saulrosenbaum.com / Minimize, Simplify, Hunt, Gather

I’ve been working to minimize my life, It’s a highly educational process. You really get to know yourself as a person, when you’re deciding what stays and what goes.

I have a experiment I’d like you to try, go to Home Depot get yourself a reasonably large plastic bin, and some biggish plastic bags. Got them? great, now here’s what we’re going to do - we’re going to go through every drawer, cabinet and closet and gather like items, we’re going to label a bag and we’re going to put those like items in a bags, and then the bags in the bin, now we have two goals, reduce redundancy, and eliminate that which isn’t needed. You basically are going to ask yourself 3 4 questions;

1. When was the last time I needed/used this?
2. Do I need this at all?
3. Do I know someone who can benefit from this more than me?
4. Where can I put this so I can find it the next time I need it? (If you don’t have a spot for it, consider getting rid of it.)

I found:

• 34 USB cables
• 50 Firewire cables (of various flavors)
• 11 Hard drives 40GB or smaller
• 19 Power cables
• 6 Power Bricks (all unlabeled as to their purpose)
• 5 USB Hubs (2 of them missing power bricks)
• 3 Pairs of earbuds
• 19 Sketchpads/Notebooks/binders etc.

Now I didn’t publish this list to flaunt my excess, I put this list here to prove a point, here’s what I learned during this process.

• Don’t hold on to cables - if you buy an item that’s in need of a USB cable or a firewire cable, it’s highly likely it will come with one.
• Label ALL power bricks the minute you take them out of their boxes, becauuse all the little bastards look alike
• If you upgrade a hard drive, back up the data and donate or destroy the old drive, it’s unlikely you’ll ever need a smaller drive.

The notebooks are a particular personal pain, one that I’m weaning myself off of. Notebooks are perfectly fine if you use them, based on my impressive pile of mostly empty notebooks I wasn’t. Oh and if you need a cable, I’ll happily lend you one.