Too much stuff–the road to a minimalist life

Posted on November 22, 2007
Filed Under decluttering, elimination, lifestyle design, simple abundance | Leave a Comment

Today we’ll take a bit of a detour away from 4HWW and talk about stuff. Actually, the concept of “simple abundance” is at the heart of Ferriss’ book though he doesn’t go into much detail about “decluttering” your worldly possessions. Near the beginning of the book when he enumerates the “Rules that change the rules”–the concepts that lie at the heart of the entire book–one is a clear endorsement of a less cluttered life. Ferriss suggests that “Things in Excess Become Their Opposite”:

Too much, too many, and too often of what you want becomes what you don’t want. This is true of possessions and even time.

Later in the book he discusses an Italian economist named Vilfredo Pareto, who came up with another concept that is essential to a well designed life. It is something that you’ve likely heard of in one form or another: the 80/20 rule. Simply stated, 80% of the outputs result from 20% of the inputs. You’ve probably heard it in the context of sales where its often suggested that 20% of the clients result in 80% of the sales, or 20% of the clients result in 80% of the problems.

The exact numerical breakdown isn’t important but the idea behind what Ferriss’ refers to as “Pareto’s Rule” is. You can also expand the rule beyond input/outputs into the physical realm. My fashion diva friend Amanda, who writes the excellent blog “Art of the Steal” (recently named #8 of the top 100 fashion blogs online) suggests that people only really wear 20% of their wardrobe. That’s certainly true with me, though in my case the numbers may be even more skewed. For a long time I had a strange habit–even though I’m self employed and rarely have to wear business attire like dress shirts and ties I love to buy them. Certain dress shirts can at least be re purposed for casual wear or to wear out on the town or whatever. Ties are a different matter–at one point last year I had over 150 ties. That would be excessive for someone who wore ties every day, but since I only wear them less than a dozen times a year its completely absurd. Even before undertaking this lifestyle re-design I did pare my ties in half and will soon cut them down even more. Ditto with my dress shirts–I’ve already gone through my closet and sold on Ebay anything with “resale value” that I didn’t wear.

Even with this effort to pare down my clothes I still have two closets, a free standing wardrobe and two chests of drawers full of clothes. This is way too many even though I like clothes and make an effort to dress well. I guess some of my thinking was the realization that depending on what I’m doing in life my clothing needs may change–for example, I may go through a month or so where I need more dress shirts. Even so, its pretty obvious that I have way too many clothes. Again, I likely get 80% or more of my wear out of 20% or less of my clothing.

Some people have other weaknesses–books, CDs, DVDs or whatever. I’m an avid reader and at points in my life I’ve had shelf after shelf filled with books. After a while, however, you realize that few of these get re-read. Some will be loaned to others to read, but most of the time they serve as tangible evidence to the literacy of the owner. When I was single I thought that it would impress chicks as to how smart I am. It served, in essence, as a MySpace page where someone could come into my house and get a visible inventory of my interests and a tangible measure of my level of intelligence and intellectual achievement. Of course unlike a MySpace page a huge collection of books is a real pain in the ass to store, let alone move.

So as a component of my progress toward a “4 Hour Life” I’m going to significantly pare down my possessions. Here’s my “source material” for this–a Zen Habits post called “Minimalist Fun: The 100 Things Challenge“. This post references a challenge posed on another blog called “StuckInStuff” called “The 100 Thing Challenge“. As the Zen Habits post notes the 100 item number is arbitrary, but I’m at least going to strive for it. Since part of my “lifestyle re-design” will involve relocation to a city that’s a better fit for my lifestyle and interests I’ll definitely shoot for it in the short term as it’ll make moving that much easier. We’ll discuss the relocation at great length in the future but for now let’s concentrate on the decluttering process.

The 100 Things Challenge does come with a few stipulations as to what is and what is not to be counted among your “100 things”. These are as follows:

Things not included:

* Stuff that’s shared between him and other family members.
* Non-personal stuff, like dishes, cleaning supplies, etc.
* Books.
* Tools.
* Collections count as one item.

Like the “low information diet” we talked about in a previous post, I’m going to modify these rules somewhat to fit my specific circumstances without changing their intent or making it significantly easier for me. I live alone so the “things shared by other family members” doesn’t apply to me. I was going to include my dogs’ stuff here, but I’ll buy them new beds, bowls and other similar supplies after I move. So I guess this will include their leashes, crates, etc. that they’ll need during the moving process. Same thing with “non-personal stuff”–I’ll be buying new dishes, cleaning supplies, etc. once I move. I may pack up and ship a few things that would fall under this category–my Global chef’s knife, for example. I’ve also got a bunch of art–paintings primarily–along with framed pictures that will get packed up and shipped. I’m not going to count these among my 100 items either.

We talked about books before–I’m going to be getting rid of most of them. I won’t be counting the few I keep. Tools we’ll talk about in a moment and I don’t really have any “collections” so that’s not an issue. Actually, I was planning on packing and shipping my cigars–primarily to avoid the tobacco taxes which whereever I end up will be higher than South Carolina. I guess this will count as a “collection”.

I’m also not going to count my computers and various tech devices necessary for doing my job. Since these are my “tools” this seems to fall under the intent of the challenge.

I seriously doubt if I can get my personal stuff down to 100 items, but the point of the endeavor for me is to pare down significantly so even if I don’t hit the arbitrary number I’ll be happy with my progress. I’ve already decided to give away all of my wine and spirits–I’ve got a bunch of wine but none of it is what you’d call “collectible”. With Christmas coming up I’ve got several racks of ready made gifts. I threw away a bunch of random crap from my house–unused office supplies, old magazines, unused furniture, etc. last weekend.

So that’s my general decluttering plan–I’ll track my progress here. I may do some “decluttering” this week but will probably get serious about it the following week and thereafter.

Another great source for decluttering and organization advice is a blog called Unclutterer.

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