Category Archives: Possessions

I.O.ME £5.50

Posted on May 22, 2012 | 1 Comment

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Temptation can be a bitch…

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Posted in Money, Possessions

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3 Golden Rules to Minimising Effectively

Posted on January 20, 2012 | 8 Comments

Today is your lucky day. I’m going to share with you 3 easy steps that will help you effectively manage your journey on minimising your possessions. We must remember that doing this is a big deal. It will be difficult… it will take a lot of your time and can become very emotional for you and even bring you to ask deeper questions. This task requires a strategy.

Whether you’re implementing a marketing strategy for your business, managing your financial goals or tackling the possessions in your home, these 3 key steps will stop you from making foolish decisions that could have been avoided and will make you one happy camper.

Step 1 – Create an inventory

This is a crucial step when trying to implement big changes in your life. If you don’t know what you have, how can you effectively decide what plan of action to take? It would be almost impossible to do so.  The first step then is to write down all of your possessions; make lists for what you have in each room if that helps break it down easier for you. This will take a long time to do and it will seem tedious but you’ll be thankful for it in the end!

Step 2 – Segmentation

Once you’ve created a list of what you have (in each separate room) you can segment these possessions further into 3 types: something along the lines of “What I need/want”, “What I don’t need or want” and “Maybe”… call them what you want but make sure you avoid putting everything in the maybe category. If you can’t decide then by all means do so but think long and hard about how often you use the item as well as the potential risk of getting rid of it. With my own experience I’ve generally found that the Pareto Principle (Only 20% of our possessions are used 80% of the time) to be quite useful so keep that in mind. This may not be the case for you though… always remember that this is all down to what works for you! Don’t go overboard because others have got rid of a bunch of stuff you use.

Step 3 – Implementation

This is undoubtedly the hardest step but the most important thing to remember is to take it at a pace that best suits you. Getting rid of your possessions too fast can be a shock to the system so start out slow and once you’ve comfortable and think your “don’t want” segment was correct then you can pick up the pace a bit! You can get rid of them in any way you like. I’ve found that creating an Amazon seller account to be quite profitable as well as made full use of the surrounding charity shops. If you have a lot of items then maybe car boot or garage sales would be more suited to you!

What to do with the “Maybe” list I hear you say? Well what I found was a very useful technique was to box up everything that I wasn’t sure about. I put the box away (attic or garage will do nicely) and after 6 months I came back to the box and found that I didn’t use the majority of the items in there. If you’re still worried about whether or not you’ll need the items then you can leave them in that box for a little longer or if you’re brave enough you can get rid of them all together. A useful tip that I received from Niall Doherty was that if it cost less than £20 then getting rid of it makes sense because the risk of needing to buy it again is very minimal. However, if the cost of the item is significantly larger then I suggest you hold onto that item because the financial risk becomes greater.

Hope these tips prove useful to you as they have done for me! Feel free to share your experiences or other suggestions to help those who are ready to make the journey of freeing themselves from their stuff.

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Posted in Amazon e-business, Decluttering, Possessions

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My Laptop – An Invaluable Possession.

Posted on January 9, 2012 | 8 Comments

I’ve been having a lot of feedback from my appearance on YOUROPE and I would like to thank everyone for the kind words, particular Tilman Favier who started writing a blog shortly after the programme. He’s just getting started out but his thoughts are profound and I urge everyone to check out his blog and see what he’s been getting up to!

I’ve had a lot of readers sending me emails asking me:

“Do you feel you’re being true to minimalism by owning a laptop?”

This question seems to be asked many times over from friends, family members and my readers here so I feel that it’s necessary to give you an insight into what I believe; although I fear a lot of you will reject it anyway but just hear me out…

I’ve compiled a list of 10 reasons why I justify owning a laptop. I am not about eliminating every physical possession from my life; a common misunderstanding from some. My 10 reasons are:

1)      University work. I use my laptop to complete my university work and without the ability to write my reports and essays on the move it would greatly reduce the amount of travelling I can do – you’d be surprised how much work one can get done on a train!

2)      Calendar. There’s no need to have buy physical calendars anymore as I can happily store all of my appointments on Google calendar which I find more efficient as the reminders do a better job than I do at making sure I look at calendar. It saves money too!

 

3)      Reading. I do a lot of reading (largely academic journals) but occasionally I will make use of kindle e-books – particularly the classics which are free!  Saves printing meaning that it’s better for the environment and your filing cabinet!

4)      Phone calls. Skype is a fantastic way of ensuring that those long distant friendships survive as international phone calls can be very expensive on your regular landline phone but with Skype you can call anyone for free (providing they are signed in, of course). They also allow you to call 0800 numbers for free (like your landline) so it allows you to eliminate having a landline phone!

5)      Movies. I love to enjoy watching movies like everyone else but as mentioned before I hated having hundreds of dvds pilling up around me spoiling the tranquillity of my bedroom. Digital files are much easy to manage and buying them online allows you to get them almost instantly and they allow me to watch them anywhere I like without having to drag them with me!

6)      Music. The same principle applies to music but usually physical CDs almost never get used compared to DVDs. It’s a lot easier to manage when they are kept on my laptop and they don’t damage in the same way that physical CDs do.

7)      Tv. I rarely watch TV but in the event when something is on I can stream it online without having to own a TV. My laptop speakers cater for me and maybe one other quite well. No need to own that gaudy box and several remote controls anymore!

8)      Learning. The internet is a fantastic learning tool and the huge amount of content on the web can give you hours of entertainment. I tend to get addicted to scrolling through Wikipedia pages about history, science and philosophy which empowers me to search for reading material that goes into greater depth.  I would also recommend TEDtalks if you’re seeking inspirational speeches on how to tackle current global issues.

9)      Blogging. I get an enormous joy out of writing to you, my readers, on this blog and I hope to continue inspiring those who are willing to listen to what I have to say. The feedback I’ve had, thus far, has made me incredibly happy and without this blog I would never have been featured on TV!

10)   Connecting with people. I’ve saved the most important factor until last and I believe that allowing us to connect with each other is priceless. Not only do we get immediate gratification from speaking to our current friends but we are also able to communicate to the wider world that can affect positive change in all of us.

So there we have it. I should probably point out that whilst I have transferred a lot of my ‘physical clutter’ into ‘digital clutter’ I do try and make sure that I only have what I need and gone are the days where I would keep almost every single text file and song, despite me never actually reading/listening to them.

Simply put it: my life would not be as fun without my laptop. I’m okay with saying that and I don’t believe that it goes against what minimalism means to me. I’ve made the distinction between need and want and you’ve got to have some fun in life! If you want a good read on what minimalism is NOT about I urge you to check out Niall Doherty’s insightful post on ‘Disrupting the Rabblement’.

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Posted in Possessions, Technology

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