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paulgraham.com

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Re: Stuff

#61

Post by dkarl »

mortenjorck wrote: post #42

When I moved into my first apartment after college, I brought a laptop, a sleeping bag, a folding chair, and a clip-lamp. It was great. I felt I could go anywhere and do anything. Of course, with a new job, 650 square feet, and an an IKEA nearby, I couldn't turn down a few basics. So I picked up a spartan bed, a minimalist sofa, a function-oriented desk. Then time began to pass. Though I'd resolved never to subscribe…

The key is to keep your stuff out of your lifestyle. I have an immersion blender that I use about a dozen times a year. I got it as a gift, and it lives at the back of a cabinet underneath my kitchen counter. It's awesome!

I have three kettlebells that I use two or three times a week. They live beside my couch. There's a weight belt and a medicine ball beside them that I rarely use, and I swear I keep putting them in the closet, but the kettlebells are like a magnet for exercise-related junk.

The blender is awesome, even though I could easily live without it. The kettlebells are clutter -- until I find a good way to store them. (Any suggestions?)

Re: Stuff

#62

Post by marshallp »

Kids don't builder a coarser model of the evironment, adults do. Once again pg doesn't do his resaarch before espousing his amateur psychology.

Re: Stuff

#63

Post by oliveoil »

I often think about this. And of one more hidden cost of stuff, especially furniture: it occupies space in a place you pay rent for for. If that sofa takes 2 square meters out of my 40 square meters apartment, that means every 20th rent I pay is just because of this. If my rent is approximately the same as the price of that sofa was, I refinance if every 1.6 years.

Re: Stuff

#64

Post by derwiki »

dgallagher wrote: post #30

I have a 90-day rule. If I have something and I haven't used it in 90 days, I probably don't need it and get rid of it (sell it, give it away, throw it out). This tends to keep my life de-cluttered and "focused". It also keeps me from waisting money on stuff I don't need. "Am I really going to be still excited about, and benefit from, using this widget I want to buy in 90 days or not?" I've lived like this for about…

I recently decided to give away all my coding books. They were great, and I learned a lot -- but I never reference them. I remember most of the core concepts, and the details are a quick Google away. My other coworkers decided to follow suit, and our work library has grown to 4x what it was a week ago. And my apartment is slightly less cluttered.

Re: Stuff

#66

Post by derwiki »

Luc wrote: post #39
wyclif wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not especially inconvenient to own several thousand books Until you find yourself having to move.

I have thousands of books and would love to get rid of them. I would need a future-proof platform that allows annotations, and that lets me migrate between devices (so I can keep my books for at least my lifetime). I guess I would also need a convenient book scanner, for those books that are no longer in print.

I've often wondered why Amazon doesn't have a program like "send in your books, get a free Kindle copy of them"

Re: Stuff

#67

Post by johnwatson11218 »

rodyancy wrote: post #10

This is great. I came to the same conclusion some time ago. Of course, I never articulated it so elequently. Anyway, anytime I bring new stuff into my house I take the same amount of stuff and put it in a box. About four times a year I call the Salvation Army and they pick up the box. Before buying something new, I have to think about what old stuff is going in the box. Normally it isn't hard. On Christmas, when I ge…

yes I have started doing this kind of thing as well. I have a lot of crappy business casual clothes that don't really fit anymore. I don't want to toss them because I keep thinking I'll lose the weight to be able to fit back in them real soon.

What I have started doing is donating 2 pairs of old pants to Goodwill and buying 1 pair of nice pants that I will want to wash and deal with. This seems to be working well for me so far.

I also wanted to mention that our hard disks can suffer from this same problem. I have also started making an effort to delete old pdf books that I won't read, delete mp3s that I'm tired of hearing etc.

Re: Stuff

#68

Post by derwiki »

jerf wrote: post #41
gasull wrote: post #37

You can join the 100 things challenge: http://www.guynameddave.com/100-thing-challenge.html One problem I've found with it is that people buy me worthless gifts (gifts I don't derive value from because I don't use them). I've created an online list of things I want at kaboodle.com, or more exactly, a list of things I wouldn't mind possessing, but my family refuses buying anything on the list because that's "spoiling…

Being a middle-middle-class American in the Midwest, I can and do pretty much just buy what it is I want or need that is on the scale of a Christmas gift my family could or would get. That, combined with geeky tastes (y'all know what I mean) virtually guarantees things-I-value-as-garbage as presents. Next year I'm going to try picking a charity and asking for nothing but donations in my name. I'm going to pick a popu…

One of my good friends told me that this year, he gave donations to charity in the names of his family members. Great idea! My parents have been packrats, the last thing they need is more stuff. But a donation to a charity for a disease a loved one died of? Probably the best gift they could receive.

Re: Stuff

#69

Post by derwiki »

ilamont wrote: post #22

A couple of things I've been doing: When kids have a birthday or holiday with gifts, we tell them that they have to throw away or give away an equal amount of stuff. It works surprisingly well. I've been thinning out my media stuff (books, videos, old records, etc.) in batches during moves, but recently began selling what I could on amazon. It's mostly CDs and books, but in the past two months it's totaled about $800…

I took all my CDs to Amoeba Records for store credit that I used to buy vinyl. Any CD I owned can just as easily be purchased/downloaded online, and I realized that my emotional connection is with the music -- not the CD that I haven't physically used in 5 years. CDs are only going to lose value as time goes on, so why not get the most out of them while some people are still willing to buy them? I plan to start doing the same with my DVDs. And anything that they won't take as trade in, I'm going to give away: giving away stuff on Craigslist is easier than THROWING things away.

Re: Stuff

#70

Post by gwern »

marshallp wrote: post #62

Kids don't builder a coarser model of the evironment, adults do. Once again pg doesn't do his resaarch before espousing his amateur psychology.

I came here to say just this. He's right for all the wrong reasons. In most mental areas, kids trounce adults; relevantly, their senses are much sharper. (Just the other day I saw an astronomer's anecdote: he was showing adults and kids some phenomena through his observatory's telescope, and the kids politely told him that it was obviously broken since the object was upside-down - the adults never noticed.)

It's not a matter of them having a smaller coaser model, as one can see by comparing how kids & adults do with the 'pile of stuff' organizational model. They just have more energy to apply to it. As one ages, one has less energy to apply to stuff, and less energy period; and one begins to appreciate minimalism.

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