With the coming of the new season, it’s tradition for most households to engage in some “Spring Cleaning” to declutter their living spaces and their minds. In this episode, Diana Scharf, a Fullstack developer at Beyond Code, and Co-Founder of 5amcode, shares with us what it truly means to live a minimalist lifestyle, and the surprising amount of freedom it gives you. We discuss how this kind of simple living isn’t just about decluttering, and how Minimalism can provide benefits for multiple aspects of life. From homes to careers, and especially, to mental wellness.
Matt Stauffer:
Hey, and welcome to Things Worth Learning. I'm your host, Matt Stauffer. And this is a show where a curious computer programmer, that's me, interviews fascinating people about their passions. Today, my guest is Diana Scharf, a Fullstack developer at Beyond Code. Diana, would you mind telling the audience a little bit about yourself, whether it's your personal or your professional life?
Diana Scharf:
So first, thank you for having me. It's great to be here. Hello. My name is Diana Scharf, but everyone on the internet calls me Di. This is fine. I'm from Germany and I'm currently located in Bavaria, the land of the pretzels.
Matt Stauffer:
I was going to say I know nothing about Bavaria other than pretzels.
Diana Scharf:
And beer, maybe.
Matt Stauffer:
Okay. I guess that makes sense. I kind of assume that for that entire region outside of just Bavaria, but Bavarian pretzel is just a phrase I have in my brain.
Diana Scharf:
Yeah, they are great.
Matt Stauffer:
I've never had one. I'm going to have to try at some point.
Diana Scharf:
Yeah. I work as a Fullstack developer at Beyond Code where I do a lot of Laravel, PHP, Vue programming. Besides that, I write and speak about career topics in the widest sense. And to balance this whole work, I try to do a lot of sports. I do triathlon, so swimming, biking, running, all the fun stuff. Not that much in the last two years because pandemic stuff.
Matt Stauffer:
Sure. Life. Yeah.
Diana Scharf:
Life stuff, but I'm getting into it again. Yeah. I really enjoy being in nature to recharge my introvert battery.
Matt Stauffer:
I like that.
Diana Scharf:
And I always have great company because I have a great dog. She's sitting. No, she's sleeping behind me for my emotional support today. And yeah, that's about me.
Matt Stauffer:
That's cool. I there's a yoga instructor named Adriene on YouTube. It's Yoga With Adriene. And if anybody has never done-
Diana Scharf:
She's great.
Matt Stauffer:
Yes. Okay. And she always has her dog sleeping there next to her, no matter what she's doing, and it makes you feel a little bit more peaceful and comfortable when her dog is right there. So I'm getting that feeling. My dog is not right here. My dog is sleeping in front of the fireplace because it's chilly right now, but he's here.
Diana Scharf:
Yeah, here too.
Matt Stauffer:
Okay. So you know that the first question I'm always going to ask you is do you have any sort of life mantra or phrase or idea that you try to live your life by?
Diana Scharf:
I actually have two.
Matt Stauffer:
Okay. I like it.
Diana Scharf:
They're a bit related. The first one is really short. It's mood follows action. And I got this one by Rich Roll. He's a vegan, ultra runner, ultra triathlete, doing a lot of sports, a lot of stuff, really busy guy.
Matt Stauffer:
Yeah.
Diana Scharf:
And it's about that you can't think yourself out of a mental state. There's a lot of neuroscience behind that that I can't reproduce right now because it's not my area of expertise.
Matt Stauffer:
Right.
Diana Scharf:
But it's really helpful for me because I struggled with some mental health issues, and sometimes it's that mantra that gets me out of bed every day. But to put it in a day to day routine thing, if you're working out on a regular basis, you will have days that you just don't feel like it, that you're like more like, "Okay, I want to Netflix the whole night and eat chips on my sofa or something."
Matt Stauffer:
Yes.
Diana Scharf:
But if you go for that run or that workout, whatever, you will feel better. You will think like, "Oh my, God. I am so glad that I did it." And it's because you can trick your brain into a different state. It's so great.
Matt Stauffer:
That's really cool. I like that.
Diana Scharf:
Yeah.
Matt Stauffer:
And I know that you're talking specifically about exercise, how it releases dopamine and everything like that, but it's interesting that ... Are you familiar with cognitive behavioral therapy at all?
Diana Scharf:
Yeah, but ...
Matt Stauffer:
Yeah. It's interesting because that's not necessarily action. It is your brain a little bit, but I feel like it's one of those, it's the same concept of choosing to do the things that will get you to the place where your mood is versus choosing to respond to where your mood is at the moment. So both of them involve this concept of like, I'm going to define where I want to end up and I'm going to take steps to end up in that place.
Diana Scharf:
Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
Matt Stauffer:
That's really cool. I like that.
Diana Scharf:
Yeah. And the second one, it's a bit related. It's right behind me. I'm not sure if you can see that in that angle, but I see it every day and it's work, ship, repeat. And it's something that I derived out of a book. It's called the Practice by Seth Godin. I don't know if you know the author.
Matt Stauffer:
I know Seth Godin, but I haven't read that book.
Diana Scharf:
It's a great book. It's about shipping creative work, but creative not in the artist sense that everyone thinks, but because if you create something, be it code or whatever, you're a creative person. And the whole book is about it and it's really good. Definitely recommend it. This mantra is about, for me, decoupling yourself from the results of your work and instead commit to the process.
Matt Stauffer:
That's really cool.
Diana Scharf:
And it makes you independent from other people's opinions, which is nice.
Matt Stauffer:
Yeah.
Diana Scharf:
I don't say that you shouldn't listen to any feedback because feedback can be really great. But if it comes to keep yourself going in the process, it's easier to focus on the work itself than on the results.
Matt Stauffer:
That's helpful. For those outside of the programming industry, one of the most common shortcomings we have as programmers is perfectionism where we don't want to release the thing until it's exactly where we wanted to get. And it's one of those. I think it's perfect is the enemy of good, I think, is one of the phrases that people use, which is like you're so focused on getting it perfect that you never even ship the thing at all. You never launch it. You never release it. You never put it out in the world. So I love this idea of focusing on I'm going to do, and it's something we do at Tighten a lot, we say we're not going to get you the absolute ... One of our differences in our engagement model is we're not going to get everything perfect and then throw it over the wall, done, because one of the things that comes from it is like, well, what if the requirements changed? What if you would've actually been happy with the version that was 80% done and it would've cost you 20% of the cost or whatever?
Matt Stauffer:
There are so many ways where this more collaborative iterative process is actually much better in a lot of ways, but it requires your willingness to focus on doing the best job you can each chunk of time and then submit, and then doing the best job you can and then submit, whether submitting is shipping a piece of code or whatever else. So I love that, and it seems so simple in the way you have it mantra-ized, the work, ship, repeat. Yes. All right, cool. It doesn't say get it perfect and then ship. It's just do the work, do the shipping, keep doing that over and over and over. I love that.
Diana Scharf:
Yeah.
Matt Stauffer:
Okay. Well, you know that the primary focus of this episode is going to be for you to talk about one topic you're really passionate about. So can you tell me, what are we actually going to talk about today?
Diana Scharf:
We are talking about minimalism.
Matt Stauffer:
Really? Okay.
Diana Scharf:
Yeah.
Matt Stauffer:
So one of the things I love about your background, for those who can't see, is that it is very minimalist, and I didn't know this was something you're super into, but we've got a white, I'm going to describe it for our listeners, we've got a white wall. We've got a little potted plant. I can't tell, it's out of focus, but maybe a succulent of some sort.
Diana Scharf:
Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
Matt Stauffer:
Okay. And then we've got a neon cactus behind it, and then just the little edge of a framed mantra that you just mentioned and nothing else. You look at what's behind me and this is not a minimalist background. There's stuff everywhere. So tell me a little bit about what minimalism means to you or your journey to getting there. Give me an intro here.
Diana Scharf:
Yeah. So to be honest, I chose this wall as my background. But yeah, this room is quite minimal. I have some sound panels here, but I have a cabinet over there so I have stuff too. I'm not sitting in a blank room, only my desks, nothing else.
Matt Stauffer:
It's already a lot blanker than my room. So we can say that for sure.
Diana Scharf:
Yeah, I just moved in so not a lot of stuff.
Matt Stauffer:
All right. Fair enough.
Diana Scharf:
Yeah. I got into this minimalism thing because I watched the documentation on Netflix, the Minimalism documentation, just called like that.
Matt Stauffer:
Okay.
Diana Scharf:
When I was in university, so a few years back, and I liked the concept of questioning your possessions because back in university, I was moving a lot. And even after that, I was moving a lot more because I have bad luck with apartments.
Matt Stauffer:
Oh no.
Diana Scharf:
And I can fit my whole life into one big van that I'm able to drive myself, which is something in Germany because you can't drive the big trucks by yourself. You have to do a special license for that.
Matt Stauffer:
So do you have a special license or you can fit in a small-
Diana Scharf:
Yeah.
Matt Stauffer:
You can fit in a small enough van that you're capable of driving yourself.
Diana Scharf:
Yeah. It's not a small van but a smaller van than a truck, and I have a regular license for cars, which is great.
Matt Stauffer:
That's really impressive. Yeah.
Diana Scharf:
But yeah, I think I started with the stuff side of the minimalism, but after some years, I recognized that you can apply this concept to a lot more in your life, every area of your life, be it a relationship, be it your work, be it your day to day routines.
Matt Stauffer:
So let's start with this stuff because I think it's usually the most accessible one. As you're approaching-
Diana Scharf:
How many items do you have?
Matt Stauffer:
Right. As you're approaching your concept of minimalism, can you tell me a little ... So I've never seen the Minimalism documentary that you're talking about. I didn't even know there was a documentary called Minimalism. I now definitely have to check this out, so we'll link it in show notes for anybody.
Diana Scharf:
It's great.
Matt Stauffer:
But can you give me a little bit of the elevator pitch for minimalism, at least when it comes to stuff? So you mentioned moving. Let's say I'm not going to move in the near future. What is the emotional and practical benefit that you receive from having less stuff? Let's just start there.
Diana Scharf:
One benefit is definitely that when it comes to owning possessions, you have to care about them. I mean caring, I think let's say I have a cabinet that is filled with stuff that I don't need actually. Then, I have to care that it gets moved when I'm moving and then it's not dusty or dirty or something and it takes space in my flat. If I have a lot of cabinets, to put it really simple, with stuff filled that I don't need, I need a bigger apartment. And when I have a bigger apartment, I need to pay more rent for it. And when I need to pay more rent, I will have to earn more money. And when I have to earn more money, I will have to work more or get a better job or something.
Matt Stauffer:
Yeah.
Diana Scharf:
And it's less to care about, even if it sounds a bit negative, but it gives you a lot of freedom. It makes you really flexible. And this is what I like about it.
Matt Stauffer:
It's interesting because I just had a mental image of if I were to choose to move to a different house next year, what would be the things that would make it difficult? And it would be (a) the amount of things I'd have to move, and (b) the amount of space I'd have to make sure that I had access to in the new place to make sure it fits. So it makes a ton of sense. If I were to be in a place where I wasn't worried ... Let's say my kids grew up and didn't need a place anymore. I would ideally want the smallest place that I needed for all the reasons you just mentioned because let's say I even like my job, it still would be nice to be at a point where I didn't have to work as many days a week at my job or could work more flexible hours, but I can only do that if I have a lower price.
Matt Stauffer:
All these things, there's a lot of quality of life things that are coming from that. I've also noticed lot that when you do have a bigger space, you fill up the space you have with the junk to match the space you have.
Diana Scharf:
Oh yes.
Matt Stauffer:
So I totally hear you on that one. So what did the process of minimalizing, I was going to say dejunkifying, but what did the process of minimalizing, and again, we're only going to talk about stuff real quick, what did the process look like for you of getting rid of stuff? Were you Marie Kondo-ing and seeing if stuff sparks joy or what was the process like for you?
Diana Scharf:
I knew that you would bring it up because a lot of people are watching.
Matt Stauffer:
I love Marie Kondo. I'm a big fan.
Diana Scharf:
I watched it a few times and I really like her as a person, but I just can't get into this decluttering and make everything in boxes because from this minimalism documentary, one of the most memorable sentences that I have in my head is organizing is just hoarding but tidy. You can have tons of stuff and put them into boxes and looks nice and you still have to care about them, even if you don't need them. So I decluttered a few years ago big time, and I declutter a few times a year or something, whenever I feel like it's too much. But what I'm asking is ... Okay, let's make an example. I have this pen here.
Matt Stauffer:
Right.
Diana Scharf:
I have a little collection of pens. I don't have any color twice. I have only working pens. And the only pen that I keep because I have an emotional attachment to it is my first grade pencil.
Matt Stauffer:
That's awesome.
Diana Scharf:
I had so many. You go through school and university and whatever, and you have hundreds of pens because everything breaks and then you lost it and you found it again. I just got rid of them, all of them. I donated them to kindergarten and they were so happy about them. And so this is really simple about pens. But if you take this and look into your kitchen and think about, okay, when did I use this pan the last time or this gadget or whatever? And this Marie Kondo approach with does it spark joy? I think in the car, it's right because everything I own has either a purpose, so I have, I don't know, a charger for my phone. It's not that I like this charger that much because it's so beautiful or whatever, but it charges my phone so it has a purpose.
Matt Stauffer:
Yeah.
Diana Scharf:
And you could say, okay, you don't need this neon cactus and this plant and this frame with a mantra in it, but I see it every day, and every day I see it, I smile because I like it. And so it's not that you are like Spartanist and don't own anything or counting your possessions or counting your socks or whatever. It's just asking yourself the whole time, and it's getting subconscious after some time, do I need it? Does it still serve a purpose in my home or can I give it to someone else who needs it more than me? And of course, this looks different. If you have children, it looks totally different. I don't have children. I have a dog. My dog has some stuff but even then ...
Matt Stauffer:
The dog doesn't have too much stuff.
Diana Scharf:
Yeah. In terms of moving, my dog has one box.
Matt Stauffer:
Right.
Diana Scharf:
Of the 20 boxes that I have, my dog has one. But yeah, my dog is maybe my weak point or tech gadgets are like ... I like cameras and I like photography and I like filming and you have some stuff. But if I say, okay, I haven't been using this thing in two years, okay, I can get rid of it. Yeah.
Matt Stauffer:
No, that makes a ton of sense. And for me, it's funny because the organization parts of Marie Kondo have never really been what stuck that well with me because I'm not that organized of a person, but I think what it was, my friend, who's an interior designer who's helped me design my house and including she's the one who did all this beautiful work here, not me. She gave me her structured concept of Marie Kondo. And for her, it's literally just here's all the items in your house structured by books and kitchen items. Go through each of those and ask which of these do you still need? And that was really her thing. So it's very similar to yours, and it was like a little bit of the spark joy, but that concept had nothing thing to do with organizing. It was really just like get rid of a whole bunch of shit. That was the thing.
Matt Stauffer:
So she walked me through like, do you need all of this? Do you need all of that? And I realized it's been two years since I've done that. And I'm looking at my desk and I'm pretty darn sure there's at least multiple things on my desk. You're talking about the pens, and I just reached over and grabbed this. And for those who can't see, there's 20, 15 pencils of different sorts. We've got three different types of pens, but included in here is this pen. It's an O'Reilly pen that I got from O'Reilly when I published my book with them.
Diana Scharf:
Yeah.
Matt Stauffer:
It's a really crappy pen. I don't like writing with it. I have four of them in here. And every time I accidentally grab them, I go, "Oh, I wish I didn't have this." And so I'm not like, "Why am I holding on to these freaking pens, Diana?" So anyway, I'm feeling really inspired.
Diana Scharf:
It's an emotional attachment. Yeah.
Matt Stauffer:
Well, yeah. Well, first of all, it's an emotional attachment, but I've got my book published for O'Reilly there and there and there, three different translations of it. I'm good. I remember the experience of writing with them. I don't need that one. And it's not to say I don't ... I totally ... I've got this cool little thing here that one of my friends made, and it's the Tighten logo that he embossed, whatever.
Diana Scharf:
That's really cool.
Matt Stauffer:
Yes. Ben Holman, freaking amazing. And his company is on the other side. So he did this whole thing. I'm hanging on to this thing because every time I see it, I remember our friendship and I remember him talking to me about what he did, and I remember our companies working together. So that I'm hanging on to. But I don't need six O'Reilly pens that I hate every time I pick them up. So anyway, I'm feeling inspired. I'm like, can we just cut this early and can I go organize my life? Excuse me. Can I go declutter my life?
Diana Scharf:
Throw things away. Everything must go.
Matt Stauffer:
Exactly. I love it. Okay. So we've talked about stuff a little bit.
Diana Scharf:
Yeah.
Matt Stauffer:
So you mentioned that there's a couple of different areas in life outside of stuff that you like to also consider minimalism. So could you tell me, after stuff, which I know is the simplest one and a lot of us think about minimalism as people who aren't quite as minimalist as you and we think stuff, outside of stuff, what's the next most important one in your life?
Diana Scharf:
Not most important, but it's a short one so I squeeze this one in.
Matt Stauffer:
Cool.
Diana Scharf:
Social media.
Matt Stauffer:
Okay. Let's talk about it.
Diana Scharf:
I'm not a person who says that social media is great or bad. It's something in between. It depends on how you use it. But I often hear that people, especially on Instagram, I think, don't see posts from people that are actually following because of this whole algorithm thing and whatever. And what I'm thinking, I'm seeing everything from all the people that I follow because I just follow about a hundred people.
Matt Stauffer:
A few people.
Diana Scharf:
And I actively, on my Twitter, on my career Twitter, my professional Twitter, I try to limit persons that I follow to a hundred people. It's because I want to see what they are doing. And I'm really, with intention, I'm really interested in what they're doing. I want to see it. And if I would follow 10,000 people, I would see-
Matt Stauffer:
You won't see anything from anybody. Yeah.
Diana Scharf:
Anything, just random stuff. So I think this approach, it's not for everyone because sometimes you want variety or whatever, but this is how I deal with social media, and you don't get into doomscrolling that easy.
Matt Stauffer:
Come on, because nobody needs that.
Diana Scharf:
Yeah. So my Twitter is on chronological timeline.
Matt Stauffer:
Yeah. I love that. This is a little bit of a ... I don't know if this actually is going to feel minimalist because it feels like a lot of structure, but this is what I do. So you know how you have lists on Twitter. You can create a list with a certain list of people. So I have three different lists on Twitter that are based on my emotional capacity to keep up with people. And so there is the-
Diana Scharf:
This is good.
Matt Stauffer:
When I've got lots of energy, I read this whole timeline. When I got a little bit of energy, I read this timeline. And when I am burnt out, these are the absolute most important things that I need to keep on top of, and even if I miss some stuff that's going on in my friend's lives or whatever, this is either the things or the people, whatever. I use Tweetbot, which makes it super easy to decide which list I'm reading from. It's not like I change it on an hour or a week by week basis or day by day basis. It's more like this period of my life is a little bit overwhelming. I need a little bit less Twitter. So I just go to Tweetbot on my phone or wherever else and I just switch it to the medium list or the shortest list. I could breathe now a little bit.
Matt Stauffer:
So it's silly because if you say like, well, why don't you always just keep it at the shortest list? But there are times when I want more of that social interaction because I'm a dad who is working in a remote office, in a pandemic. I don't see people in person very much, so sometimes I want to turn on the fire hose a little bit, but I want control over it. So I appreciate what you're saying there because it's the intentionality I think that maybe is more important than the number. I want to intentionally be able to engage and have the energy and space to engage with all the people who are my social media connections. So I hear that. It makes a lot of sense to me.
Diana Scharf:
Yeah. This is interesting. Maybe I should try something like that too, dividing the hundred people in more lists.
Matt Stauffer:
Yeah. Now, what I didn't do, what I don't do, I don't have a list of tech friends, friend friends, whatever else, something like that. That might be a thing. For me, it's really just a bigger list to smaller list. The small list is entirely contained in the medium list, and the medium list is entirely contained in the big list. It's more just kind of like ... And it sounds terrible because it sounds like I'm rating people, but it's just like at some point, I have more emotional connections and relational connections that I have energy for all the time.
Diana Scharf:
Yeah, of course.
Matt Stauffer:
But sometimes I have more to give, and so in those moments, I want to engage with a larger number.
Diana Scharf:
Yeah, it's not about rating because some days, I don't check Twitter at all, and that doesn't mean that I don't care about anybody that I follow there. It's just that I don't have the capacity on that day, be it mental or just a huge workload or something.
Matt Stauffer:
Okay. I like this. So we've talked about stuff. We've talked about social media. What's next on the list for whatever prioritization reason you have?
Diana Scharf:
It's career, to be honest. But I mentioned that before. If you don't have that much stuff or obligations or that big apartment because of the stuff, you are not that financially dependent on your job, your income, whatever.
Matt Stauffer:
I love that.
Diana Scharf:
And you just have more freedom. Two years ago, I had to quit my job because I just couldn't bear it anymore, and I didn't have anything following up. I just quit. I didn't have anything. I was unemployed, really unemployed. And of course, if you have children or someone that you have to care about, that's different. But I knew, okay, I have my rent and some other spendings, my car, whatever, but I can keep going for a few months without going into debt or something. So I'm not in debt, and I want to keep it that way.
Matt Stauffer:
Yeah.
Diana Scharf:
And it made me more relaxed in finding what should be next for me. It went quite fast then. Life happens and it had been six weeks or something that I hadn't done anything and I found something new, which was great. But I think I would keep more month of unemployment because if you're forced to work to keep your possessions and your apartment and to keep debt free, it's like a lot of stress.
Matt Stauffer:
Yeah. I really appreciate that idea. One of the things I've engaged with a lot in the last five to 10 years is the financial independence and the retire-early people. I don't know if you followed any of their stuff. Is that familiar to you?
Diana Scharf:
A bit. Just like-
Matt Stauffer:
Okay. So, for those who aren't familiar, basically there's a big group of people who ... and it's very diverse. So some of them are extremely intense like be as frugal as possible, make as much money and optimize as much as you possibly can so that you can never work a day again as of whatever age, 40 or 45 or whatever. Most of them are much-
Diana Scharf:
This is really early.
Matt Stauffer:
Right. And that's the extreme. The much more likely thing is for people to say, "I want to reevaluate my relationship with work, with spending, with the idea of retirement being a fixed date at age 65 versus maybe a change sometime in the next 10 years or five years or whatever if you're early in your career, where I no longer am as dependent on a traditional nine-to-five job to have what I need. So I'm going to make decisions now to try and improve my quality of life not in 30 years, but in 10 years or something like that.
Diana Scharf:
Yeah.
Matt Stauffer:
And so one of the things I think that's really fascinating about that idea is the idea that it's not just about earning more or putting your money in places that give you more value, but it's also about your life costing less. One of the core calculations they do is let's say you were to fully retire at age 50. Well, the amount of money you need to fully retire at age 50 depends more on your annual cost of living at age 50 than it does on the amount of money you're able to set away all the years leading up to that. And so they're like, you've got two big levers you can pull here. But if you cost $30,000 a year versus $100,000 a year to live every year at age 50, that's going to make a massive difference in this control you have.
Matt Stauffer:
And the people I like the most in that community are not waiting until age 50 to ask those questions. They're asking those questions now so they can have that flexibility now. I'm sorry for those who are 50 and plus who are listening. I know there's plenty of you. But this community tends to people who are not 50, 60, especially close up to 65. A lot of them are in their 30s or maybe early 40s. If you ask those questions when you're younger, then you don't have to wait until you hit that point to live this much more flexible life where your job does not define you and you're not saying, "Well, I must do ... I can't take that trip because what about my job? I can't take that move because what about my job? I can't take the three weeks off for my sanity because what about my job?"
Matt Stauffer:
So I love what you're saying here because it is this disconnect from this idea that in order to survive, to eat, to sleep, to anything, you must have this locked in nine-to-five job that is your master in a lot of ways. I really appreciate that idea. For you, has that ended up in any pursuit of less than a 40-hour work week or any other nontraditional work arrangements or is it more just holding your connection with a job a little bit more loosely?
Diana Scharf:
So retirement is a long time in the future for me. I just turned 28. I don't think that for myself. I understand the idea of this early retirement people, but I actually like my work, and in its core, I really like it and I hope to work as long as possible or as long as I want to. But it's great to be more flexible because if I say at 50, okay, I don't want to touch a computer anytime soon. Okay. This is not really realistic, but let's say I don't want to work as a programmer anymore.
Matt Stauffer:
Yeah.
Diana Scharf:
I want to get on the countryside and have my chickens and my cows and my little animal farm without the farming thing because I'm a vegan, so I won't eat that.
Matt Stauffer:
Sure. Yeah. But you want the freedom to be able to do that, right?
Diana Scharf:
Yeah. And I want the freedom to be able to do that. And what I wanted to add to this whole loosen up with your work thing is I think if you experience minimalism really early in your life, it can help you too. Because when I ended with university, I wasn't sure what I should do next because I studied something that it's not easy to get a job on the countryside in Germany with that. And programming was my backup because I did this before.
Matt Stauffer:
Yeah.
Diana Scharf:
But at this point, I graduated and I didn't have anything to follow. I was like, okay, this is not great, but I know that I can live in a small apartment with my dog, my big expense, with less stuff, a small car. I'm totally fine with it. And that made me relaxed. That made me relaxed in interviews maybe.
Matt Stauffer:
Yeah, because you didn't need this thing. Right?
Diana Scharf:
Yeah. And I think it's much more easier life if you don't have these obligations.
Matt Stauffer:
That's cool. To your point, I have found that a lot of the people who want to retire early, I'm not very interested in what they're saying, but I've also discovered that, just to give that community a little bit of credit, the vast majority of them are actually saying, I want to get to the point where I'm not done working. Work does not define me. It is not my master. I choose what I want to do, and I'm not so worried about the money that's coming in that I choose things that I don't want to do. Right?
Diana Scharf:
Yeah, exactly.
Matt Stauffer:
And I think that lines up exactly with what you're saying. I would like to hit a point where if I wanted to travel the world for a month, I could and not worry about it, to get a point where I could choose to do woodworking full-time. I'm the most stereotypical bearded white male programmer of all time. I'm like, yeah, can I get to a point where all I do is work with wood all day long and get paid for it? Yes, let's do it. And so ...
Diana Scharf:
I saw your Instagram, so I understand what you mean.
Matt Stauffer:
Yes, you know this is what I'm doing for my life. And so will I do that? I don't know. But I would love to be at the point where that doesn't seem absurd. And so I think that's very similar to what you're saying. I'm like, well, if I were to imagine my life as a full-time woodworker whose kids have moved off to college or whatever, what does my life actually look like there? And it does not look as busy and cluttered in as big of a space or whatever. It seems more minimalist only because of my stereotypes of what the retired woodworker guy looks like. So even some of those ideas are culturally built into me without really having put a name to it until you said that. So I really appreciate that idea.
Diana Scharf:
Yeah. For me, if I'm hitting my 30s sometime and I want to do a long-distance triathlon one time in my life, like this Ironman thing, and you have to train a lot, 40 hours a week or something-
Matt Stauffer:
Oh my, goodness.
Diana Scharf:
... if you want to be good. You can do it in 20 as well, so it's possible. And a lot of people are doing this besides their full-time jobs, which is really impressive.
Matt Stauffer:
Yeah.
Diana Scharf:
But if I have the financial flexibility in my 30s, let's say, I can cut my work time in half or something so I can find the time to train without stressing myself out because I want to achieve this personal goal.
Matt Stauffer:
I know that to each their own, but the idea of choosing to go through that, I'm like, but why, Diana? But I understand. I like physical exercise. I just don't like the duration of it. For me-
Diana Scharf:
But you like to end it.
Matt Stauffer:
Yes, exactly. What I've discovered though through working on this deck that I'm doing is that I like functional things. And so I think what I've realized is that for each person, what they're getting out of it is different. So for me personally, I'm like if I'm working really hard on my body for eight hours straight and at the end of it, I have built something or lifted something or repaired something, I'm happy. And I understand everybody has their own different motivations. So it's been helpful because I can understand a triathlon person better now because I'm like, you don't have the same motivations that I do, but I understand now what it feels like to be intrinsically motivated by the work that I'm doing with my body. So I'm never going to be that person. Good on you for that. But I think I understand you a little bit better now. All right. So Ironman Triathlon is a goal. Sorry, go ahead.
Diana Scharf:
You know what the great thing about this long training is?
Matt Stauffer:
What's that?
Diana Scharf:
The silence in your head. It's just nothing.
Matt Stauffer:
Oh. I can't imagine what silence in my head would be like.
Diana Scharf:
Yeah. It's great. It's silence, and on the other side, it's not. Because when I prepared my talk for last year's Laracon about career stuff, a lot of work on this talk, I did through running and riding my bike and walking with my dog, not on my desk. All of it came outside. It's great.
Matt Stauffer:
I get that. When I created my first software as a service, almost all the work that I did figuring out, oh, this feature is going to be helpful or I'm going to implement it this way or this is going to be the easier experience, it happened when I was walking my dog or when I was taking walks around the neighborhood. And it took me a while to realize that that was my most productive time. And I was so grateful that at that point, I actually just couldn't afford music players to put in my ears. I was like, oh, well, I'll just walk. And I was like, oh wow, this is a really valuable and productive time. So yeah, I hear that. That's cool.
Matt Stauffer:
Okay. So we have talked about stuff. We have talked about social media. We have talked about career. Are there other elements of minimalism you want to talk about?
Diana Scharf:
Just one to sum it up, to sum up minimalism in a few words.
Matt Stauffer:
Yeah.
Diana Scharf:
It's about letting go and not the Frozen style but ...
Matt Stauffer:
That's exactly what popped into my head. Literally in my head, let it go.
Diana Scharf:
I knew it.
Matt Stauffer:
But go ahead. Tell me more.
Diana Scharf:
It's not about stuff and not about your career. It's just about letting go. Just knowing that you, yourself, as a person, you are complete just as you are. You don't need anything. You don't need a career. You don't need a fancy laptop or stuff or relationship or whatever. You are complete as you are. And this is hard to learn, and this is hard to keep in mind in your day to day life. I struggle with that every day, but this is the most helpful insight that I had about minimalism after some years. You are just enough. You have enough. And especially people in our first world, we have more than enough.
Matt Stauffer:
You just gave me goosebumps.
Diana Scharf:
Deep stuff.
Matt Stauffer:
I have joked with a lot of people, and it's not a joke, this podcast is my therapy. So thank you. I think I owe you $180 for this therapy session. Wow. Yeah, that's really, really, really good because I hear you that the essential concept of it is you don't need this stuff. I can be sitting in front out of a white wall instead of this beautifully decorated wall, and I'm not getting rid any of that.
Diana Scharf:
It's beautiful.
Matt Stauffer:
I think she did a great job, and the beauty of it gives me joy, but it could be a completely plain white wall, and what I was bringing to this conversation would be no less.
Diana Scharf:
Yeah, exactly.
Matt Stauffer:
I really appreciate that. I feel like we could go into much deeper, but I'm not a therapist, but it just feels like there are so many messages and ways in which ... And the simplest one that everyone knows is the job of a commercial is to make you feel like you're less unless you have this thing.
Diana Scharf:
Yeah, of course. Yeah.
Matt Stauffer:
And I try to teach my kids that. Yeah, I know that you want that toy. Do you want to know why? Because that thing ... And I've been saying this since they could speak. That thing that you just watched wants you to believe, it's trying to sell you something, it's trying to make you think that you have to have that thing to be happy. So it's now to the point where my son, when my daughter is like, "Oh, I really want that," he's like, "It's because it's a commercial and their job is to try and make you think like you need it." I was like, "Yes, I succeeded."
Diana Scharf:
Parenting done right.
Matt Stauffer:
Right. But it's not just commercials, right? Everywhere in every way, shape or form. And even things like Instagram, seeing what your friends have, like I need that because they're clearly happy and they have that. That could be an entire episode in its own.
Diana Scharf:
Yeah. You're not paying money for something. You're always paying freedom. Let's cost something $200, and every one of us, except if you're incredibly rich and your money works for you. There are people out there, but everyone has to work for their money. Working means time, time of your life. And so if you have to work for $200 a few hours or even a few days, you can ask yourself, is this thing worth my freedom of this time?
Matt Stauffer:
Wow.
Diana Scharf:
It's not wow. It's simple, but okay.
Matt Stauffer:
No, but it's wow because it's that direct line that you paved at the beginning, which was the things cost money, money requires you to do work to do money. It's that line. I think it's a line that we don't often draw, which is that, well, you obviously do, and probably people who watched that documentary think about minimalism, but normal humans like me don't often draw the line between dollars and hours worked, dollars and freedom of your life, dollars and that kind of stuff. And so in the end that every dollar I've spent, every piece of stuff that I have requires not only the cost of purchasing it, but the cost of housing it effectively and cleaning it. That really does make everything basically eat out a little tiny chunk of my freedom and my free time or whatever.
Diana Scharf:
Yeah.
Matt Stauffer:
I don't have anything helpful to say because I'm going to be processing this for the next hour.
Diana Scharf:
You go decluttering.
Matt Stauffer:
I'm going to. Whatever my next call is, I'm going to take it while decluttering my house. So shoot. Well, is there anything else about minimalism you wanted to talk about before we move on to the last question?
Diana Scharf:
Let's be minimal. That's it.
Matt Stauffer:
Hey, okay. Well, minimally, I'm going to move on. So the last question as always is what insight or support did you either receive or need when you were younger that you hope more people will give to others?
Diana Scharf:
So this has nothing to do with minimalism.
Matt Stauffer:
That's totally fine.
Diana Scharf:
And I have to build a bit of context for this. I was raised by my dad since I was about eight years old because my mom was an alcoholic.
Matt Stauffer:
I'm sorry.
Diana Scharf:
And so he was a single father, single parent at this time. This was unusual back in the days. I'm old. So today, it's normal, but that time, not really usual. So with that background, with my single parent dad and my problematic mother, let's phrase it like this, I had some problems in school because of the cliches and the other children just recognized that I was different because I didn't came from this traditional family. So I had some problems with bullying and all this fun stuff. It was hard for me as a child. But in hindsight, I learned a lot from that because everybody has struggles in life. That's obvious. And everybody deals different with their situation and has to make the best out of it or trying to make the best out of it. And yeah, this looks different for everyone.
Diana Scharf:
And the great thing about my dad was that he acknowledged that I felt different, and he encouraged me that every time when I felt bad, he was like, "Yeah, we're different. It's just us two. We're a small family but we are still a family." And he always trusted in me that I would find my way, even if I felt bad and different and I was sad and lonely and whatever, and he supported me whenever he could. So far, I think my way in life is okay.
Matt Stauffer:
Yeah. You turned out okay. Yeah.
Diana Scharf:
His trust was right.
Matt Stauffer:
Yeah.
Diana Scharf:
And to sum this up is that you have to trust yourself that you find your way and then you will find it. It sounds a bit wooey and magic, but it is like this because if you're trusting yourself, your behavior changes, your whole appearance changes. And the other side of it is that you trust in others as well that they find their way through life. So just be open minded to other people, even if their situation our lifestyle is unusual for you and be kind
Matt Stauffer:
Well, that was really beautiful, and I'm feeling a lot of emotions today so thank you. Geez. As a parent, I know you're not only talking to parents, but as a parent, the idea that at some point, I'm going to have to let go and let my children define who they are and trust that. It's something I think about a lot. Even now, my son is nine and he's already defining. I'm a musician. I love that he was into drums and he was just going to become a drummer, and he basically just decided a week ago after quite a while of his drums just collecting dust that he's like, "You know what? Soccer is my life, and I'm not going to play drums." Oh my, God, that hurt.
Diana Scharf:
Your heart. Yeah. I know.
Matt Stauffer:
As a musician, I'm like, "Oh, buddy." And obviously, this is much smaller than a lot of things you're talking about, but it's just a little microcosm of the same situation of that's his decision to make, and he is who he is, and I love who he is, and I trust that he's going to ... I'm going to keep giving him guidance and wisdom or whatever and keep him from setting his life on fire. But in the end, he's going to take what I've given him and what his mother has given him and what his other mentors in his life have given him, and then he's going to make his own decisions and he is going to be his own person. And to trust ... I feel like a lot of parenting fails come from never letting go. Have you ever seen the movie, Garden State?
Diana Scharf:
No.
Matt Stauffer:
Okay. It's not a super popular movie, but I got obsessed with it when it came out first. I think it was just because the time period of my life was written for people in that time period. But if anyone has seen it, I can't tell you if I would recommend it or not, Diana, or other people because I don't know if it's one of those ones where it was really good for me at that time and now I'd watch it and be like, "It's kind of cringey or if it's good or not." But for those who have seen it, in essence, it's like a person who's probably in his, my guess is late 20s, early 30s whose parents basically never let go and never gave him the space and never trusted and believed that he could be who he is and handle his own stuff. And so he ended up being a little infantilized by that as well and just didn't take ownership and agency over who he is.
Matt Stauffer:
And I don't know if that was their intent, but that's what I took away from it. So it just is making me think about that a lot. They talk a lot about the baby boomers being like helicopter parents and being more likely to put us this way. So for your dad to have done what he did, especially given the constraints he was in where I bet there was a lot of pressure to try and be like, "It's just me. I need to make sure that she does everything right." And to have given you that freedom is really cool, that trust.
Diana Scharf:
Yeah. He was also scared that some authorities would take me back to my mom at this point. It was really-
Matt Stauffer:
Oh my, goodness.
Diana Scharf:
It was really not good.
Matt Stauffer:
So for him to have chosen to not try to just lock everything down and control you and to really give you freedom and space, that's really incredible.
Diana Scharf:
He has no technical background and I became a programmer because he trusted in me.
Matt Stauffer:
That's really cool. Wow. Okay. Well, thank you for sharing this.
Diana Scharf:
Are you crying?
Matt Stauffer:
No, it's dusty in here. So if people like you and think you're great, how can they follow or support you?
Diana Scharf:
So I am most active on Twitter, which is @DianaWebdev. And my website is dianaweb.dev so basically the same with the dot in it. And yeah, that's the best way to follow me.
Matt Stauffer:
And those will be in the show notes as always.
Diana Scharf:
Yeah.
Matt Stauffer:
Well, that is it for today. Is there anything else you wanted to cover that we didn't get to or do you feel pretty good about this?
Diana Scharf:
I hope I didn't make you too sad.
Matt Stauffer:
No, this is great. Are you kidding? Like I said, this is freaking therapy for me. I am in heaven right now.
Diana Scharf:
Okay, then it's great.
Matt Stauffer:
So you did nothing wrong. Thank you. It's just really touching and meaningful and I really appreciate you sharing so much about your life and your story. I really do.
Diana Scharf:
Yeah. Thank you for having me. And just last words from me is be kind to people.
Matt Stauffer:
I like it, which is awesome because literally the end of this thing, every single episode is to the rest of you all, until next time, be good to each other. So I think we ended up in a good note there. So thank you so much.
Diana Scharf:
Yeah. Thank you.
Matt Stauffer:
To the rest of you all, be good to each other.
Diana Scharf:
Bye.