
How practical minimalism helps me focus - clbjnstn
https://medium.com/the-mission/how-practical-minimalism-helps-me-focus-8d204d60ae63#.chhgv8e3b
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dharmon
To offer a counterpoint, years ago the wife and I moved from NYC to California
and purged quite a lot of stuff. We shipped everything we owned via UPS, to
give you an idea of what we pared down to.

There was no sudden bursts of creativity or inspiration in our new life on the
west coast. If anything, it was kind of annoying living out our daily lives
without some items that didn't survive the move.

I have nothing wrong with minimalism, or owning fewer things. In fact, I'm all
for it, but don't fool yourself that throwing out the fondue pot is going to
help you finish that novel.

My guess is that the stimulation of such a new environment is more
responsible.

~~~
majewsky
> My guess is that the stimulation of such a new environment is more
> responsible.

This. Environment means so much to productivity. For example, the reason why I
frequent my local hackerspace is that being there puts me into a getting-
things-done attitude, whereas at home I usually end up chatting on IRC,
watching Youtube or playing video games. And sometimes, all of the above at
once. :)

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_pdp_
The younger me will agree but now that I have more practical experience in
life I see things differently. The stuff that you own are for convenience. If
you install some furniture you don't need to think about them - they are there
ready to accept the stuff you want to stash in. There is very little
maintenance as well (dusting, etc.) which you could outsource if you want to
free more time for yourself.

In terms of the comment that your things own you, I cannot see how this works.
Of course if you need to be mobile, then you need to give up on these things
or you need to be prepared to take a loss. Those things should have been
factored from the very beginning. Buying a car has a huge upfront cost but
perhaps lower transportation cost in the long run if you use it regularly.
Solar panels vs nuclear vs fossil fuel , laptop vs desktop, own server vs
cloud are manifestations of the same thinking. Everything has advantages and
disadvantages and unfortunately, regardless of the framework of life you
choose to live in some things will not work out the way you want them to but
that is fine :)

To unclutter your mind you really need to go beyond that kind of thinking.
Minimalism cannot be defined in such a simple terms as much as you cannot
define minimalism when you are building your next product. Minimalism does not
mean lack of features. It means lack of unnecessary features but to find out
what falls under this category you need to try them out first to see what
works.

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crdoconnor
I can kind of understand where these types of articles are coming from but I
wish people would stop framing them as some sort of generational paradigm
shift in living. It's simply a response to a changed set of incentives.

Cheap consumables + high property values + cheap travel + low job security =
consumerist minimalism makes sense

This isn't about "cognitive freedom" it's about low interest rates (causing
high house prices), low tariff trade (meaning dirt cheap manufactured
consumables) and the corporate culture of treating labor as disposable
(frankly: due to union destruction) meaning you have to be able to move often.

Assuming all of those things reversed and:

* High tariff trade means that you can't just buy a new Bangladeshi-sewn wardrobe for $200.

* Suddenly you can buy a huge house relatively cheaply because of a drop in house prices.

* The "job for life" becomes a thing again.

Then again, consumerist minimalism would make much less sense.

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yabatopia
Going digital is a big help. My legacy collection of books, CDs, DVDs or
records still takes annoyingly much space and it's a pain in the butt when you
move. Books are heavy!

I wish there was an easy way to instantly get a digital version of a book you
own. Publishers always claim that you don't really own a book or record, it's
just a license. I've already bought a license to read a novel or listen to an
album, why can't I just transfer the license to a digital format without
paying full price again?

And it's even more painful when you acknowledge that a lot of books are still
unread, it's like a wall of shame of good intentions. Thankfully you can
easily hide digital books in a subfolder.

~~~
gglitch
I keep working on digital minimalism. What's the cleanest, simplest
organizational schema/stack I can use to make sure all of my digital material
is findable and secure? It's a rabbit hole for sure.

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scirocco
prediction, as an aside: sometime soonish, there will be widespread adoption
of something between renting an AirBNB, and owning furniture. Maybe it’s a
service where you rent furniture. An AI-assisted interior decorator gives you
a proposal, and the furniture is delivered and arranged. You pay a monthly
fee.

I won an Ironhack hackathon based on this idea. Tricky to execute though as
furniture is big, heavy and logistics become expensive. If you have 100
customers renting sofas for 6 months (because ifthey rent longer, why should
they not buy one themselves?), you will end up moving a lot of furniture.

And how do you manage offering? Products from your own warehouse, or P2P, or
both? Pure P2P would require no stocks, but also reduce the amount of products
available on the portal which would make it less attracting.

For an early market research test we created a profile on the local craigslist
and asked people selling their sofas if they were interested in renting it out
instead.. Then we also created a profile offering to rent out a sofa. Limited
interest but we did get some fun response..

~~~
tacostakohashi
If there were a personal possession I'd like transformed into a service, I
think it might be clothing rather than furniture.

With furniture, once you have the appropriate pieces, you don't really need to
do much with them. Also, it's easy enough to buy / sell furniture as needed,
i.e. whenever you feel like moving.

As for clothing - with changing seasons, drycleaning, different dress codes,
polishing shoes, etc, etc... wish there were something where I could order the
next week or two's clothing for hire, and send it back dirty, and let someone
else figure out when it needs replacing, polishing, etc.

~~~
dingaling
Yes, clothes drive me mad.

I'd find something comfortable in a decent fit and buy half-a-dozen of them
all at the same time, then attempt to wear them until they wore-out. But when
I went back to the store they'd changed 'seasons' or 'styles' and the same
items were no longer available. I'd defer searching for and purchasing new
items until my wife would force me to do so due to holes in my pullovers etc.
I'm not sure how Steve Jobs overcame this problem with his turtle-necks,
unless he had them custom-made.

My solution to this was to start shopping in country-life ( farming / horse-
riding etc ) and workwear shops. Not only do the items last longer but those
ranges have much lower churn. Not as fashionable as high-street stores I
suppose but functionally sufficient and less stressful for me overall.

In comparison furniture has zero cognitive burden for me once selected and
installed. I've moved house once and it was just a case of hiring a removals
company with a big van, they did all the work.

~~~
dagw
_But when I went back to the store they 'd changed 'seasons' or 'styles' and
the same items were no longer available_

Stick to classic designs from classic brands and you won't have that problem.
The basic white dress shirt/blouse for example works for all occasions and if
you find a fit that works for you from an established brand you'll never have
to worry about fit again (until you change size).

~~~
mrexroad
This.

I buy 2 pair of Levi's 501 on sale each year for ~$35, a single brand/style of
underwear, single style/brand under shirt, single brand/style of athletic
socks, 2 pair minimum of any style/design of non-athletic socks, etc. Button
up shirts purchased as needed (trying to limit to 5-7) from same brand, and
all matching jeans. I can blindly grab first item in each stack and have
consistent results. haven't felt need to simplify any further. I try and stock
up on the socks/undergarments during sales, and then replace in drawer once
showing signs of excessive wear. so far so good.

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kraftman
So the premise of this post seems to be that owning things that may one day
need to be moved introduces a cognitive load extreme enough that daily
creativity is reduced, but reducing easy access to purchases to the point
where buying things is a 'scavenger hunt' is 'actually great'.

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namaemuta
It depends on which kind of person you are. If you are the type of person that
likes to have parties at home, invites friends to dinner, etc. and you care
about their comfiness, you will like to have a comfortable sofa, a nice coffee
table, etc.

But it's true that you feel some kind of relief when you have fewer things.
Specially if you travel frequently, you can go without worrying about leaving
something important behind.

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stared
It is very much in line with
[http://www.paulgraham.com/stuff.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/stuff.html),
on essentially that in the times of plenty things usually have negative value.

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laurent123456
There's a lot of changes happening when moving to a new place, so I'm not sure
why the author assumes his burst of creativity is due to minimalism only. It
might just be that it's exciting to be somewhere new and start fresh.

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mrleiter
Reminds of me of a scene [0] in the movie "Fight Club", where they talk about
the meaning of owning things.

[0][https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVxM0gryue4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVxM0gryue4)

