Actually, I bought nothing except a few used vinyl records (some real bargains) and a bike bag. For the latter, I tried to find a used one, but I couldn’t agree on a price with any sellers on eBay. Some of them wanted to charge almost the price of a new bag for worn-out ones, without the very practical mounts that are available today. I got burned by the offers from Valkental and 2bag. Both do great marketing, but the Valkental bag lasted 5 minutes on the bike before the mount broke, and 2bag simply couldn’t deliver.
My “slip-up” from January and the synthesizer I bought in April are listed on eBay.
The month of May went very well, except for one expensive purchase that I couldn’t avoid: I lost my glasses. No idea how I managed that, but I had to buy a new pair. It was very expensive đ However, since it’s not a luxury item or a consumable, Iâm not counting it towards this project.
Additionally, I bought a music stand, which I couldn’t find used, at least not the way I wanted it. Thatâs it. The cost was 16.99 euros.
A few used vinyl records also came my way, but Iâm not counting those towards this project either.
Iâm writing this article because I often find in conversations that managing one’s finances is a topic many struggle with, especially among students and pupils who havenât learned it at home. So, Iâve written an article that I can always share:
Iâm a big fan of budgeting, which means I plan relatively precisely how much money I want to spend on what each month. To make sure I donât run out of money before the end of the month, I set aside money for different purposes at the beginning of the month into (virtual) envelopes. For example, for:
Household
Subscriptions
Mobility
Savings
Vacation
My experience is that if you donât budget, you end up spending more money than you intend to. Especially when it comes to saving, I find it important to set aside the savings amount right at the beginning of the month, rather than saving whatever is left over at the end. Budgeting also makes decisions easier. For example, if I want to learn a new instrument like I did last year, I can determine how much Iâm willing to spend on lessons, equipment, maintenance, etc., in order to stay within budget.
In the past, this was quite a complex process. You could use paper envelopes for different categories, plus a checking account, plus a savings account, etc. Or you could keep a household ledger. That requires a lot of discipline and can be time-consuming. Managing everything from one checking account still feels tricky to me.
How does it work exactly?
I share some details about my budgets here. Every month, I set aside money for the following areas:
Mobility: âŹ100. I don’t own a car, and I get around by walking, cycling, sometimes using Cambio, occasionally taking an e-scooter or Moia, and I also use the HVV (Hamburg Public Transport) or the train. I don’t want to spend more than âŹ100 a month on all of this. Most of the time, I stay well under âŹ100, but when I have to make a longer trip, like to Berlin, it’s good to have a reserve. When e-scooters first came out, I initially spent a bit too much on them; of course, it was new and fun, but then I realized I was spending too much on them.
Health: âŹ50. I have health insurance with a deductible, and I set aside money for that every month. In addition, I pay for anything the insurance doesn’t cover. If there’s any money left over at the end of the year, great, then it goes into my investment account.
Subscriptions and Membership Fees: âŹ70. This includes Apple Music, my membership with D64, etc. I find it important to keep subscriptions separate because even if each one costs only a few euros a month, it adds up over the year.
Household Account: I won’t reveal the exact amount, but we try to stay within budget here. Ideally, you have a shared account with the other household members.
Vacation Fund: I am currently saving for this with Growney.
Pocket Money: âŹ200. Yes, I pay myself pocket money đ I use it, for example, to buy fish sandwiches. But I also try not to spend it all so that I can treat myself to something more occasionally. I also financed my flute this way.
Savings: I won’t disclose the exact amount, but I diversify my savings across different platformsâGrowney, EstateGuru, Scalable, my financial advisor, and a solid reserve (3-6 months of salary) in a high-interest savings account.
In addition, there are areas for which I prefer to have separate accounts:
A small business account, through which I handle everything related to my side business (teaching assignments, book royalties, Google AdSense for income, web hosting, etc., for expenses). I like to keep this separate because the tax office will eventually want a piece of it, and it’s also easier for me to manage the taxes this way.
A property account, where everything related to my real estate is handled, such as rent, loans, management fees, property tax, etc. Occasionally, something needs to be repaired, and it’s always good to keep this separate from other budgets to avoid confusion.
If I had everything in one account, it would be complicated to keep track of. Sure, it’s possible, but I prefer to pay for the ability to keep everything separate and have things run automatically. Yes, it doesnât sound particularly minimalist with multiple accounts, but I try to keep the effort as low as possible so that I donât have to spend too much time on it.
Current accounts with sub-accounts
As I mentioned, some neobanks now offer current accounts with sub-accounts. N26 was, in my opinion, quite ahead with their Spaces. Itâs a really good idea, especially because it encourages people to start budgeting their money. But for everything to run automatically, these Spaces need to have their own IBANs. Initially, they didnât have them, but now they do. Unfortunately, the money didnât always arrive reliably in my sub-accounts. And the support wasnât very helpful. I donât see why I should pay to be treated poorly. Even though N26 was the only one of the candidates to offer me an overdraft right away, which can sometimes be quite helpful.
bunq was my favorite for a long time, partly because they offer features that were really helpful, such as virtual credit cards. This allowed me to assign a unique virtual credit card to each sub-account. It was a great feature because I didnât have to move money around all the time; I could book things like MOIA directly from the Mobility account. Unfortunately, like with N26, I ran into the problem that money didnât always reliably show up in the sub-accounts after the German IBANs were introduced. When Google sent me a message that a payment had been returned, and bunq then told me that I wasnât cooperating because I wasnât getting Google to release more information, that was the final straw for me. I had already been frustrated with bunqâs overcharging, then the really rude support â no, I donât want to pay for that, no matter how good the account is. So, I left quickly.
Now Iâve ended up with Vivid and am testing their offer. Like bunq, Vivid also offers virtual credit cards, but you have to pay âŹ1 for each. I think itâs worth it. Vivid also doesnât offer a debit card, which is a shame because you still need one often, something that both bunq and N26 provide. The signup process wasnât entirely smooth for me, with lots of problems. BUT: The support is incredibly friendly AND actually helpful. Letâs hope it stays that way and that Iâm not treated condescendingly like I was at N26 at some point. N26 also had great support in the beginning.
Vivid has the downside that its interface has too many bells and whistles I donât need and canât hide. I donât want a stock rewards account, and the cryptocurrency features arenât something I need, especially since you donât have your own wallet. I would find that really interesting. But the Vivid account solves my problem of wanting to budget and automate things. However, I still have my salary transferred to a classic account with ING. Eventually, I would like to only have one account.
I also find Tomorrow interesting and would love to use them, but unfortunately, they donât offer IBANs for their Pockets, which are similar to the Spaces at N26. When I asked, they said it was on their radar, but they couldnât say when it would come.
What I donât understand: Why arenât direct banks doing anything about this? DKB offers an additional account, and so does ING, but more than one isnât possible. Both banks responded with corporate blah blah to my inquiry. Both offer free current accounts and could finally make money from current accounts. But something is stopping them. I find it completely incomprehensible.
Conclusion
In conclusion, it can be said that no bank completely solves the problem. While direct banks offer very friendly support, they fail to launch accounts that enable proper budgeting. And the neobanks mainly suffer from poor and unfriendly support (except for Vivid), as well as bugs or missing features that donât occur with the larger banks. I believe there is a real opportunity to solve this problem, but maybe not enough people see it as an issue that they can’t manage their finances without budgeting đ Or when you think of overdraft fees, maybe these are just too good a source of income for banks to want to help customers manage their money more wisely.
I will be compiling everything about minimalism in the coming weeks and months, based on my experiences, mistakes, and insights so far. The article will be updated continuously.
What is minimalism?
In addition to being an art movement, minimalism has developed into a lifestyle in recent years. There was even a documentary on Netflix about the topic, narrated by authors Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus. On Prime Video, there was the documentary My Stuff – What Do You Really Need, in which the protagonist brought all his belongings to a storage unit and was allowed to take out only one item each day. The fact that he had to run through the city naked in the snow to get to the storage unit at the beginning should not be interpreted as representative of the minimalist movement. Even German television produced a report on the subject, from NDR, titled How Many Things Do We Really Need?
In Germany, minimalists Christof Herrmann and Verena SchĂźrmann are particularly well known, alongside a few others. Depending on who you read, you may come across very alternative lifestyles, but also people who want to live with fewer things, while still leading a relatively normal life. I count myself among the latter group. Of course, there have always been people living in a minimalist way, not always because they wanted to, and certainly, they wouldnât have called it that themselves. However, the conscious reduction to fewer material possessions seems to be a trend of recent decades. One of the pioneers, even though he probably wouldn’t see himself as such, is Dieter Rams with his design credo “Less, but better.”
For me, minimalism means, on one hand, that I only buy what I truly need. Of course, the line between needs and desires isn’t always clear, and I focus on what truly fulfills my lifeâ and those are not material things. On the other hand, minimalism for me means surrounding myself only with things that make me happy and/or have high utility. Naturally, Iâm not perfect, and Iâm not always consistent. For example, Iâm writing these lines on an Apple MacBook Air M1 with 16 GB RAM and a 2TB SSD. Is that really absolutely necessary? Certainly not. I could be writing these lines on an old used Linux computer. I could also question whether this blog is necessary at all. But Iâve significantly reduced my gadget collection over the last few months. Since 2007, Iâve gone through stronger and weaker phases of minimalism; back then, I even tried not buying anything new for six months. But I wasnât always strong.
What are the benefits of minimalism?
There are quite a few benefits, and here are probably the most important ones:
The less you have, the less you have to clean. You spend less time tidying up or looking for things.
When you have less, things look tidier right away. Thatâs incredibly calming.
The less you have, the less you have to take care of. Every item comes with additional costs, whether itâs the space it takes up or the time it requires.
You save your family a lot of time. If something happens to you and your family has to empty your place, theyâll be grateful if there arenât thousands of things cluttering the apartment.
Youâre helping the environment. Because everything that isnât bought doesnât have to be produced, doesnât consume raw materials, and wonât later end up in a landfill, polluting the environment. Now, thatâs a good argument!
You save a lot of money. Often, the things we buy arenât really worth as much as we pay for them, something we realize when we try to get rid of them.
Getting rid of things is a topic in itself, because itâs often associated with effort. You donât have that issue if you donât buy anything in the first place đ In the last few months, Iâve sold quite a bit on eBay/eBay Kleinanzeigen, and aside from the fact that in most cases I got far less for the items than I paid, it was often quite annoying. Even though I met a lot of nice people.
You need less space, possibly fewer pieces of furniture, and ultimately, a smaller apartment.
My “wardrobe” is a good example of how little you really need. And there are certainly people who have even less.
What are the disadvantages of minimalism?
Living minimally is just as unconventional in society as, for example, not drinking alcohol.
When I sold my car in 2011, friends and acquaintances told me that I was selling my freedom. In reality, I gained freedom because, as stated in Fight Club, the things you own actually own you. A car requires maintenance, parking, washing, etc. Okay, I have an advantage â I live in the city. But even with other examples, like not having a TV, questions arise. Many people wonât understand this, maybe because theyâd have to question their own behavior. I can definitely say that itâs always a conversation topic, just like when I donât drink alcohol at a business dinner. You easily get suspected of being a recovering alcoholic.
Whatâs the difference between minimalism and frugality?
Frugality is about learning to live with little money and saving enough to either reduce work hours or eventually stop working altogether. There are obvious overlaps with minimalism, but not every minimalist is necessarily part of the FIRE movement (Financial Independence, Retire Early). On the other hand, every frugal person will have to live minimally to achieve their goals.
I live somewhere in between. I havenât resorted to eating from the trash, and I donât constantly calculate how much interest Iâll lose by buying a sandwich at 50. But I donât buy pointless things anymore, as youâll see in the next section.
How to start with minimalism?
In my opinion, there are two main tasks:
Emptying your home
Changing your consumption behavior
For the first point, thereâs a lot of literature available, such as Marie Kondoâs books. Kondo focuses mainly on asking what really makes you happy about the items in your home. She also has her own tidying technique. Some of it I use too, for example, how to fold T-shirts. It really does make things easier. But I wouldnât label Marie Kondo as a minimalist. A good question to ask when decluttering is whether you would buy the item again. Another common question is what to do with something that hasnât been used in years. Often, you delay the decision, so the items neither go away nor have a proper place. In reality, itâs not necessarily the things that weigh us down, but the decisions we need to make about what to do with them. Making decisions is exhausting.
Additional tips:
Sell/donate anything you havenât used or worn in the last year.
Sell/donate anything broken that you canât repair.
Do you really need three can openers? The expensive food processor you never use?
Get rid of books that you donât love.
Use public libraries.
If this already sounds difficult, it gets even harder with the second point. Our consumption habits are the biggest problem. If we donât get them under control, our home will quickly be filled with clutter again. Itâs also not made easy for us to resist. And I have my biggest weaknesses with certain things. For example: When I see a new gadget that I think might help me, Iâm usually quick to head to Amazon… but now, I close the browser as soon as I realize it. I used to be constantly looking for the next tool that might help. But now, I donât believe in tools anymore. With every impulse to buy something, you should quarantine that desire. Is the urge still there after one day, seven days, or 30 days? For example: When the Apple AirPods Max were released, I ordered them. I eagerly awaited them. And then I barely used them. I thought Iâd use them all the time, but unlike the AirPods Pro, which Iâve been using daily for over a year, the Max were often empty. I didnât need two pairs of headphones. It was a total mistake to fall for the advertising. And after six months, I lost 200 Euros when I sold them. For maybe 20 uses. Thatâs 10 Euros per use. An expensive hobby. And surely everyone has examples like that.
When is it done right?
Thereâs no one-size-fits-all answer to this. You can only answer this question for yourself.
The provocative title correlates with the extremes discussed in Jacob Lund Fiskerâs 2010 book Extreme Early Retirement. And by âextreme,â I donât mean the authorâs suggestions themselves, but rather some of the thought-provoking ideas he presents. Fiskerâs book represents, according to him, a philosophy that he formulated long before the current waves of frugality, FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early), and minimalism took off (by the way, I had written about living outside of consumerism back in 2007). Instead of just preaching, Fisker actually practiced what he preached. On an average income, he saved 75% of his net salary, learned how to live with little, and then stopped workingâor worked only intermittently. One could also distill this down to the well-known wisdom that you donât get rich by earning a lot, but by saving as much as possible.
This will not be a short blog post, sorry, because such a philosophy cannot be summed up in 150 words.
Reference to Platoâs Allegory of the Cave
Fisker starts with Platoâs Allegory of the Cave. To remind you (a better summary is certainly provided on Wikipedia): In a cave, people are imprisoned and have spent their entire lives shackled. They can only look at a wall; they cannot see their fellow prisoners or themselves, and they cannot see the exit behind them. On the wall, they see shadows cast by a fire burning between them and the exit. The shadows that the prisoners see become their reality, and they try to make sense of them.
If someone manages to escape the cave, they would first have to adjust to the daylight, which would be painful, but after a period of adjustment, they would no longer want to return to their old life. According to Socrates, the cave represents the sensory world that people typically perceive as normal. The ascent out of the cave represents the transition from the world of fleeting sensory objects to the idea of the Good, enabling rational action. For Fisker, those who are wage slaves and trapped in their culture are the prisoners of the cave, and by âwage slaves,â he means those who are dependent on a salary. They may switch jobs, but they cannot escape the labor market itself, and like the prisoners, they lack the imagination to leave, as they are focused on the wall.
The wall does not show who they are, but what they own. You see someone driving a Mercedes convertible, but not the debts they incurred or the stress that comes with it. Everyone looks busy, because thatâs important, just as itâs important to take on debt, since the most successful people are those with the best credit scores. They are better at getting into debt than others. You work and pay off debts, a cycle known as âearning a living,â yet in reality, you have no time for actual life. The chains represent obligations and debt, but mostly the lack of imagination that other possibilities exist. The best prisons are those without visible bars. Either you win the lottery or earn enough to become financially independent, according to the perception of the prisoners. And if things arenât going well mentally, you buy yourself something nice and go shopping.
How Do You Escape the Cave?
The core question in Fiskerâs book is how to escape the money-earning-and-buying cycle and lead a more interesting life. For example, by learning a skill that saves you from hiring a service, building things yourself, earning money in alternative ways, and interacting with people.
Modern wage slaves, according to Fisker, live lives of material excess. They are consumers with multiple TVs, several streaming services, kitchen appliances, gadgets, phone contracts, vacations, and sometimes even time to play with their toys. Itâs become incredibly easy to spend money. Instead of opening a can with a cheap can opener in 30 seconds, we work for 30 minutes to afford a designer can opener that does the job in 30 seconds. Many things that we used to do ourselves have become so distorted that we buy gadgets or services to do them for us. This is convenient, because, as Fisker points out, weâre too busy with the work that we need to do in order to pay for all of this. This is the first thing that must change. Once you can do things yourself, you no longer have to depend on someone else to do them for you. But this only works if you earn enough money. Once you lose your job, youâre lost.
The second step is questioning your consumption. âWhat do you do for a living, and what brands do you buy to express yourself?â is a question from Fiskerâs book. From my own experience, itâs almost impossible to buy a black cardigan that doesnât have a huge BOSS, Joop, or some other brand logo on it. These brands cost extra, but we get loans so we can spend even more money, because consumption is equated with success. If a new iPhone has only 3 percent more features, it gets bought, and the old one ends up in the trash (fortunately, Fiskerâs logic here is not entirely accurate, because most iPhones and other phones are then resold to someone who has no problem with a used phone). But he is right that many perfectly functional things end up in the trash just because they are no longer fashionable (which reminds me again of the Rams shelf, which still looks modern after 60 years).
Whatâs worse, according to Fisker, is when you finance your consumption with credit. Then you are not only a wage slave, but also a debtor. You pay off a house or an apartment for 30 years (I find this exaggerated in Fiskerâs book because not everyone does that), save for retirement, and then try to make up for the lost years and ruined health in the final years of life. You see how questionable consumer loans are in the following advertisement I saw yesterday in Hamburg:
Iâve been blogging about minimalism for 15 years. Digital minimalism is another form of conscious consumption. And apparently, the topic strikes a chord, because otherwise, Der Spiegel wouldnât have locked an interview about it behind their paywall (âHow to Break Free from Your Smartphoneâ):
Cal Newport’s Digital Minimalism contrasts with his other bestseller Deep Work in that it doesnât focus on work and productivity, but rather on our entire lives and the impact technology has on them.
Daniel Levitin’s The Organized Mindshowed how easily our brains can be distracted, while Newport presents the opposite side: the attention economy, which primarily benefits those who can successfully market our time to advertisers. Those who think this is a modern phenomenon are mistakenâthis started with the introduction of penny newspapers in 1830, where the readers were no longer the customers, but the advertisers in a newspaper.
According to Newport, the unconscious use of social media leads to exhaustion, anxiety, depression, and, above all, a waste of lifeâs time. Arguments such as social media helping us stay in touch with friends and family are countered by the point that this is not high-quality interactionâmore “connection” than “conversation,” as Sherry Turkle distinguishes. When relationships are less digital (or when digital communication is used only to facilitate traditional communication), they are actually strengthened. The time we spend on Facebook and similar platforms is not only spent on lower-quality conversations but also on mindless scrolling through updates that give us the illusion of connection while leaving us feeling lonely.
However, Newport doesn’t advocate for completely abandoning technology. Instead, he encourages us to adopt a different attitude toward it, and he even paraphrases Dieter Ramsâ phrase âLess, but better.â This leads to what he calls a digital declutter. Ironically, it was Steve Jobs, who was focused on mindfulness, who ensured that we carry around with us the symbol of constant connectivity in the form of the iPhone. His original goal was simply to have one device for both phone and iPod. The fact that the iPhone could also access the internet wasnât even mentioned until late in the original keynote. We werenât prepared for it. And suddenly, there was an app for everything:
We didnât have time to think about what we truly wanted to get out of these new technologies (and even if we did think about it, like I did back then when I didnât want a Blackberry, we later found too many reasons why a Blackberry might actually be a good idea). And since then, the door has been wide open for those who want to shape new habits in us:
Nir Eyalâs bestseller Hookeddescribes this mechanism in great detail. Fairly, Eyal also wrote the antidote to it. However, Eyal’s approach is not as elegant as Newport’s; it deals more with the symptoms, even though it sometimes touches on the causes. Where Eyal says that you can take back your time, Newport suggests you first consider what you want to fill it with. The mechanisms both describe, however, are the same.
Every post for which we might get a like or retweet is, for us, the same as using a slot machineâit triggers a dopamine release. The goal is to regain our autonomy and join the attention resistance, as Newport puts it. Digital minimalism, for him, is:
A philosophy of technology use where you focus your online time on a small number of carefully selected and optimized activities that strongly support what matters to you, while ignoring everything else. (my translation)
To this, he quotes Thoreau in Walden:
The cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.
This, of course, applies not only to social media & co. When someone buys a new sports car, they also need to consider how much life energy goes into working for that car and whether itâs worth it to drive a sports car in exchange for that time. The profit gained from something must be weighed against the cost of the life energy needed to obtain it. Conversely, technology should be considered optional, as long as its temporary absence doesnât cause the collapse of oneâs (work) life. Can I no longer live a meaningful life without an app, or does the app simply provide some added value that I could get elsewhere? This is in stark contrast to FOMO. To truly understand which technologies are genuinely valuable, Newport suggests a 30-day break.
As I write this, I am on the 8th day of my digital break. Newport really makes this break seem appealing, and I even started it before I had finished reading the book. During the reading, I paused my Facebook profile and deactivated my Twitter account (dangerous, because after 30 days, it is permanently lost). Instagram is deleted, as are Telegram and WhatsApp. These many ways people could contact me had already been annoying. Then, I even uninstalled email. These exact steps were already suggested in Make Time, but for Newport, itâs not about dogmatically banning all these apps, but rather about understanding what you truly miss.
In fact, I only bought my last phone because I wanted the best camera and didnât want to carry around another camera. I enjoy listening to music. And occasionally, I like to make calls. So, hereâs what my home screen looks like now:
Of the slot machines, only Signal, Apple Messages, and Safari as a browser are installed. Everything else is either essential (for example, bankingâno longer possible without a phone) or helpful (e.g., the Corona app). Additionally, Iâve now set the Do Not Disturb mode as the default. Only my favorites can still call me, but their messages wonât come through either. However, this isnât just about distraction.
Solitude (better translated here as seclusion and not as loneliness) requires the ability to be undisturbed and not have to react to everything, or the freedom from input from others. Seclusion demands that we come to terms with ourselves when we are alone, allowing for deep thinking. Our desire for social interaction must therefore be complemented by periods of solitude. How much this already occupied me 14 years ago is shown in this blog post from 2007.
But Newport goes even further. Itâs not just about stopping certain activities; as mentioned earlier, you must also consider what to do with the time and attention you’ve gained, so you donât fall into a void. The smartphone allows us to quickly escape such moments. Most systems already track how often that happens:
(On that day, I made several changes to the configuration, which is why the value was so high.)
Newport suggests writing letters to oneself, engaging in real conversations (instead of chatting, liking, or commenting), joining an offline group, or doing something non-digital with your hands. Iâm out when it comes to crafting, but at least I can play instruments. The point is to deliver your best, quoting Rogowiski:
Leave good evidence of yourself. Do good work.
Not using Facebook and the like should therefore not be seen as a sign that you’ve become some kind of eccentric. It should be viewed as a bold act of resistance against the attention economy. This has become increasingly difficult, as we now carry a full-fledged computer with us at all times and actively have to seek ways to limit its possibilities. Still, my reMarkable is one of my favorite work tools. I canât check emails on it or quickly look something up. And more and more, Iâm only using that device when I sit on the couch in the evening.
Furthermore, Newportâs approach means that you need to carefully examine where you still want to gather information. I reactivated Twitter after a week, but unfollowed almost everyone because I only want to follow those who truly provide valuable content. And thatâs a very small number. A kind of information diet, so to speak.
Iâm not at the point yet where I want to have a Light Phone or leave my smartphone at home most of the time (the Light Phone isnât available in Germany yet). For now, the camera in my phone is still too important to me (I used to always carry a Fujifilm X100, whose battery was always dead at the critical moments). But after just a few days of digital break, I can already hardly imagine going back to Facebook or spending the first minutes of my day reading through feeds.
On one of the first pages of the book Essentialism, McKeown quotes Dieter Rams, “Less but better.” Itâs hard to find a better definition of Essentialism. I am reading this book in an armchair next to the 606 shelving system designed by Rams in 1960, and when I look up from the book, I see a poster of the film Rams, which I had co-financed a few years ago through Kickstarter. I can report firsthand that itâs not enough to surround yourself with objects by Dieter Rams if you want to dedicate yourself to Essentialism. đ
The Essentialism defined by McKeown is based on the following core principles:
If you donât set priorities in your life, someone else will do it for you. Therefore, we must learn to say “No” so we can truly make a contribution. While we donât always have control over our options, we do have control over choosing between them. Itâs about not just recognizing that you have a choice, but also celebrating the possibility of choosing. If itâs not a clear “Yes,” then itâs a clear “No.” Instead of asking how to do everything at once, the question should be asked: which problem do you want to have? Some people require more “maintenance” than others, but they steal your time and turn their problems into yours.
The question an Essentialist should constantly ask themselves is: “Am I investing myself in the right activities?” Itâs not about getting things done (as in GTD), but about getting the right things done. A lot is less important than it initially appears. The most important and difficult things should be done first.
We are not designed to have so many choices and make so many decisions for ourselves. This ties into Barry Schwartzâs observations in his book The Paradox of Choice.
We should reflect on what we truly want, best by asking three questions:
What deeply inspires me?
What am I particularly talented at?
What fulfills an important need in the world?
McKeown suggests an iterative process: Explore, Eliminate, Execute. For Execution, itâs important to withdraw to focus. “The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.” The Latin origin of the word “decision” comes from “cis” or “cid,” meaning to cut or even kill. Stephen King said, writing is human, cutting is divine.
The most important asset we possess is ourselvesâour mind, our body. We must invest in them to get the best out of ourselves. What is the obstacle preventing us from achieving what we really want?
The Greeks had two words for time: Chronos, the time we measure, and Kairos, the time we feel when we live in the present. The Essentialist lives time in Kairos. Multitasking is not the problem; the belief that we can multitask is. The most important question: “What is truly important in this moment?” Occasionally, when overwhelmed with many competing tasks, you must pause and see what is really important.
Overall, the points are not new; they are more of a re-compilation of what already exists. Whatâs nice is that McKeown brings in various historical examples to illustrate his points. At times, the book repeats itself. Still, a recommended read.
First of all, it doesnât make much sense. And for many people, it really doesn’t make sense to buy a reMarkable tablet when they could just have an iPad and use its features. The reMarkable tablet is expensiveânot as much as an iPad Pro, but in comparison to the features of an iPad in the same price range, the reMarkable looks extremely poor. Yet, despite all this, Iâve come to appreciate the reMarkable in the few days Iâve owned it. The version 1, which I snagged for under âŹ300 on eBay, will likely drop in price soon since the second generation is already being advertised. But before I spend âŹ500 on a device Iâm not sure will really suit me, Iâd rather use a second-hand one to test the concept. Because with the reMarkable, you can only read and annotate PDFs/eBooks and create notes and sketches. No emails, no web browsing, nothing. Black and white. E-Ink display. Writing with the pen feels almost like writing on paper. You donât need to charge the pen, but you do need to replace the nibs occasionally. And the device costs anywhere from âŹ450 to âŹ600 depending on the accessories.
Whatâs my use case? I had bought an iPad Pro with the pencil and everything to work and read with less luggage, anywhere. Reading and writing are, alongside programming, communication, and creating PowerPoints, my main activities. I have to read a lot, especially academic papers, but also articles from journals, etc. Additionally, I write a lot. The split-screen feature on the iPad was a killer app for me: PDF on the left, my notes on the right. It often worked well. But not always. However, the Apple ecosystem with iCloud allows me to keep all my files synchronized across all my devices.
But even then, itâs not perfect. Sometimes, I find it hard to focus because, as often happens when you try to focus on something, you get distracted by reminders of things you absolutely need to do and write down. Then you see those reminders and realize you forgot something urgent, etc. The iPad enables all of this with one device. And so, you quickly get distracted, especially when trying to work on something difficult. The temptation to quickly check emails is very strong. With the reMarkable, this doesnât happen. And that limitation is what you pay for, at a steep price. Apps that restrict you or help you focus better were something I looked into and used over 10 years ago.
Do I generally have a problem with concentration? No. But it might be the medium. I wrote my most successful book (3 editions) almost entirely on paper, as incredible as that sounds. In a notebook on a terrace in a bay in Sardinia. I had no computer with me, just my thoughts. I wrote them down, crossed them out, rephrased them, etc. Later, at home on my computer, I added screenshots and other materials. Just me and the paper. Iâm not sure I could do that today with an iPad. Because even though almost all my notifications are turned off, my brain knows that something new could pop up, and our brains crave that. The Organized Mind by Daniel Levitin describes how every interruption stimulates our brain, preventing us from focusing, because thinking is exhausting. I was particularly impressed by Stingâs preference for having the same room set up wherever he is in the world, so that nothing new could distract him.
Tranquility is the new luxury of our society. (The 5 AM Club, Robin Sharma)
This quiet is undoubtedly a luxury when you pay so much for a device with fewer features, just to have peace and be able to focus. Perhaps my preference for paper comes from my socialization: I grew up with paper, wrote everything on paperâmy final exams, my university exams, etc. Writing books on a computer, at least exclusively on a computer, is a torture for me. I have to have my…
But the iPad has other drawbacks. If I want to read outside with the iPad, itâs better if the sun isnât shining. With the reMarkable, thatâs not a problem. The iPad doesn’t handle that as well. Besides, the device is quite heavy (653 grams “naked” with the pencil / 1060 grams with the case including the keyboard). Itâs not really suited for prolonged reading or holding in your hand. The reMarkable weighs 362 grams “naked” with the pencil / 505 grams with the case, though thatâs a bit unfair since the cases are very different. For the reasons mentioned, I don’t like taking the iPad with me when I go outside for a bit. Itâs not only heavy and unwieldy, but Iâve also had the experience of how quickly the glass can break (and how expensive the replacement is).
And what the iPad lacks in light during the day in the sun, it has too much of in the evening. I notice it when Iâve been staring at the screen for too long in the evening. The iPad isnât suitable for me for extended reading and writing of academic texts, partly for ergonomic reasons, but also due to occasional lack of discipline. Following the 5 A.M. Club philosophy, electronic devices really shouldnât be used in the evening, and the reMarkable helps with that, if you turn a blind eye.
However, the reMarkable has some shortcomings that are rather unacceptable for the price:
The Wi-Fi module seems quite weak; in my office, it shows only 1 out of 3 bars, while all my other devices have at least 2 out of 3.
The battery lasts about 2-3 days with moderate use, which isnât much for an e-Ink display. Charging takes forever.
Large PDFs (such as Springer non-fiction books between 3 and 30 MB) are a real burden for the reMarkable tablet, and it can take a while to flip from one page to the next. Especially with large PDFs, the reMarkable often freezes or crashes.
The reMarkable canât open password-protected PDFs at all. Thatâs quite suboptimal.
The search function is a joke. You can either search for book titles, but only within the book youâre currently viewing. You also canât directly jump to the location from the search resultâyou have to remember the page number and then awkwardly navigate through multiple steps to get to the page.
The plastic feels cheap and sometimes a bit dirty, even when itâs clean. For the price, thatâs really not acceptable.
The pen seems to have two different types of plastic, at least thereâs a noticeable difference in the whites:
What I also don’t like is the lock-in. I’m trapped in their cloudâwhat if they go bankrupt? I’ve asked myself that several times with tado, but at least you can supposedly still operate the thermostats manually (though theyâre still way too expensive). With the reMarkable, youâd be lost if the cloud were shut down. Itâs likely that, eventually, youâll have to pay a subscription, just like tado switched to. However, what helps a bit is that supposedly, you can also access your documents via USB. I havenât tried this yet, but it means I could potentially build an application like my Kindle Clippings Manager, which syncs a folder on my computer with the reMarkableâs storage. That would be better than this double organization.
Overall, the device is hopelessly overpriced for its technical features, quality, and software. But still, I like it. It serves my use case better than the iPad, and unlike the Moleskine, itâs not a first-class idea graveyard. It has proven this very well in the few weeks Iâve had it so far.
