Geoff McDonald Deep Minimalism with Geoff McDonald GeoffMcDonald.comDeep Minimalism Deep Minimalism is the topic of Geoff McDonald’s next book. It’s what you get when you apply the principles of Minimalism to all (or at least, more) areas of your life. The first slice of this topic is shaping as a standalone book, Minimal Work. In this podcast episode (#115 of the Ideas Architect Podcast), Geoff is interviewed by his good friend, Alan Silcock, author of Five Gifts Flourishing. This is the first time Geoff has been interviewed about Minimalism. Resources The Seven Principles of Minimal Work Minimal Work Live Download Podcast Episode Download the Podcast Episode here Transcript Alan Silcock 00:09 We’re here to chat with Geoff McDonald, sometimes known because I’ve known him for so long as ‘Geoff the Juggler’. And there’s a story behind that. And Geoff, and I’ve been good friends for many, many years, ever since the ALSA, the Accelerated Learning Society of Australia, which, unfortunately, no longer exists. But when it did exist, many decades ago, it was sensational. And we’ve learned Geoff and me together through that organization, some really fundamental learnings around how we learn as humans, and that’s been of significant benefit, I know in my life as an author, and as someone who’s going to have their first book out next month, and then later in the year, my first novel, and certainly in Geoff’s life. He’s been a prolific writer throughout his life and a prolific ideas person throughout the time that I’ve known him and a delight to have a chat with him, which will be no different today. So Geoff, welcome. Geoff McDonald 01:18 Thank you, Alan, it’s kind of a nice point to reflect on because back then I was studying architecture. And it kind of never made sense for me that I was going to this Accelerated Learning thing. I was coming up to Melbourne, and I was writing their newsletter and all of that sort of stuff. And it was kind of like, I was putting in all this time into Accelerated Learning, which had nothing to do with what I studied or what I thought. But it’s kind of when you stop and think and you make connections, and you view these things a bit more broadly, it’s like, well, I still see design or creativity is just a form of learning. It’s my way of exploring the world. And, and I think that’s where we’re bonded is that we both love learning and being curious about the world and ultimately creating stuff. So it’s kind of funny that we both finished up writing books. Well, exactly. And in the title of my book that’s out and a couple of months, or a month or so is called ‘Five Gifts Flourishing’. And one of those gifts that I have, and I’m encouraging people to find their own gifts and have them flourish in their lives, is learning that sits in there as a call for me, and I know it’s a call for you. Geoff McDonald 02:27 Well, it’s kind of a way of… I guess I get stuck with it. Because at one level, I go, how do you explain this? But I think sometimes it’s best to explain the opposite, that if I didn’t learn, I’d be repeating the same mistakes over and over. Alan Silcock 02:43 Yeah, and you might even be lost. Geoff McDonald 02:45 Yeah. And ultimately, I always wanted the business card that said, Geoff McDonald, Explorer. Alan Silcock 02:53 Yeah, explorer. Geoff McDonald 02:54 Explorer was kind of, Okay, I’m an explorer, I just want to explore the world. But I don’t necessarily want to, you know, I do want to travel around the world, but I don’t actually want to be going through deserts, maybe, but more than I want to explore ideas and what’s possible, and I think that’s the ultimate in creativity and learning. Alan Silcock 03:09 Yeah, and from the time that I’ve known you, certainly are an explorer and willing to engage in areas that maybe not that many people are. And I guess that’s, that’s certainly what we’re here to talk about, which is your latest, I know that you’ve written a number of books, and the last of those that was published was ‘Done: How to finish your projects when traditional ways don’t work‘, and they’re snappy little books and really helpful books. And today, we’re here to talk about one that is currently underway and will hit the streets in the future. And that is, Geoff McDonald 03:50 The working title at the moment is ‘Deep Minimalism’. I guess this is probably a similar question for you. It’s like, what are you going to write about? And this one kind of came around… Someone just said something to me, really, you know, just part of a normal conversation that was like, well, you’re living a minimal life anyway. Why don’t you write about that? And I had already written notes about what I was doing and how I’d been doing it. And I just, I’ve been looking for different stuff. And in the finish, I just said, okay, that’s the one I’m actually been living it, I might as well tell people some of the things I’m doing. Yeah. And when you look at the minimalism conversation, it’s nearly always about having less stuff. Yeah, no, that’s the one people and I realized, well, actually, there’s more to it than that, because I think it’s actually a philosophy rather than just a set of action. Alan Silcock 04:42 How does that differ from a set of actions, compared to a philosophy or movement, if you like? Geoff McDonald 04:48 I think philosophy is a deeper piece. So you would, it’s a bit like, I might have a value, I might value something, therefore, I act in a particular way. Yeah. My simple definition of philosophy is that it’s a way of seeing the world’. And so if you see the world in a particular way, and in this case, if I see the world as fundamentally, ‘less is more’. But there’s also another piece, I think the fundamental piece, if you look at it, psychologically, is that we get our happiness internally. There’s no happiness out in the world. Yeah. And that is simply a way to explain. I don’t need more stuff, because that’s actually not going to make me happier, I might want more stuff, and I might still buy stuff, but I don’t actually have to crave it anymore. And after I got rid of all my stuff, when I started moving house, a few years ago, it just became really obvious I’d always lived almost a student lifestyle, anywhere where I’ve never had lots of money. I’ve always lived pretty leanly. I’ve never really craved a lot of things. So it was kind of second nature to me to operate in that way. Then I started house sitting for a while. And it’s kind of like, well, that’s minimal living. Yeah, you know, I had friends asking ‘how was homeless Geoff going?’ because technically, I was homeless, because I didn’t actually have a fixed address, which is kind of the definition of homelessness. And when you start to then apply it and go, Okay, well, how would this look around my diet? Or how would look this in the mindfulness space, or there’s a great book by Cal Newport called ‘Digital Minimalism’. So how do I do digital, but in a minimal way? And it’s kind of becomes this whole way of looking at life and not just about the stuff, I have to own or all the things I have in my house. And that’s kind of what I mean, by philosophy. It’s this way of operating in the world or even seeing the world rather than just a discrete set of actions. Alan Silcock 06:43 So it seems to me that and I because I’ve got three young men who are in their early 20s to 30s, these days, and all three of them at some stage, refer to what you’re talking about and guide their lives around what you’re talking about. One of them, Callum, for instance, travelling around the planet for over a year out of a minimalist approach, in terms of living in terms of moving. He left London recently to get back to Australia. And I’ve noticed and forming how they’re going to be living next. Currently. Yeah. Is it something that is specific to that generation, to sort of generation Xers and beyond? Or is it something that, you know, that resonates with a broader group of people? Geoff McDonald 07:47 Yeah, it’s a really good question. Because what I’ve been trying to find out is where it all starts. Yeah. And there’s a type of Google search, it’s called, you can type minimalism, and Google can tell you where it’s been searched. But there’s also another one where Google’s got Google Books [Google Ngrams]. And it can actually tell you that word usage over time. Yep. And the word minimalism almost has no use usage up until the 1960s. Then it kind of spikes to about 2000. Yeah, then dips, then it comes back up in the last five years. So there’s certainly something about it being contemporary, generational, all the rest of it. If I was to put a big picture view on it, there’s probably two things I’d say. So the first one is the Industrial Revolution comes along, we get all these machines, all of a sudden, we can pump out almost anything. And this explodes after the Second World War, where we’re buying fridges and cars and washing machines. And all this stuff is now cheap. People could buy houses. And we kind of get to the point where we can have more, more, more, more and more. Add some credit in there. And people, particularly in the Western world have got, let’s say it this way: they’ve got lots of stuff. Alan Silcock 09:03 Oh, so much stuff. They need to put them in storage units out of their property. Geoff McDonald 09:08 Yeah, you got to know you’ve got a problem when you go too much stuff in your house. But if the other side of that point is if you look at the origin of it, and partly because I’m an architect, I looked at it as an aesthetic that came out of the modern movement in the 1920s, particula
