Digi
Simplifying my life has been an ongoing theme for some time. This isn't a "how-to" or an espousal of a particular life approach, but I thought that it might be a nice way of sharing ideas and stories on how we've been able to simplify our lives.
The Why
I've seen possessions "possess" people, so to speak. Say you have a large house, large yard, lots of cool stuff...how much time is devoted to upkeep? The yard becomes a part-time job in the summer, the house needs organized and cleaned periodically. And over the course of years junk can accumulate, becoming unmanageable.
I've seen this. I've seen people with rooms that you can't walk into because they're just packed with stuff. Or unkempt yards that need an intervention. It's not hoarding, it's not laziness, it's just life taking its collective toll. I would like to avoid it.
We'll get into other forms of excess, but this is the most obvious.
Stuff
I call it "editing," because I'm editing things down. Books, clothes, comics, kitchenware, games, boxes, etc. etc. The trick is to truly be honest with yourself. Do you use it, wear it, etc.? Does it serve a function? Are you holding onto it for nostalgic reasons, and if so, will the memories be any less present if you get rid of it?
There are other questions to ask. At one point, I owned way too many t-shirts, but I wore nearly all of them. But using them wasn't enough. If I had 10 shirts that served a particular function (say, working out/yard work/etc.), did I need 20? If I have 12 "funny" shirts, could I get by as well with 5?
This has resulted in countless donations to Goodwill, the library, and other places that take things that are in good working order. Some I just throw away as well. My goals shift, but currently it's to edit things down to the point where everything I own could comfortably fit in a one bedroom apartment. I'm basically there at this point, but given how long the "just hang onto stuff" mentality was ingrained in me in my youth, it took a number of years to get there. And it's a constant awareness to be mindful of my possessions, not something that's ever exactly done.
Hobbies
I once joked that I liked to be just unreliable enough that I didn't get asked to do too much. It wasn't in a work context, but in a social one. Think about the groups you're in. Maybe you just go out to bars or watch Netflix with your SO - both fine, btw - but if you're in any organized hobbies you know what I'm talking about. "Come to our weekly gathering on Wednesdays, and our once-a-month larger Sunday gathering, and sign up for our newsletter, and would you like to work the door next week, and if you become an official member for just $XX you'll get discounts on these local events, and we're partnering with this other club in June so mark your calendar, and in July there's a regional workshop up in Buffalo, and..."
And maybe 6 months into that, it's a responsibility. And if you tired of it, it's a burden. But it's not always socially simple to extricate yourself once you're in at a certain depth.
I could be out 4-5 nights a week, and that's just through events that I hear about through channels that I follow and groups I run with. Any major city, you could be out any and every night. And all it takes is 1-2 hobbies with a deep enough rabbit hole to fall down.
This comes and goes for me. I tend to burn out, then take time off, then slowly work my way back in to things until I feel worn out again. I'm very social and enjoy my hobbies/friends, but finding that balance is tricky.
Addictions
I'm not talking about addictions like alcohol, gambling, etc., though those can be debilitating as well.
But how much time do you spend online? How much soda do you drink? How much money do you spend on food a month? Do you make enough money to justify it? How many TV shows do you follow? Those are some examples among countless others. What's yours?
I don't want to tell you how much time I spent online last month. It was too much. But I know, because I track it. I really like the "Mind the Time" add-on for my browser:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/mind-the-time/
...it tracks my usage by site, so I can see where my time is spent daily, weekly, monthly, yearly. And it allows me to pinpoint places to eliminate my browsing.
My absences from KMC - both past and certainly future - are a result of this. As are many of my other browsing habits.
TV and movies are another. I struggle with this, because I'll eliminate shows but add others. But really, how many of the shows you watch are truly great? And if they aren't, why are you watching? Maybe you have a good answer to that. I don't. If I don't love something, if it doesn't resonate deeply with me or consistently entertain me, every episode I watch is time I could be spending better elsewhere.
But it's these less obvious addictions that hurt many; the ones where society doesn't really work against it actively. If you're an alcoholic, there's societal and - for most - interpersonal pressure from friends and family to change. But if you jack it to porn too often or eat a bag of cheetos every day for lunch, who's stopping you? Who's even saying anything negative?
Adding Things
It's not always eliminating things. Or rather, it usually is, but with the goal of adding more positive or productive things in their place. 10 years ago, I played World of Warcraft 25 hours a week and had 4-5 friends I went out with maybe once every two weeks. It was fine; I greatly enjoyed aspects of it. This isn't a damnation of those choices. But today I have several ongoing social hobbies and a burgeoning career. I prefer it to my old life. I'm also not in my college days anymore and am looking to work out more. My time usage is a weird amalgamation of those eras and competing interests. But as I eliminate more of the old, I can add more of the new.
I don't have a family of my own yet, but that's also a huge area where people can do more.
Conclusion
These ruminations tend to focus on the negative, because it's eliminating unwanted or unnecessary things. But really, it's a positive process. Because it's an attempt to free yourself to the extent that what you are doing is what's most important to you.
I've taken a deliberate step back from my social networks for the past few months - not cold turkey, but noticeably less - and have a list. I'm catching up on TV while determining (many) shows to eliminate. I'm catching up on reading while doing the same to keep my reading list manageable. I'm doing a deeper-than-usual edits to many of my personal belongings, including digitizing thousands of old pictures, cards, notes, documents, and other ephemera from my childhood. Several boxes got to be thrown out as a result, and I have many pictures in a format where I might actually view them sometime. I'm also converting my family's old VHS home videos to DVDs, then ripping them to digital format. Less space taken up, and more useful. I have some recording to do (I'm an amateur musician), and a few other odds and ends. It's a long list. I don't expect to be done until about the beginning of 2017.
But once I'm there, "the list" will be tiny. I'll be done recording for years, unless the muse strikes me. I'll have caught up on a backlog of books, movies, and TV that - no joke - stretches back more than a decade. I won't have anything in my home that I don't want or need. The list got to that point because I began to focus more on work and my social life. Gone are the thousands of hours spent on video games and TV. But I want it that way. So this is me clearing the plate of the old stuff, so that when I do decide to take on a new show or personal project, it hasn't been weighing on me for months or years, and I have the time to do it.
It's always a process, not just another box I can check off on a list. But it's been healthy, I think.
What are your stories? Ideas? Strategies? Struggles?
The Why
I've seen possessions "possess" people, so to speak. Say you have a large house, large yard, lots of cool stuff...how much time is devoted to upkeep? The yard becomes a part-time job in the summer, the house needs organized and cleaned periodically. And over the course of years junk can accumulate, becoming unmanageable.
I've seen this. I've seen people with rooms that you can't walk into because they're just packed with stuff. Or unkempt yards that need an intervention. It's not hoarding, it's not laziness, it's just life taking its collective toll. I would like to avoid it.
We'll get into other forms of excess, but this is the most obvious.
Stuff
I call it "editing," because I'm editing things down. Books, clothes, comics, kitchenware, games, boxes, etc. etc. The trick is to truly be honest with yourself. Do you use it, wear it, etc.? Does it serve a function? Are you holding onto it for nostalgic reasons, and if so, will the memories be any less present if you get rid of it?
There are other questions to ask. At one point, I owned way too many t-shirts, but I wore nearly all of them. But using them wasn't enough. If I had 10 shirts that served a particular function (say, working out/yard work/etc.), did I need 20? If I have 12 "funny" shirts, could I get by as well with 5?
This has resulted in countless donations to Goodwill, the library, and other places that take things that are in good working order. Some I just throw away as well. My goals shift, but currently it's to edit things down to the point where everything I own could comfortably fit in a one bedroom apartment. I'm basically there at this point, but given how long the "just hang onto stuff" mentality was ingrained in me in my youth, it took a number of years to get there. And it's a constant awareness to be mindful of my possessions, not something that's ever exactly done.
Hobbies
I once joked that I liked to be just unreliable enough that I didn't get asked to do too much. It wasn't in a work context, but in a social one. Think about the groups you're in. Maybe you just go out to bars or watch Netflix with your SO - both fine, btw - but if you're in any organized hobbies you know what I'm talking about. "Come to our weekly gathering on Wednesdays, and our once-a-month larger Sunday gathering, and sign up for our newsletter, and would you like to work the door next week, and if you become an official member for just $XX you'll get discounts on these local events, and we're partnering with this other club in June so mark your calendar, and in July there's a regional workshop up in Buffalo, and..."
And maybe 6 months into that, it's a responsibility. And if you tired of it, it's a burden. But it's not always socially simple to extricate yourself once you're in at a certain depth.
I could be out 4-5 nights a week, and that's just through events that I hear about through channels that I follow and groups I run with. Any major city, you could be out any and every night. And all it takes is 1-2 hobbies with a deep enough rabbit hole to fall down.
This comes and goes for me. I tend to burn out, then take time off, then slowly work my way back in to things until I feel worn out again. I'm very social and enjoy my hobbies/friends, but finding that balance is tricky.
Addictions
I'm not talking about addictions like alcohol, gambling, etc., though those can be debilitating as well.
But how much time do you spend online? How much soda do you drink? How much money do you spend on food a month? Do you make enough money to justify it? How many TV shows do you follow? Those are some examples among countless others. What's yours?
I don't want to tell you how much time I spent online last month. It was too much. But I know, because I track it. I really like the "Mind the Time" add-on for my browser:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/mind-the-time/
...it tracks my usage by site, so I can see where my time is spent daily, weekly, monthly, yearly. And it allows me to pinpoint places to eliminate my browsing.
My absences from KMC - both past and certainly future - are a result of this. As are many of my other browsing habits.
TV and movies are another. I struggle with this, because I'll eliminate shows but add others. But really, how many of the shows you watch are truly great? And if they aren't, why are you watching? Maybe you have a good answer to that. I don't. If I don't love something, if it doesn't resonate deeply with me or consistently entertain me, every episode I watch is time I could be spending better elsewhere.
But it's these less obvious addictions that hurt many; the ones where society doesn't really work against it actively. If you're an alcoholic, there's societal and - for most - interpersonal pressure from friends and family to change. But if you jack it to porn too often or eat a bag of cheetos every day for lunch, who's stopping you? Who's even saying anything negative?
Adding Things
It's not always eliminating things. Or rather, it usually is, but with the goal of adding more positive or productive things in their place. 10 years ago, I played World of Warcraft 25 hours a week and had 4-5 friends I went out with maybe once every two weeks. It was fine; I greatly enjoyed aspects of it. This isn't a damnation of those choices. But today I have several ongoing social hobbies and a burgeoning career. I prefer it to my old life. I'm also not in my college days anymore and am looking to work out more. My time usage is a weird amalgamation of those eras and competing interests. But as I eliminate more of the old, I can add more of the new.
I don't have a family of my own yet, but that's also a huge area where people can do more.
Conclusion
These ruminations tend to focus on the negative, because it's eliminating unwanted or unnecessary things. But really, it's a positive process. Because it's an attempt to free yourself to the extent that what you are doing is what's most important to you.
I've taken a deliberate step back from my social networks for the past few months - not cold turkey, but noticeably less - and have a list. I'm catching up on TV while determining (many) shows to eliminate. I'm catching up on reading while doing the same to keep my reading list manageable. I'm doing a deeper-than-usual edits to many of my personal belongings, including digitizing thousands of old pictures, cards, notes, documents, and other ephemera from my childhood. Several boxes got to be thrown out as a result, and I have many pictures in a format where I might actually view them sometime. I'm also converting my family's old VHS home videos to DVDs, then ripping them to digital format. Less space taken up, and more useful. I have some recording to do (I'm an amateur musician), and a few other odds and ends. It's a long list. I don't expect to be done until about the beginning of 2017.
But once I'm there, "the list" will be tiny. I'll be done recording for years, unless the muse strikes me. I'll have caught up on a backlog of books, movies, and TV that - no joke - stretches back more than a decade. I won't have anything in my home that I don't want or need. The list got to that point because I began to focus more on work and my social life. Gone are the thousands of hours spent on video games and TV. But I want it that way. So this is me clearing the plate of the old stuff, so that when I do decide to take on a new show or personal project, it hasn't been weighing on me for months or years, and I have the time to do it.
It's always a process, not just another box I can check off on a list. But it's been healthy, I think.
What are your stories? Ideas? Strategies? Struggles?
. I also think that the central de-cluttering question it wants you to ask - "Does this spark joy?" - is maybe a little too narrow. Things can be functional and useful without bringing joy. But the end goal is the same. And Konmari is at least a systematic approach to this, which I'm sure can help many people.