The pandemic changed a lot about me. I did not expect to be graduating into a fully remote life nor did I expect to move across the country for a new job. Minimalism helped me adapt to those profoud life changes and is still helping me each day. But minimalism is only the inward-facing manifestation of a set of life principles I call high-value living. There is another face of this type of living and it calls itself Lean manufacturing. In this post I’ll be discussing how Minimalism and Lean manufacturing can teach one about living. 

The hardest part of being evicted in October 2020 was all of my stuff. I had a lot of stuff. 

Over the past summer of quarantine I had added to my fledlging collection of junk a bread making kit, garden equipment, a guitar, a bicycle, and enough USB cables to make a spaghetti. By the time I was getting evicted I had been turned onto the minimalism movement by my then partner who showed me the epinomous documentary. I had succeeded in cleaning out my living space but only in so far as I could force my belongings into a pile in the garage. When I was evicted, I had only a few hours to leave the apartment and had to leave anything I couldn’t fit in my car behind. That was my first real taste of minimalism. 

It’s easy to clean your room. Or at least it’s easy to “”clean”” your room. We’ve all “”cleaned”” our spaces before having guests over or just to gain some peace of mind. But how long did that last? Is there some forgotten pile of items that you still feel connected to gathering dust in your closet, basement, attic, or junk drawers? When you can keep as much as you want in storage you are allowed to make as many commitments as your heart can bear to these objects. But when it’s just you and a hatchback Nissan you have to answer some questions. 

1. If you had nothing in the world what would you need?

    For me, the answer was camping equipment. It didn’t occur to me at the time but camping equipment has represented independence for me throughout my life. And I’ve since doubled down on my goal of creating a complete solo backpacking kit that could support me for up to seven days unaided. 

2. If you could only keep one book which would it be? 

    I landed on an economics book (which I never read) because it symbolizes my scarcest resource at the time: American Dollars. 

3. Who would really help you out at the drop of a hat? 

    When I was evicted, I called my father to ask for a place to stay and was turned away. This taught me a lot about the roles men have in society and the toxicity of the “”independent man”” archetype. I can only imagine that his choice to deny me residence was out of a desire to make me a “”better man””. Ironically it may have had the intended result if bug-out bags make the man. 

That eviction was my crucible when it comes to how I view belongings. Most books on minimalism give you gentle introductions and advice on how to reduce the number of shirts you need. But that’s not what it’s about at all. It’s about uncovering the pain that caused you to become attached to things in the first place. It’s about recognizing that most of your spending habits or just misplaced pain. It’s about learning that the only thing that matters is others and the way we treat each other. 

Minimalism as a term begins to fail us at this point – a design feature to be sure. But before I propose a new term I want to approach this topic from the lense of manufacturing. There’s a lot to learn about life from the optimizaton of a carrot – trust me. 

Lean manufacturing came about in the mid 20th century as a response to part shortages in Japan (cite). The core principe of lean manufacturing is to allow the customer to pull value from the company. To that end, internal waste is ruthlessly eliminated so that all that remains is a system for understanding customer value and producing that value. I crossed paths with lean manufacturing during the summer of 2020 when I was looking for an Audiobook to listen to while gardening. 

I came across The Lean Farm: How to Minimize Waste, Increase Efficiency, and Maximize Value and Profits with Less Work (affiliate link). It’s a matter of fact book about how to grow carrots faster (among other things) but I found that the farming metaphor was highly effective as a way of internalizing the principles of lean manufacturing. But that wasn’t what kept me listening, and it’s not why I’m writing this blog post. 

I’m writng this blog post because of how lean manufacturing taught me to view others. Lean manufacturing has been described as