In my head I like the idea of packing everything into a decent size suitcase and a backpack. That way, I can just pack everything and then go, whoever it may be, but I will have everything. One day when I actually do start to do some travelling, this can become a reality.
Two things that I own that will help me to achieve this are a 1TB hard drive and a kindle. On the hard drive I store all of my music and and films/tv shows. I do confess that I have two 1TB hard drives, a desktop and a portable. The desktop has all the films/tv shows whilst the portable donations all my music and pictures. Also, it stores all the books I have downloaded for the kindle. Trust me, I have enough stuff to read for ten lifetimes!
The kindle was a great purchase. I was a big reader when I was younger and as I grew up I just stopped. I did read autobiographies of various musicians and sports people but never a story based book. I do have a large bookcase full of books and I haven't read a good 90% of it. I did start to get back into reading and decided that a kindle would get me back into it, thankfully I was right. Within 6 weeks of my parents buying it for me, I had 3 books read.
My point in this post is that by having a kindle and storing all my music, films/tv shows and photos on the hard drives, it saves a massive amount of space. I would need at least ten large book cases if not more if I was to physically put all of it on a shelf. I can now simply place them in a small bag, and be off on my way.
Another advantage of digital storage is the cloud. You can buy massive amounts of space online now and you can store everything there if you wanted to. This even eliminates the need for hard drives which would save even more space.
I am a college student. So for storing all my college notes and assignments, I use Dropbox. This is such a handy way to store everything I need for college and have it in a nice organised manner. As I have an iPhone, and since Christmas, an iPad, I can access anything I need in a just a couple of taps of the screen.
By storing on the cloud I have now now saved the need for printing off hundreds of sheets of paper a year and the weight of carrying it all. I now have everything I need on my iPad and iPhone with Dropbox, Keynote and Pages. It is everything I need now for college. Of course Ido still have a notepad and paper, but only for scribbling down essential points that need expanding (I use spider diagrams a lot).
Tuesday 1 January 2013
Thursday 27 December 2012
The Start Of A New Journey
Growing up I always had a lot of material things, be it clothes, toys, games. When I moved out on my own a couple of years ago, I realised exactly how much stuff I had accumulated over the years, without throwing much stuff out.
When I moved into my own place I only brought the things I really needed but still didn't throw out the old stuff. Due to my parents house being quite large with lots of storage, my stuff just stayed there. Even after the last couple of years I still didn't bother going through everything. I can say that all of this stuff, apart from the few collectible things, will be thrown out and given away.
As for the stuff that I have accumulated since I moved out, I did build up stuff but nothing that wasn't used, and the bulk of this stuff is DVDs, books and clothes. In the back of my mind I knew I had a lot of things but I didn't want to do anything about it. That changed when I saw a film called Up In The Air.
George Clooney plays the main character, Ryan Bingham, who travels around America for his job with everything he owns in a suitcase. On the very few days he has off, he goes home to what is a small cheap apartment that has just the essentials. On the side he performs presentations titled 'Whats In Your Backpack?'. This presentation is to help people de-clutter their life and make them realise they don't need everything that they own. This was my first insight into minimalism.
I began looking up minimalism and started to slowly understand what is was and why people led this lifestyle. It made me realise a lot of things, the first being that I did not need everything that I owned at all, and living with the fewest of things that can make you happy is the way to go.
I know for myself, that having all that stuff was like some kind of security, something to hold onto and by keeping them, I keep the memories. But now it's Christmas, a time when people give each other gifts. So I decided that all my stuff that has been sitting at home collecting dust for the last couple of years, as I said above, can be given away.
My transition into minimalism had been a slow one but I have been making progress. This started with my clothes. I first want to say, over the last 2 years I have lost a lot of weight which I why I had so many clothes to begin with. Some clothes were too big, some still fit but never the less I had to buy more clothes that fitted me better, hence an over collection. I began looking up articles online to find what clothes would make up a good wardrobe but one that was not too big.
So I set about giving clothes that didn't fit, didn't want or not worn in a good while to my Dad. I bought a few new things but was careful about what I bought. Due to money restrictions I bought as cheap I could whilst making sure I wasn't buying rubbish. I also made sure that what I bought had multiple uses. This was to minimise the size of my wardrobe and making use of what I had. This part of my transition is on going but almost complete. I still have more clothes than I would like/need but I will amend this soon.
I know have a nice variety of clothes for a number of different occasions, and all was acquired for not that much money as I took some tips from my research and bought items that can be used to compliment a number of different pieces of clothing.
So this is the first part of my new journey, hopefully it is one that will educate and discipline me in many things and open my eyes more than they already are to the fact that I do not need everything that I own, and everything I want.
When I moved into my own place I only brought the things I really needed but still didn't throw out the old stuff. Due to my parents house being quite large with lots of storage, my stuff just stayed there. Even after the last couple of years I still didn't bother going through everything. I can say that all of this stuff, apart from the few collectible things, will be thrown out and given away.
As for the stuff that I have accumulated since I moved out, I did build up stuff but nothing that wasn't used, and the bulk of this stuff is DVDs, books and clothes. In the back of my mind I knew I had a lot of things but I didn't want to do anything about it. That changed when I saw a film called Up In The Air.
George Clooney plays the main character, Ryan Bingham, who travels around America for his job with everything he owns in a suitcase. On the very few days he has off, he goes home to what is a small cheap apartment that has just the essentials. On the side he performs presentations titled 'Whats In Your Backpack?'. This presentation is to help people de-clutter their life and make them realise they don't need everything that they own. This was my first insight into minimalism.
I began looking up minimalism and started to slowly understand what is was and why people led this lifestyle. It made me realise a lot of things, the first being that I did not need everything that I owned at all, and living with the fewest of things that can make you happy is the way to go.
I know for myself, that having all that stuff was like some kind of security, something to hold onto and by keeping them, I keep the memories. But now it's Christmas, a time when people give each other gifts. So I decided that all my stuff that has been sitting at home collecting dust for the last couple of years, as I said above, can be given away.
My transition into minimalism had been a slow one but I have been making progress. This started with my clothes. I first want to say, over the last 2 years I have lost a lot of weight which I why I had so many clothes to begin with. Some clothes were too big, some still fit but never the less I had to buy more clothes that fitted me better, hence an over collection. I began looking up articles online to find what clothes would make up a good wardrobe but one that was not too big.
So I set about giving clothes that didn't fit, didn't want or not worn in a good while to my Dad. I bought a few new things but was careful about what I bought. Due to money restrictions I bought as cheap I could whilst making sure I wasn't buying rubbish. I also made sure that what I bought had multiple uses. This was to minimise the size of my wardrobe and making use of what I had. This part of my transition is on going but almost complete. I still have more clothes than I would like/need but I will amend this soon.
I know have a nice variety of clothes for a number of different occasions, and all was acquired for not that much money as I took some tips from my research and bought items that can be used to compliment a number of different pieces of clothing.
So this is the first part of my new journey, hopefully it is one that will educate and discipline me in many things and open my eyes more than they already are to the fact that I do not need everything that I own, and everything I want.
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