A Day In The Life of a Slow Living Minimalist

This is a day in my life as a slow living minimalist. I don't like standing an alarm. I wake up naturally around 7.30 am. After making the bed, the first thing I do is drink half a liter of water. I then go to the bathroom, wash my face and brush my teeth. I walk out to the balcony and sit there for a few minutes to get some daylight exposure and feel the fresh morning breeze on my skin. I love this mountain view. I don't check my phone for the first hour in the morning. Instead, I read a book for about 10 to 15 minutes. Right now, I'm reading the novel Trust by Hernán Díaz. It's about a childless affluent Manhattan couple, Andrew and Mildred Bevel, in the years leading up to the Great Depression. The novel is divided in four books, with each book peeling down another layer of the onion. To ultimately reveal what really happened between the two of them. I'm really enjoying it so far. Then I roll out the yoga mat in the living room and do a gentle 10-minute morning stretch. This loosens up my body and sets the tone for the day. This isn't my apartment. It's a short-term rental I'm staying in for the summer. It's not really how I would design it. There's holes in the wall, a bunch of random clutter, handprints that can spook you at night. But my yoga practice this morning is pretty minimal, so that should even things out. To me, being in an apartment that perhaps doesn't look like how I would design it myself, serves as a reminder that we can't always control our environment. But what we can control is our mindset. Then it's time to make a coffee. This is always one of the highlights of my day. I love my morning cup of coffee. I used an AeroPress. And believe it or not, there's an actual World AeroPress Championship. One day I decided to give the 2019 winning recipe a try. I had low expectations. I mean, how different could it taste from how I usually made it with the same coffee beans? But it actually tasted better. Sweeter, more chocolaty. So I've been using that recipe since then. I recently bought the Fellow Carter Everywhere Coffee Mug. I love it. It keeps my coffee warm for hours. And it's great for when I'm not working from home, like today. So I'll have a few sips now, and I'll keep the rest for later. This morning I'm going to shoot b-roll in the forest. I've been doing a lot of solo hiking there lately. It had been a while since I immersed myself in nature, and it felt so good. I've been reading up on the positive effects of exposure to nature, and forest bathing specifically. And I decided to make a video about it. To keep me satiated in the forest, I'm making a simple, healthy breakfast of scrambled eggs and salmon. I get dressed, put on my shoes, and head out. So right now I'm trying to find a stone, or like, something like a pine cone, to stabilize my phone. Because I found this cool mushroom here, and I want to put my phone right in front of it. So the mushroom is in frame, and then I'll walk by it. There'll be like a more original shot than if the camera is just at eye level. So this is the mushroom. That'll look pretty cool. So I found the stone. Let's see if it works. I found a good spot for a hiking shot. Got my tripod set up and the camera, and yeah, this will just be a shot of me walking through the forest. It's been a bit of a challenge today filming, because there's a lot of other hikers, and you know, I don't want them in my shot. So then I have to pause, sometimes set up the shot again, or even a couple of kids playing hide and seek. But it looks quiet now, so let's see. So I'm thinking, are we gonna do a wide shot? Are we gonna use a regular camera or the tele lens? I'm just gonna experiment a little bit. Probably we'll need to reduce the brightness a little bit, because it's quite sunny. So let's see what we can get. So I think that went pretty well. Let's pick up the tripod and we'll head to the... So this is the struggle of the daily life of filming in the forest. Someone is just sawing trees or something, and it's creating a lot of noise. Anyway, I think we got our shot. Let's pick up the tripod and we'll head to the next stop. To me, slow living is not about not doing anything. It's also not about doing everything at a snail's pace. It's about doing the things I enjoy doing at a sustainable pace. And today that is making videos. So I'm in the forest, in nature, I'm inhaling the fresh air. It's very pleasant. And I also get to use my creativity to come up with original shots. It's very different than walking from A to B, where I'm just in my head and I'm only focused on the finish, the point B where I want to go. Now I am just looking around. I'm very observant and I see all these small things that normally I would miss. A mushroom, a bee collecting nectar from a flower. Oh, look, I think I just found a friendly forest creature. Hi, little fella. Who are you? My name's Peter. What's your name? Never mind my name. Why are you blocking my view? Oh, sorry. Was I standing in your way? How could you not, when you're like a million times bigger than me? I see I met you on a bad day. Just leave, will ya? Let's go. All right, so I think I've worn out my welcome in the forest. I got some great shots, but it's also getting really hot. So let's go home and I'm going to take a shower and make lunch. I packed my bag and head to a co-working space. I'm looking forward to the air conditioning, which we don't have in the apartment. I like working from a co-working space because it's a great way to get out of the house and meet other remote workers and digital nomads. Although today is very quiet. Inspired by footage I shot in the morning, I spend a few hours writing the script. I alternate between having calm piano music in the background and forest soundscapes to stay in the spirit of the video I'm working on. During my research, I come across studies that show how nature exposure boosts the immune system as well as performance at work and may help buffer against the onset of depression and anxiety disorders. Which aligns with how I've been feeling in the forest. I have a call scheduled at the end of the afternoon, but I decide to first take a quick nap. I have this chair here that reminds me of Joey and Chandler's Barker lounger in France. It's amazing. I then call my friend. It's been a while since we last spoke and it's great to catch up. Around 5 p.m. I call it quits and head back to the apartment. At home, I make a cup of tea. Then I sit down to journal for a bit. After not doing it for years, I picked up this habit again about 6 months ago and I'm loving it. I use the app Day One for a couple of reasons. I can type faster than I write with a pen. I can add random pictures of my day. Whenever I have an insight, I can write it down immediately because I also have the app on my phone. It's easy to find an entry using the search function. And if I keep this habit up, I won't have a big stack of old journals lying around in a few years. For dinner, I eat yesterday's Indian leftovers. After doing the dishes, I decide to watch a movie. I haven't had a TV for years and I'm actually quite enjoying having one in this apartment. I end up watching a documentary about this lady who walked the Camino de Santiago in the north of Spain alone to process the loss of her father. It's a moving film and it kind of makes me want to do the pilgrimage myself one day. Walking for days, meeting other pilgrims along the way, completely disconnecting from the day-to-day worries and responsibilities, the beautiful landscape. It all sounds really appealing. I will link to the documentary in the description below. Before going to bed, I unwind by doing some stretching and listening to a podcast. Right now, I'm listening to Bone Valley. It's about whether or not Leo Schofield was wrongfully convicted of murdering his wife Michelle in the 1980s. Even though there is overwhelming evidence of his innocence and even a detailed confession from the actual killer, he continues to be in prison until this day. To be honest, it's heartbreaking and infuriating to listen to. I just want to say that this is one day in my life, but they're not always like this. No two days look the same. Some days my schedule is packed, while on other days I might not feel motivated to do much at all. And I don't know if my day looks very different from someone who isn't into slow living or minimalism. I don't want to paint a picture-perfect image of someone who has life all figured out. What it boils down to is intention, and my willingness to adapt when life throws me a curveball. The things I don't do are as important as the things I do do. I don't spend hours scrolling mindlessly on social media. I don't waste half my life climbing a career ladder that is leaning against the wrong wall at the expense of enjoying the little things today. I take it one day at a time, trying to do things that feel meaningful and joyful to me. To build a life I can reflect on in old age with a smile. If you're interested in what a typical evening of mine looks like, check out my evening routine video. Thanks for watching, have a wonderful day, and take care. Bye-bye.