Joyous New Chapter + 3 New Series (Patreon)

Hello Simpletons!

The last few years have been a whirlwind of joyful times for The Minimalists and our stalwart audience. Since the turn of the decade, we released our second Netflix film, published a New York Times bestseller, got nominated for an Emmy, added T.K. and Malabama to our podcast, and reached more than half a billion people with our tales of simple living.

And now we are getting ready to embark on a joyous new chapter—a chapter of, ahem, simplifying. In concert with pausing our social media for the rest of 2024, we are also letting go of the video version of our podcast. (Don't worry, we're still keeping our Private Podcast on Patreon.)

Though we have enjoyed creating video episodes the last few years, The Minimalists Podcast has been primarily an audio experience—much like a radio show—since its inception in 2015 (roughly 90% of our audience listens to the audio version). This shift away from video episodes will allow us to focus on creating the best audio episodes for our Private Podcast listeners, as well as to spend time on new video creations for our patrons.

If you already subscribe to the video version here on Patreon (aka the Audio+ tier), that's great, because Audio+ subscribers will see even more Patreon-exclusive series hitting their inboxes soon, including:

"Thursday Konversations with T.K. " (Season One) | Starting in April, T.K. Coleman will host weekly video conversations with some of the most interesting people that he'd like you to meet—like eavesdropping on a FaceTime call between two fascinating people.

"Fragments" (Season One) | Coming this spring, this artistic video series, directed by Danny Unknwn and starring Joshua Fields Millburn, Ryan Nicodemus, and T.K. Coleman, will explore several manifestations of internal clutter—from the unforeseen problems caused by chronic discontent to the trappings of success and identity.

"Minimalist Meditations with Malabama" (Season One) | Gracing your headphones later this year, the most beautiful voice in the podcast universe, our very own Malabama, will help declutter your mind with her monthly minimalist meditations. These audio episodes will be designed to be replayed as frequently as you'd like, so you can start a daily practice of living with less stuff in your head.

These new creations will be available to anyone who subscribes to our Audio+ tier on Patreon, and those patrons will continue to enjoy access to all of our private-podcast video archives (300+ episodes), as well as the following:

• Monthly Zoom Calls with The Minimalists

• Weekly Home Tours from Listeners

• 50 Quarantine Qonversations

• 30 Biggest Failure Videos

• Minimalism Today (JFM Solo Pod)

• Early Access to Event Tickets

• Weekly Private Podcast Episodes

Our Focus: While the aforementioned perks will be delightful, our main focus is still The Minimalists Private Podcast on Patreon. In fact, we're more focused on podcasting than ever, and this new chapter will allow us to produce the best listening experience for our patrons. We have many special episodes on the horizon: "Letting Go of Control," "Dating Clutter," "The Art of Streamlining," "Information Clutter," "The Law of Contrary Public Opinion," "Hold on to Let Go," "Decision Clutter," "A Morality Debate," "The Divorce Episode," "The Presence of Absence," and many other private episodes. (Feel free to email us your voice-memo questions about any of these topics.)

Listening Reminder: You can listen to The Minimalists Private Podcast on Patreon's website or through Patreon's smartphone app, but most people listen via their favorite podcast player—like Apple Podcasts, Overcast, or Pocket Casts (instructions). (Spotify integration is coming soon.)

Also Coming Soon: Our detachment from video podcasting will also free up the time and resources to focus on our third documentary, The Big Simple, the final (and most ambitious) installment in The Minimalists' trilogy. We'll start sharing clips with patrons in the coming months. (Also, several new audiobooks and video creations are in the works—stay tuned.)

Those are the highlights for now. We'll discuss our "graduation from video podcasting" in detail next week on Maximal episode 437, our final video episode, which is appropriately titled "Graduation Day" (and which features Ryan's surprising new haircut), and we'll answer questions from the comments to this post on episodes 439 and 440.

Exciting times ahead! Thank you for grace and support—you are the reason our show remains advertisement-free!

Much love,

—Joshua & Ryan

P.S. "True Fan" and "VIP" patrons will continue to receive all "Audio+" content, as well as recordings of our live events and more.

P.P.S. How is it possible that T.K.'s new gray beard (pictured above) makes him look even more wise?!