war on stuff

The future will require less space.

By Brad Beckstrom AKA The Frug

As I write this, I’m sitting in an office filled with a lot of books and dusty CDs, but the future will be different. I’ve been paring down books for years. Getting rid of old tech manuals and binders, DVDs, and other junk. Only keeping books I would want to re-read or give away.

I know that the digital world will require less space.

For many, music, books, and movies have already moved to digital. And the digital world requires less space. When I say the digital world, I’m not just talking about music or movie downloads on iTunes or downloading Kindle books on a tablet. I’m talking about something better than owning or downloading stuff and taking care of it, storing it, getting rid of it. I’m talking about accessing anything on an as-needed basis via high tech sharing or streaming for small rental fee.

This is now

In the future [Read more…] about The future will require less space.

What would you take with you?

10/14 by The Frug Leave a Comment

How the Burning House Project helps us think about how much we really don’t need.

The Burning House by Foster Huntington began as a popular blog and later became a book that the New York Times called “fascinating and provocative.”

It asked the simple question.

“If your house was burning, what would you take with you? It’s a conflict between what’s practical, valuable and sentimental. What you would take reflects your interests, background and priorities. Think of it as an interview condensed into one question.”

The idea went viral as thousands of people around the world posted a photo and a list of the few things they would grab if their house was on fire. Most people assumed that family, friends, and pets were out of the “hypothetical burning house” safely so you just have a few moments to grab those few important possessions. It’s also very hard to get a cat to pose for the picture. [Read more…] about What would you take with you?

Holiday Escape Plan.

09/14 by The Frug Leave a Comment

Your guide to skipping the insanity this year.

I was driving the other day and I saw a pumpkin patch sign up. It’s freaking Labor Day weekend! I know what that means. Halloween will quickly turn into Thanksgiving and the insanity of the spendy holiday season will begin instantly.

Have you ever thought about escaping the holidays? No last-minute trips to malls, hiding gifts in the trunk, wrapping oversized packages. Completely ignoring the news stories about people getting trampled on Black Friday. There’s really a reason it’s called Black Friday.

Choose Adventure over Stuff

What would happen if you could get the whole family to buy in on your secret holiday escape plan? Choosing adventure over stuff this holiday season. I know this is next to impossible if you have kids under 12 years old, but it’s never too early to start planting the seed. Our kids got a taste of it last year. We had a get together with family and friends in Mexico. We saw whales, visited small villages, took boat rides, sat on the beach.

The holiday escape plan is pretty simple. Instead of the traditional gift giving bonanza of material goods that are soon forgotten, we will put all of that money towards a family adventure. Last year we did a little of both which, looking back on it, is cheating. We also spent a bit too much once we got to Mexico.

I needed complete buy in on the plan this year. Our gifts to each other would be adventure and time with family and friends. To my surprise, I got very little pushback. Our youngest commented “Why wouldn’t we choose that?” Another comment was “I always have a hard time coming up with stuff to ask for anyway.” I’ll let you know how all this turns out after Christmas morning, at least they’ll be waking up at the beach.

Paying for your adventure

Now the hard part starts, but just think how much time you’re saving by skipping all those trips to the store and wrapping presents. The first thing I did was look back over the last couple years at what we spent on Christmas gifts, local travel, and all the other holiday related “stuff”. [Read more…] about Holiday Escape Plan.

Big Box America. Maybe our middle class is vanishing because they’re buried under a pile of stuff.

06/14 by The Frug Leave a Comment

The average U.S. household has 300,000 things.

Let that sink in for a second. Okay, how about this one: Children in the United States make up only 3.7% of children on the planet but have 47% of all the world’s toys and children’s books.

Who comes up with these stats? As it turns out, quite a few people. Anthropologists and archaeologists, sociologists and economists are all studying our addiction to stuff. When you think about it, it’s fascinating. Writers and academics want to document this phenomenon so that thousands of years from now when an archaeologist comes across 750 plastic toys at a single family dwelling dig site she will be able to explain why.

Life at Home in the 21st Century

The UCLA Institute of Archaeology Press recently published a book called “Life at Home in the 21st Century.” The book is filled with U.S. stuff statistics, but what I found more interesting was the thousands of photographs from families who bravely opened their doors to researchers. [Read more…] about Big Box America. Maybe our middle class is vanishing because they’re buried under a pile of stuff.

Mo Stuff = Mo Problems

05/14 by The Frug Leave a Comment

Separate happiness from owning stuff

by Brad Beckstrom

You would think someone who writes about living lean and minimalism would not have a stuff problem. Think again.

It’s the start of a holiday weekend and I just spent a over an hour on the phone with Apple support. Turns out I have too much stuff on one of my two computers. I have too many extensions on my Chrome browser. One of these extensions, or other apps, are creating issues, causing the browser then the computer, to hangup.

Apple was nice enough to help me with my out of warranty iMac. I’d imagine there’s some reason for this. Maybe they looked at my support file and got a glimpse of how many Powerbooks, Macs, iPhones and iPads I’ve purchased over the years. I’m embarrassed by this number. When you add in my wife SuperK, my two kids, and various ventures I’ve purchased Macs for, I am very embarrassed by this number.

Mo Stuff = Mo Problems

See the problem is not really the Mac, it’s the number of Macs and the number of apps. Mo Stuff = Mo Problems. Rapper Notorious B.I.G. famously said Mo Money = Mo Problems and things did not end well for him. Shot dead, likely due to some money problems with other rappers. [Read more…] about Mo Stuff = Mo Problems

How to live lean, work lean and travel lean by asking a simple question about stuff.

02/14 by The Frug Leave a Comment

Will this _________ simplify my life? Go ahead, fill in that blank with anything. In this country, we live with an abundance of stuff. You can walk into any big box store and browse upwards of 150,000 different things. We have millions of apps available with one click and many of the good ones are free. Often with things that are free (especially with things that are free), you need to ask the question. Will this “free _____” simplify my life?

As someone who writes about living lean and working lean, I need to ask the simplicity question often. As an entrepreneur, I need to ask this question about any piece of software, new gadget, health plan the list goes on.

Sometimes the answer is yes, but you don’t really know that until you’ve already purchased it. I had no idea my iPhone would replace over 20 things until quite some time after I purchased it. So often you need to ask other people – How’s that __________working out for you?

“Perfection is achieved, not when there’s nothing more to add, but there’s nothing left to take away”

I repeat this quote, as I look at my cluttered basement. You can apply it to anything. Bruce Lee did when he was learning the perfect kick and the perfect punch. He said, “It is not daily increase but daily decrease. The height of cultivation always runs to simplicity.”

Steve Jobs and Jonathan Ive aspired to this when working on the iMac, the iPod, and the iPhone. These devices were revolutionary, not based on what was added, but what was taken away, like excessive buttons, bells, whistles, and keyboards. They were asking the simplicity question over and over, not just about the device but about every element of its design.

Bloatware. Something as straightforward as creating a document or a spreadsheet is often ruined by bloatware like Word, Excel & Powerpoint. The bloat comes from developers trying to best the competition with features and add-ons. Simple wins. Check out Google docs before Google ruins it with feature creep.

Keeping up with the Joneses. Things that start out as something simple, something that just works, become bloated with too many features. For example, cars with talking digital dashboards trying to sync with your phone and laptop. Will that simplify your life or maybe help you end up in a ditch somewhere, because you weren’t looking at the road? At some point you will definitely end up at the dealer amazed at the cost of repairing your talking digital dashboard.

Examples of when to use the simplicity question:

That presentation you’re working on — Try getting rid of some bullet points. Give it a 50% haircut for starters. Use images instead of words.
Working on an app or a piece of software — Start making a list of features that can be removed.
Creating some copy for a website or writing a blog post — Try to remove every other word. See how much you can cut.
Traveling — Use a website like Kayak.com to sort available flights by total travel time. Always include time in the value equation.
Cleaning out closets and garages — Ask the question “Will keeping these things make my life simpler?” You probably already know the answer.
Buying a car — If the owners manual is the size of a textbook, that should be a warning sign. Always go for quality and simplicity over features, especially electronic ones.
Making a big purchase like a new home — Ask the question about your commute, the condition of the home, how much space you really need, the type of loan.
The utilitarian item — Look at quality first, features last. Is it something you’ll use every day? What will it replace?
Exercise — Complex, backbreaking routines often found in programs like P90X, Crossfit others. See what you can cut out and get your workout down to something you can complete in 20 minutes and enjoy. You’ll stick with it a lot longer if it’s simple.
Looking at shiny displays in the big-box store — Ask the question.

So try asking the simplicity question more often. Picture yourself as Bruce Lee executing a perfect kick as you eliminate stuff from your life.
Life can be simple again.

The Frug