On Twitter yesterday, Brandon asked:

As a minimalist, what do you do for fun? That’s the only trouble I foresee should I decide to embrace the minimalist ideal.

This brings up a common myth about minimalism — that we have empty lives, and can’t do anything fun because we try to eschew consumerism and all the spending that entails.

The purpose of entertainment

A brief discussion first: what is entertainment, and why do we need it?

Entertainment is usually meant to distract, to make us feel that our lives are exciting — distractions such as TV, movies, carnivals, going shopping, playing video games, drinking and partying. And while these each have other merits (a good film is a work of art), often they serve to distract us from work or other difficulties.

Unfortunately, this fun is only temporary, and often empty. And as soon as we’re off that temporary high, we must find a new high from entertainment, ad nauseum.
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On this site, I embrace a 400-word limit (unless it doesn’t make sense). It forces me to be concise, to focus on smaller topics, to choose the important, to be creative.

Yes: constraints force us to be creative.

Often, constraints, limitations, are seen as a negative, but to me they’re a feature. They might restrict freedom and force sacrifices, sure, but they also force us to choose. And to work within and around the constraints.

When we must work within limits, we have to figure out how to make those work. This forces us to think outside our normal mode of thinking, to think of new ways to make things work.

Consider:

• When we have a small home, we must find new ways of living within that small space, instead of being lazy and doing whatever we want with lots of space.
• When we must use fewer words, we must choose them wisely, instead of spilling them out carelessly.
• When we eat fewer calories, we must choose more nutritious and yet tasteful foods, to make them count.
• When we have less storage space, we must choose only the most important things, and make do with less.
• When we limit ourselves to four sentences per email, we must say the essential, creatively.

I could go on all day, but that would be contrary to my point. What constraints can you place on yourself, and how can you work creatively with them?

Now that I’ve learned to look at things with the lens of simplicity, I can see others making mistakes I’ve made in the past.

I want to gently say to them — and to my past self — “Stop making things so complicated!”

I’m not going to criticize how other people do things in this post, but rather talk about things I did wrong in the past.

The biggest problem came when starting a new endeavor — starting running, trying to get organized or productive, starting blogging, getting out of debt, even the act of simplifying.

I’d always make things so complicated — looking back on it, I either want to cringe or laugh. And yet, I know that life is a learning process, and those early mistakes helped me to get to where I am. Even now, I make tons of mistakes, learning as I go.
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When it comes to minimalism in doing, distractions are the biggest obstacle.

We must first identify what’s most important to us, what we’re passionate about, what we want to spend our time on. And then we must focus on those things first.

But the distractions. They get in the way of this focusing, no?

And so we must kill the distractions with the zeal of a maniacal dictator. Without all the actual bloodiness, you know.

Without distractions, you’ll be able to focus. You’ll find peace. You’ll find time for doing what you love.

Here’s how:

• Cut back your social networking to network (or two at the most) – including Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, forums, etc. These are hugely distracting.
• Cut back on your social networking “friends”. Stick to your actual friends and colleagues. Networking with thousands of people you don’t know is superficial and distracting.
• Limit time on social networking, email to specified periods. Set the times you allow yourself to do these activities – from 1-2 p.m., for example.
• Do less email. Start by sending less. Check email less often. Use the phone or face-to-face conversations when possible.
• Shut down the internet to work. Disconnect, and work without distractions.
• Separate consuming from creating. Reading and networking and emailing are different from actually creating. Do them at separate times.
• Set a limited reading time. If you read a lot on the web, or RSS feeds, set limits and do it at specified times.
• Shut off notifications. Email, Blackberry, IM, whatever. Shut em down.
• Clear away icons on your desktop. File them all in one folder, and use an app launcher such as LaunchBar or Launchy.
• Clear your actual desk.
• Use music to block out your surroundings.
• Get away from the computer, spend time with actual people.
• Shut off the smartphone. Seriously.
• Single-task and focus.
• Focus on the most important tasks first, before you get distracted.
• Set limits on your work hours. If your time is limited, you’ll find ways to make the most of that limited time.

How does a minimalist eat? Just a few grains of rice each day, perhaps?

There’s no one way, of course, but one thing to consider is whether eating huge amounts of food, super-sized fast food meals and mountains of fried cheesy food that you find at chain restaurants … whether this American style of eating is consistent with the minimalist philosophy.

I say no. A minimalist would more likely eat less, prepare food simply with few ingredients, eat mindfully, and eat sustainably.

Here’s how.

• Eat less. If you’re overweight, eating less is absolutely the best thing you can do. If you’re underweight, eating less isn’t a good idea. But the Okinawans, reknowned for their incredible health and longetivity, do so well in part because they eat fewer calories than most people. They stop when they’re 80% full. I’ve been doing this with great results. Trick is to cut back on your portions a little at a time, and your stomach slowly grows smaller. It’s not hard if you do it slowly, gradually. Don’t starve yourself, but learn to eat until you’re almost full — after 5 minutes, you’ll realize you really are full.
• Fewer ingredients. Try three-ingredient recipes (other than spices, oil & water) — there are lots of them on the web. I like oatmeal, nuts & fruit (with cinnamon); black bean chili with tomatoes (and cilantro, cayenne, chiles, salt); black beans & quinoa; soy yogurt, berries & nuts; coconut flakes, fruit & soymilk; apples & almonds. You get the idea.
• Simple preparation. The above dishes require very little preparation. If you really love cooking, this tip won’t be for you, but for those who normally eat out or eat packaged foods, it’s important to find foods that don’t require a lot of prep time. You want to do little work with few ingredients — just fresh, real food that is flavorful and healthy.
• Eating mindfully. Instead of eating while you watch TV, try paying attention to each bite, savoring your food and getting the most out of it while eating less.
• Eating sustainably. A plug for veganism, which is more sustainable than meat and dairy because plants require fewer resources (yes, even fewer than free-range animals). If everyone became vegan, we’d have more than enough food to feed the world, and we’d use fewer resources with less carbon emissions.