A Life Less Throwaway: The lost art of buying for life. Tara Button
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life, because the focus is off consumption and on what really matters.
As my company name, BuyMeOnce, suggests, living a life less throwaway does involve buying certain things, but this lifestyle isn’t about buying beautiful stuff to gloat over, it’s about buying only those items that will support a functioning and fulfilling life.
MINDFUL CURATION
I call my method ‘mindful curation’, which might sound as pretentious as bringing your own tablecloth to KFC, but is the best term for it. It is ‘mindful’ because it is done with purpose and thought. And it is ‘curation’ because, like a curator putting together a collection in an art gallery, it’s about picking only those things that will work together to form a home and a life that uniquely reflects you and your needs.
It is comprised of several steps:
1. Understanding the benefits of mindful curation. (Chapter 1)
2. Understanding the pressures that promote mindless buying and developing tactics to free yourself from them. (Chapters 2–8 and 12)
3. Investigating your life’s purpose and the long-term priorities that will help you meet this purpose. (Chapter 9)
4. Identifying which items you need to fulfil those priorities and to live comfortably without being swayed by status. (Chapters 9–11)
5. Identifying your true tastes and sense of style so you can buy future-proof items. (Chapters 3 and 7)
6. Identifying your values and the brands that reflect those values. (Chapter 9)
7. Taking stock of the items you already have to understand your present tastes, priorities and buying habits. (Chapter 10)
8. Letting go of the clutter and the superfluous. (Chapter 10)
9. Developing a healthy attitude towards money. (Chapter 15)
10. Choosing each new item with your long-term priorities and tastes in mind. (Chapters 7, 12 and 13)
11. Developing the skills to take care of and keep the things you’ve chosen to bring into your life. (Chapter 14)
This book contains practical exercises on how to put all these steps into action. Skipping straight to the exercises may leave you with a shallower understanding of why they are important. However, if time is short and you just want to get cracking, go ahead – there’s a list of exercises on the next page, or simply flick through the book for them.
This is above all a book on how to be happy in the ultra-commercial world we live in right now. It’s meant to be useful, so please use it in the way that’s most helpful to you.
Let’s get started!
Persuade yourself of the importance of non-material actions
Simple ways to combat materialism every day
Identifying your homeware aesthetic
Free yourself from celebrity influence
Separate lifestyle and product
Dressing up for the roles you play
Turning necessities into luxuries
If you were the last person on the planet
How to increase your sense of being valued by your tribe
Digging deeper to find purpose
Kill yourself off (metaphorically)
Bringing it all together to find your ‘42’
Your purpose and your purchasing
Where your values and brand values meet
The life-less-throwaway challenge
Identifying impulse-buying triggers
Prioritising where your money goes
Connect with your special people