No Excuses: Minimalism with Kids

Leo Babauta | Zen Habits

I set off on a journey of exploring minimalism with kids, trying some extreme experiments, doing fun challenges with my family … and that journey has taught me to never again let myself use my family as an excuse not to make a change I’d like to make. Instead, I bring them along for the ride, and we have an amazing time together.

When my friends Joshua and Ryan took their new book on minimalism on a huge tour, one of the most frequent things they heard was, “I could never be a minimalist because I have kids.”

To which they’d respond, “Our friend Leo is a minimalist … and he has six kids.”

And it’s funny, because before I started simplifying my life and experimenting with minimalism, I had the same thinking — that there was no way to change because of my kids, or my wife’s preferences perhaps.

Boy was I wrong.

Here’s what I learned.