ViewTube

Hi! 👋 I haven't published a new video for a few weeks because I was sick. But I'm back on my feet. And a  new video will be up on the channel tomorrow!

I've been going on a lot of hikes in the woods, practicing what Japanese call Shinrin-Yoku: forest bathing. 🌲 It means healing through being immersed in nature.

It’s about taking your time, wandering, listening to the birds singing, smelling the pine trees, and feeling the breeze on your skin. Taking in the forest through all your senses. Connecting with nature in this way can be a bridge to instant joy and calm.

I'll bring you along on one of those hikes in tomorrow's video. 

See you then! 

To everyone who took the time to fill out the audience survey last week: thank you so much ❤️ 🙏🏻

It was heartwarming to read all your answers, it made my week! 😊 

It's wonderful to hear all your kind words and feedback on the content I put out. And to get a better understanding of:

• why you watch my videos 
• what draws you to living with more intention (slow living; minimalism; etc)
• your dream life & current struggles 

As one person wrote: "That was a nice therapy session (started from analysing your content and ended up analysing myself)."

I appreciate how open and vulnerable so many of you were in your answers. It makes me really thankful for and appreciative of the community that is starting to form around the channel. 

A few things I'd like to share from the feedback:

• One viewer aged 83 (wow!) wrote: "I see great advantage to clearing my space and reducing my activities. 1) avoid accidents, 2) have head space to think and reflect, 3) everything is easier and more serene with a simplified life style, 4) enables better use of time especially for relationships. I wonder if there is a way you could mention this directly regarding the elderly." Consider it shared! 😀

• Someone else wrote that they hadn't told their parents they loved them since they were very young. That made me very sad, I've been there myself. I had to confront that when I had non-stop headaches a decade ago (I talked about those in my video: "Why I Quit My 6-Figure Job as a Lawyer To Live More Slowly"). One thing I've learned: it's never too late to change that, even if it may feel awkward at first. It reminded me of someone I met years ago volunteering. When he was in his early 30s, he left the house one day to go for a run without telling his wife "I love you." When he came back, tragedy had struck. A gas leak had caused an explosion, killing his wife. Can you imagine? When I met him, he was in his 60s and he had found a new wife. He told me that every single time he left her (even for something small like getting groceries) he would always tell her he loved her. 

I got many new video ideas from the survey. A few suggestions that were mentioned more than once:

• More videos on how I implement slow living/minimalism. Like a day in the life video or just cooking a recipe.
• More relaxing content, that is calming/soothing to have on in the background while they do something else.
• More travel, outdoors.
• More videos related to work/career change and how to make a living while wanting to practice slow living.

These are all great suggestions! 🙏🏻 

I will take all your feedback into account when creating new content. 

Heads-up: I already have finished and scheduled a number of videos, so you won't see it reflected immediately. But I'm excited to create new videos, the survey has given me so much inspiration. And I will keep going back to and reflect on your feedback during the year.

Thank you all!! Have a great weekend! ✨

Peter

PS. You can still fill out the survey if you haven't yet. Link in the first comment. ⬇ 

👋 I need your help. 

If you watch my channel, you know I create videos about slow living and minimalism. 

But I would love to hear your input on how the channel could be better. 

So I can create more valuable content for you.

I created a short survey (link in the first comment).

It would mean a lot to me if you would fill it out.

And in the end, it’s going to be you who will benefit the most from it. Because I will have a better idea of what my audience is most interested in.

Thank you so much in advance for participating! I really appreciate it. 🙏🏻 

Not too long ago I went through a phase where I felt disconnected from my desire to live a more simple, minimalist lifestyle. 

I was living in another apartment, and it had a lot of stuff. 

And I felt uninspired, dull, moody. 

At one point I was literally visualizing living in an empty apartment with just a bed and the absolute basics, like a toothbrush, a cup and a plate. 

Nothing else but space…

However, you can’t always control your environment. What you CAN control are your actions. 

So this experience led me to revisit why I was originally drawn to minimalism and living simply. 

What it means to me, what I hope to achieve. And a big reason is how it makes me feel. It grounds me, and helps me to focus on the things I care about. 

I’ve found that there are 5 proactive steps I can take that will lighten up my mood and make me feel happier, even – or perhaps especially – when my environment pushes me in a different direction.

🔜 I'll go over them in the next video: 5 Simple Ways To Increase Your Happiness

Coming later today!

Happy Friday 😀 

Hi! I'm on TikTok (link in first comment).

I have started to repurpose some of my long-form videos into YouTube shorts. And I've been quite enjoying it! Singled out tidbits of value that may otherwise have gotten lost or missed in the full video.

I've been on the fence about opening a TikTok account...

But I figured that since I put in all the work to create shorts, I might as well post them on TikTok.

If you're on TikTok, feel free to follow me there. My username is: @slowlivingminimalist.

Have a great (rest of your) day! 

🔜 New video tomorrow: Why You Want Things You Don’t Need | Diderot Effect

Have you ever bought a new outfit (a skirt, a jacket), only to realize later that none of your old stuff matches it? 

So, before you know it, you buy new shoes and accessories to match that clothing item...

This is called The Diderot Effect. 

It’s this idea that obtaining a new possession will often create a spiral of consumption. We acquire more new things, all with the unspoken goal of trying to find balance and create unity.

In the upcoming video, I'll discuss how can you stop yourself from buying things you don’t need. 

So you can master The Diderot Effect.

See you tomorrow, have a great weekend! 👋 

🔜 New video tomorrow: How To Slow Down Your Life (And Feel Better)

In today’s fast-paced world, it can be difficult to slow down. There’s work, and family to take care of. If you’re lucky, you may be able to fit in a workout. And with working from home becoming more common, the line between work and personal time gets blurred more easily.

But slowing down is also difficult because our attention gets hijacked all the time. Emails, notifications, and advertising on social media. With our smartphones always within reach, every potential moment of boredom is immediately filled with something to entertain us.

With a constantly racing mind, it can be difficult to relax and unwind, even if we want to. So in the upcoming video, I want to share a simple exercise you can use to slow down.

See you tomorrow! 👋 

🔜 New video tomorrow: Why I Don't Have a "Productive" Morning Routine.

YouTube is full of morning routine videos where people wake up like a Navy Seal at 5am, hit the gym, journal, meditate, say their affirmations, read, and visualize.

All of that, every single morning…

Who’s got time for that? 

I don’t have that kind of morning routine and I’m OK with that. 

Our lives are busy enough as they are. And what these videos can do is guilt trip you into feeling that what you’re already doing is not enough. No, we also need to spend a lot of time doing all kinds of self-development practices each morning because, apparently, that’s what successful millionaires do. 

The implicit message is: if you just do this long morning routine, you can achieve similar success. And if you're not successful, it's you...You're lazy. 

But in my view, that’s a gross oversimplification. So in tomorrow's video, I want to offer a different point of view.

I’ll share the different ways I have spent the first waking hour of the day over the last 15 years, ranging from having no intentional routine to doing the full Miracle Morning routine. Then I’ll discuss what I do right now when I wake up, and my reasons behind it.

See you soon! 👋 

🔜 New video tomorrow: Why You Never Have Enough Time

If you’re anything like me, you probably wish there were 30 hours in a day. There just isn’t enough time to do all the things I want to do and experience! Time also seems to speed up as you age. 

The productivity gurus out there tell us the solution lies in more efficiency. Wake up at 4 am, plan every second of your day, join a mastermind.

There’s this expectation imprinted on us of what it means to live a life well spent. You CAN do and become anything becomes you HAVE to do and become all those things.

I’m definitely guilty of this. I frequently feel like I’m not doing enough and wonder what other steps I can take to secure a better future. And where to find the time...

But then I read the book “Four Thousand Weeks” by Oliver Burkeman. He puts this whole notion of controlling time on its head. 

The subtitle is ‘Time Management for Mortals’, but it’s more of a philosophical book than your typical self-help book. The author points out that the average person lives for around 80 years, or 4,000 weeks. He argues that it’s impossible to do everything we want to in this limited time. Only when we come to terms with our finitude, can we truly start living.

In tomorrow's video, I'll share my key takeaways from Four Thousand Weeks. It's my attempt at sharing how I intend to apply the lessons from this book in my own life, and hopefully inspire you to rethink your own relationship with time. And what it means to live a life well spent.

Have a great weekend and see you tomorrow! 👋 

Here's why you should stay on the bus. 🚌
        
In 2004, the photographer Arno Rafael Minkkinen gave a commencement speech in which he used the Helsinki central bus station as a metaphor for “finding your own vision in photography.” It’s a story I read in Oliver Burkeman's book Four Thousand Weeks that resonated with me. It can be applied to anything in life.
    
Helsinki is the capital of Finland. All busses that leave the central bus station stop at the same 3 stops, before diverging to their unique destinations. If you want to go to your destination out of town, you’ll have to pass these 3 stations first.
    
The lesson for the photography graduates Minkkinen was speaking to was that they needed to have patience. For any project, you will first need to go through a trial-and-error phase of copying others and learning new skills. And that can be hard. Imagine being a young photographer, you’re building your portfolio. You’ve got this beautiful set of photos of apartment buildings, take it to a gallery, only to be rejected because they look too much like Michael Wolf's. 

So you decide, this is not it. 

You get off the bus. 

Back to the central bus station. 

This time you decide to hop on a different bus and focus on black-and-white portrait photography. You do a couple of shoots, find a photography contest and submit your best photos. But the jury rejects them: they’re not original enough, the style is too similar to Anton Corbijn’s work…
    
What should you do? Stay on the bus! These first 3 bus stops are the stages everyone has to go through in order to create distinctive work, a unique style. 
    
And this goes beyond photography. A book that’s popular with content creators is Austin Kleon’s ‘Steal Like an Artist.’ He doesn’t literally mean stealing, as in plagiarizing or ripping off. The point he makes is that nothing is completely original. We’re all standing on the shoulders of those who came before us. To find your unique style, you need to study others, remix them, and create content that builds on what came before.
    
The comedian Conan O’Brien came to this insight after his very public conflict with NBC. He had been waiting for many years to take over the Tonight Show from Jay Leno. However, when that moment arrived in 2009, Leno wasn’t retiring and they were competing for ratings. Conan ended up leaving the network. 

In his Dartmouth commencement speech, which he delivered 1 year later, he said that in 1940 Jack Benny was a giant star, one of the greatest comedians of his generation. Johnny Carson wanted to be Jack Benny. In some ways he was but in many ways, he wasn't. He emulated Jack Benny. But he had his own quirks and mannerisms. That, along with the TV gaining popularity pulled him in a different direction. His failure to completely become his hero made him the funniest person of his generation. David Letterman wanted to be Johnny Carson and was not. The comedians of Conan’s generation wanted to be David Letterman, yet none of them are. 

Conan said: "My peers and I have all missed that mark in a thousand different ways but the point is this: it is our failure to become our perceived ideal that ultimately defines us and makes us unique.” 

The one thing these comedians did not do was get off the bus...

Oliver Burkeman writes that meaningful productivity comes from letting things take the time they take. What bus are you on? And have you gone off a bus too soon, in the past?

🔜 NEXT VIDEO: Why you never have enough time

It's about my takeaways from Four Thousand Weeks. It will go live this weekend. 

Take care! 👋