3179: Minimum Viable Home by Colin Wright of Exile Lifestyle on Minimalism & Simple Living

[00:00:00] This episode is brought to you by La Quinta by Wyndham.

[00:00:03] Your work can take you all over the place, like Texas.

[00:00:06] You've never been, but it's gonna be great

[00:00:08] because you're staying at La Quinta by Wyndham.

[00:00:10] Their free bright side breakfast will give you energy

[00:00:12] for the day ahead.

[00:00:13] And after, you can unwind using their free high-speed wifi.

[00:00:17] Tonight La Quinta, tomorrow you shine.

[00:00:19] Book your stay today at LQ.com.

[00:00:24] Families have a lot going on.

[00:00:27] Let Ollie help manage the mental load

[00:00:28] with new cognitive health supplements

[00:00:30] for everyone four and up, like delicious lollipops

[00:00:33] or lollipops for kids.

[00:00:36] And for parents, try three new brainy chews

[00:00:38] to help you focus, chill out, or get energized.

[00:00:41] Find these cognitive health buddies

[00:00:42] for the whole fam at ollie.com.

[00:00:44] That's O-L-L-Y.com.

[00:00:46] These statements have not been evaluated

[00:00:47] by the Food and Drug Administration.

[00:00:49] This product is not intended to diagnose,

[00:00:51] treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

[00:00:54] It's a Minimalist Monday edition

[00:00:55] of Optimal Living Daily, episode 3179.

[00:00:59] Minimum Viable Home by Colin Wright of exilelifestyle.com.

[00:01:04] And I'm just a mollick.

[00:01:05] Happy Monday, this is the award-winning podcast

[00:01:08] where I read blogs to you with permission from the authors.

[00:01:11] It's that simple really.

[00:01:13] Let's keep this intro simple and minimal

[00:01:15] as we optimize your life.

[00:01:22] Minimum Viable Home by Colin Wright of exilelifestyle.com.

[00:01:28] A new home can at times seem like a vacuous hole

[00:01:31] that sucks up endless amounts of money

[00:01:34] and creates mostly excessive amounts

[00:01:36] of packaging for you to discard.

[00:01:38] There are even more costs and acquisitions than usual

[00:01:40] when you transition from owning only

[00:01:42] what you can easily carry on a plane

[00:01:44] to what you need to stock a fully functioning home.

[00:01:48] But with every dollar spent to this end

[00:01:50] with every new acquisition, I tense up a little.

[00:01:54] I'm squeamish about these expenditures

[00:01:56] because I remember how my homes have been in the past.

[00:02:00] I remember the feeling of looking around

[00:02:02] at all the stuff I purchased,

[00:02:04] each item catalyzing that momentary thrill

[00:02:06] of having bought something new

[00:02:08] before becoming just another thing I owned and never used.

[00:02:13] Some of those possessions were legitimately practical,

[00:02:16] but most of them were essentially useless for me

[00:02:18] and my priorities.

[00:02:20] There were expensive decorations

[00:02:22] that weren't even particularly beautiful,

[00:02:24] furniture that went unsat upon,

[00:02:27] gadgets that remained unutilized,

[00:02:30] kitchen tools that were forever uncooked with,

[00:02:32] all serving the same function as art,

[00:02:35] but without the art part.

[00:02:37] If you purchase a couch that is beautiful,

[00:02:40] meant to you, worth the cost and space required

[00:02:42] to acquire and keep it in your home just for its aesthetics,

[00:02:46] then it's still a worthwhile purchase.

[00:02:49] I've owned many such showpieces that in retrospect

[00:02:52] weren't carrying their own weight.

[00:02:54] The money and space could have been better spent

[00:02:56] on other things, but were instead wasted

[00:02:59] on these unsat upon bits of furniture

[00:03:01] that I owned out of cultural habit.

[00:03:04] Homes have couches, homes have kitchen tables,

[00:03:07] homes have X, Y, and Z.

[00:03:10] This new home of mine was a blank canvas,

[00:03:13] an empty space I could fill with whatever the,

[00:03:17] it only seemed natural having lived the way

[00:03:18] I've lived for so long to stick to the essentials.

[00:03:22] But what are the essentials for me?

[00:03:24] How can I know what I'll need living this kind of lifestyle

[00:03:27] and this kind of space if seven years have passed

[00:03:31] since I've last experienced something similar?

[00:03:33] Since I've last purchased furniture, paid electric bills,

[00:03:37] received my mail at a given address with any regularity.

[00:03:40] There's a term in the tech world

[00:03:42] that I found myself thinking about a lot lately,

[00:03:44] minimum viable product or MVP.

[00:03:48] The idea behind an MVP is that if you're building an app

[00:03:52] for a smartphone, you build the most minimal, streamlined,

[00:03:57] stripped down version of the app you possibly can

[00:04:00] because you don't know what you don't know yet.

[00:04:03] It may be that you shovel tons of time and money

[00:04:05] into the thing, making it beautiful and complete,

[00:04:08] only to discover there's something fundamentally wrong

[00:04:11] with it after you've expended all that time

[00:04:13] and effort and money.

[00:04:15] Building an MVP first allows you to make sure

[00:04:17] the core functionality works and works well

[00:04:21] before you add any gloss and before you invest

[00:04:23] too much time or resources on it.

[00:04:26] I've been thinking of my home in this same way.

[00:04:29] I didn't know what I wanted in the home,

[00:04:31] but I did know what I'd need to do the work I enjoy doing.

[00:04:35] I decided to start there.

[00:04:37] I have my lights and tripods and such

[00:04:39] to produce my YouTube show.

[00:04:41] I have my microphone for my podcast.

[00:04:43] I knew I'd need a desk and a chair,

[00:04:45] and ideally another more comfortable chair

[00:04:48] where I could lounge for long periods.

[00:04:50] This would ideally be a rocking chair

[00:04:52] because in my mind, if there's a heaven,

[00:04:54] it's filled with all the books in the world

[00:04:56] and a rocking chair where I can sit while I read them.

[00:05:00] I wanted to make learning to cook

[00:05:01] a key component of my lifestyle here,

[00:05:03] so I purchased a cast iron combo cooker,

[00:05:06] a decent chef's knife, and a cutting board.

[00:05:09] I'd also need a bed and a few bed-related accoutrements.

[00:05:12] And that's it.

[00:05:14] I mean, aside from consumables like toilet paper

[00:05:17] and soap and trash bags.

[00:05:19] But for the rest, even other seemingly

[00:05:21] infrastructural items, I wanted to make sure

[00:05:25] I actually needed them first.

[00:05:26] Before making any further purchases,

[00:05:28] I wanted to make sure I was buying things I would use.

[00:05:32] No more couches for the sake of couches.

[00:05:35] No more gadgets because I have room to store them.

[00:05:38] I bought my bed and a mattress,

[00:05:40] a few pillows, a duvet, and some sheets,

[00:05:43] a simple desk, a simple chair,

[00:05:45] a kick-throcking chair, it's heavenly.

[00:05:48] I set up my lights and tripod.

[00:05:50] There's a corner of my living room

[00:05:51] that's dedicated to shooting videos,

[00:05:53] a corner that would normally contain

[00:05:54] a couch and coffee table, I think.

[00:05:57] From there, I decided to use the space

[00:06:00] and the things I bought before purchasing anything else,

[00:06:04] to use the minimum viable home

[00:06:06] before deciding what to change,

[00:06:07] what's missing, what to add.

[00:06:10] By living here and seeing what I need

[00:06:12] as I go about my day, I can slowly fill my home

[00:06:15] with exactly the things I'll use

[00:06:17] and appreciate and nothing else.

[00:06:20] I can keep this place practical and functional

[00:06:23] without succumbing to clutter.

[00:06:25] I can determine what I actually need

[00:06:28] rather than what I theoretically need

[00:06:30] based on the idea of an archetypical home

[00:06:32] that may or may not fulfill my specific needs.

[00:06:36] A minimum viable home, an MVH,

[00:06:38] is a place you live, experience, try out

[00:06:42] before filling with stuff.

[00:06:44] Then as you need things, very intentionally

[00:06:47] and slowly you acquire them.

[00:06:49] It's a bit like a packing party in reverse.

[00:06:52] Instead of packing up what you've already got

[00:06:54] and pulling out things as you need them,

[00:06:56] you avoid buying them in the first place,

[00:06:58] adding to your home only when you find yourself

[00:07:00] needing something and not before.

[00:07:03] As a result, this is obviously not something

[00:07:05] you can easily do if you're already moved in

[00:07:07] and huddled amongst your things

[00:07:08] in a well-stocked house or apartment.

[00:07:11] But if and when you do have the opportunity

[00:07:13] to move into a new space,

[00:07:15] consider starting from scratch or near scratch

[00:07:18] so that you can build something you've shaped

[00:07:20] from the foundation outward.

[00:07:23] The specifics of each home will be different, of course,

[00:07:25] since we all have different needs.

[00:07:27] That's the case with minimalism in general,

[00:07:29] focusing on the vital stuff and eschewing the superfluous.

[00:07:32] It's the case with incremental,

[00:07:34] intentional homemaking as well.

[00:07:37] For many of us, the result will be something

[00:07:39] that looks less like a catalog clipping of a home

[00:07:43] and more like a physical embodiment

[00:07:45] of what each of us as an individual thinks is important.

[00:07:53] You just listened to the post titled

[00:07:55] Minimum Viable Home by Colin Wright of exilelifestyle.com.

[00:07:59] And I'll be right back with my commentary.

[00:08:02] Thank you, Colin.

[00:08:03] I can definitely relate to this.

[00:08:05] I've moved many times over the years,

[00:08:07] which kind of forced me to do that packing party

[00:08:10] that he referenced in this article today.

[00:08:12] If you're not familiar,

[00:08:13] a packing party is what the minimalists wrote about.

[00:08:16] I also read that article way back in the day.

[00:08:19] Basically, you're packing up everything you have,

[00:08:22] then only unpacking stuff you need.

[00:08:25] It's pretty extreme, and I doubt the average person

[00:08:27] would do this just to do it,

[00:08:29] unless they were completely fed up.

[00:08:31] But when you're moving, you really are forced into it.

[00:08:34] And this is where procrastination can kind of be on your side

[00:08:37] because you slowly unpack whatever you need

[00:08:41] and the rest ends up staying in boxes,

[00:08:44] proving that we actually didn't need

[00:08:46] all of the stuff to begin with.

[00:08:48] And I say procrastination is kind of on your side

[00:08:50] in this case, because the downside is that

[00:08:53] while that stuff stays in boxes,

[00:08:56] we tend to keep it that way.

[00:08:57] Instead of donating or selling it, it just stays there.

[00:09:00] I'm guilty of this myself.

[00:09:02] There always seems to be other things

[00:09:03] that need to get done sooner.

[00:09:05] But it's important to think about.

[00:09:06] I really do believe if we all curated a bit more

[00:09:10] and second-guessed that item that we added to our cart,

[00:09:13] caught ourselves before making the impulse purchase,

[00:09:16] not only would we have more money saved, but less clutter,

[00:09:20] fewer things to take care of, less stress,

[00:09:23] likely more happiness.

[00:09:25] So definitely consider it today.

[00:09:26] Have a happy start to your week.

[00:09:29] Thank you for being here with me and listening every day,

[00:09:31] and I'll be back tomorrow

[00:09:33] where your optimal life awaits.