80/20 Items

Re-reading the 4 Hour Workweek, there is a section about elimination, both of the excess junk as well as the excess activities in my life.  I focussed on the junk part recently and it was amazing how much crap I do have, even in one half of an apartment.

I would consider myself a neat person, but I realise that the neatness meant the stuff was well stored.  It was still a lot of stuff that in reality meant little to me.  I have gone through toiletries, my cupboard, the outside cupboard, my documents and produced a good three garbage bags of stuff.

Some troubling items:
1. Documents meant for the business.  I am not sure what needs to be kept for this.  The better approach would be to scan everything but I am too lazy.  So I couldn't move much out of this.

2. The books that I have.  So many good ones, and ones that I continue to re-read.  Not sure what to do here.  Perhaps I get them onto Kindle.  Or maybe a better thing is to stop re-reading for re-reading's sake and read new things!

I still have a way to go, especially on the IT front.  Lots of spare cables lying around the house.  A Playstation, Xbox and old games which I never use.  A DSLR camera I hope to get some money for.  If I can sell some of these items, it will help fund a part of the Korea trip.

I am sure I can be even harsher on the requirements.  Question to ask: "does this item make me happy?"  If not, I should get rid of it!

I should do this "cleansing" more often.  It's too easy to keep unnecessary stuff.  I think if I moved out, I would keep going for a relatively small place, to make it harder to hoard.  Having kids may lead to different requirements!  Although I read that a kid has on average 200 toys but really only plays with 10?

Lynn told me that a theme of hers is "live simply".  A good theme to follow.