[flannelcatering]

I was wondering when an article like this was going to show up on the HN front page.

The follow-up article gets it right. Minimalism is at its core a "process of prioritizing your life and working towards concrete goals without giving in to distraction", NOT just blindly getting rid of stuff. It is immersion, but only in one thing at a time. It is about reducing your tendancy to over-extend yourself, and focusing on the things you really need, both intellectually and physically.

Can we all just admit that the original article, http://vivekhaldar.tumblr.com/post/2525332092/minimalism-is-... , was just link-bait intended to elicit a response and/or rise from the HN community? The original article contains so little method to it's analysis and represents such a fundamental misunderstanding of minimalism that it bears little water intellectually. Not to be rude, but I'm surprised it made it to the front page.

[billswift]

"Minimalism" as it is described here is just a personal version of technocracy - the arrogant belief that you actually know enough to produce explicit, precise long-term plans. Kept under control, and used for shorter terms (say a year detailed, and two more sort of general and subject to change as you learn more) it can be useful; otherwise it often is just a personalized version of the old Soviet "Five-Year Plans".

ADDED: Rereading this, I think I missed my point slightly; the problem with minimalism as described here is that it locks you in too much to your current plan; it reduces your flexibility to adjust your plans as you learn more about your problem space.

[KirinDave]

You're free to change your priorities at any time. For example, I decided to change aspects of my life so I could lose weight.

We need to be aware of value propositions and how they change. No one is saying you have to lock yourself in stone. Indeed, the minimalist approach increases your flexibility; you've invested the minimum to reach your goal, so if you abandon the goal you've lost the minimum you could invest.

[_delirium]

> "process of prioritizing your life and working towards concrete goals without giving in to distraction"

This in itself has tradeoffs I think; sometimes "distractions" are what lead to unexpected connections and pursuits, which wouldn't have happened if you were working towards concrete, prioritized goals all the time. I know some of the stuff I'm most happy I did started out as stuff I was doing to procrastinate. (It may depend on a given person's personality and intellectual style.)

[reason]

> Minimalism is at its core a "process of prioritizing your life and working towards concrete goals without giving in to distraction"

You mean, that's leading a productive, meaningful, successful life at its core.