

Yeah, but it gives you that structure and it gives you that foundation to build everything else from. I think that's quite a powerful way for anyone that may be not even on the fence, maybe willing to commit to minimalism, but needs more of a starting block. Think about the areas that you really want to focus on and where you're happy spending money and where you're happy decluttering outside of those whatever three, four, five pillars.

Charlie Brown:

And being really aware of what you don't like as well. What is it that's making you not feel good? The whole aim is to have more time and more contentment and this sort of thing and the time thing. Well, if you're spending all of your time doing things that people ask you to do but you really don't like doing it, then that's kind of silly really. So it's about learning about what you don't like as much as what you do and just being really mindful of that when things come up.

Charlie Brown:

Did that work for me? Did that make me feel good? Or did I just spend a hundred quid on something that I really didn't? You know that I really hated.

John Hawker:

Yeah, brilliant. All right, charlie, I've got one more question for you. Can you remember or can you identify one thing that you did throw away, that you have regretted since?

Charlie Brown:

No, no, do you know? I thought about this recently, a few months ago, for an article, and I actually couldn't think of anything.

John Hawker:

Brilliant, you're doing it. Right then.

Charlie Brown:

Yeah, I thought I had. I thought I had thrown some saucepans. This is very important to me. Sam had these incredible saucepans that his parents bought him for his 21st birthday. They're like these like incredibly well made things that were just insane. I thought it was just so stupid. I thought that we'd, I thought we'd throw them out and I was like, damn, I really I really would have liked those. When we moved to Porto, I really would have liked them. Turns out we've given them to a customer who's also now our friends, who just had them on long term. Later we were able to get them back Fantastic.

Charlie Brown:

Well, that's good, I did good. I didn't throw away the thing I thought I wanted. And there was another. There was a Rooark like a stereo. Do you know the stereo's, rooark stereo's? They're made in Southampton.

John Hawker:

Yes, yeah, I do know that I recognize a brand, yeah so good and I thought I'd throw it away. I thought I'd given that away, or something.

Charlie Brown:

Yeah turns out no, I same friend had it. So I was like, okay, I did. Well, I actually didn't throw away the things.

John Hawker:

And at least someone was getting used out of it, while you weren't. It being saucepens aligns nicely with your food coffee, wine pillar.

Charlie Brown:

Exactly Because you know you listen to music in the evening when you're doing wine and column food and that sort of thing. But no, honestly I don't. I don't think there's anything that I've massively regretted.

John Hawker:

All right, charlie. Well, thank you so much for doing that, and I think what I'm going to do in the episode description for this is put some links to those blogs as well, if that's okay. And where can we probably mention this in your initial episode when we recorded with you and Sam? But where can we find your writing, and is there a specific place we can read about minimalism from you, or is it a range of topics that you share. So because I'm writing a little less about the actual concepts of minimalism.

Charlie Brown:

At the moment, I'm writing much more about the life part of these things Understood. But I've written plenty out there. So the two places is on substack. So I've got a substack called simple and straightforward dot substackcom, and then I'm also on medium, which is where I do most of my writing.

John Hawker:

Fantastic. All right, Charlie. Well, thank you so much for taking the time to speak to me, and I'm sure we'll catch up again soon. Thank you.

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