I’ve Got 99 Items
I recently made a list of all my belongings and I though I would write a little bit about the process and minimalism here.
Quarantine 🤷♂
Like all good stories in 2020, it starts with a mention of the pandemic…! In my case I got somehow stuck in captivity in a little town by the Mediterranean sea in Spain. I spent almost three months alone in Airbnbs, and as it turned out this was NOT fun. I’m now aware that I don’t want this to ever happen again… #learnings
Thankfully boredom has some benefits, and I also kept busy working on Multis and side (side) projects as well.
Proyecto Armario
In another twist to this story I had to change flat four times, and as I was unpacking stuff from my suitcase to the wardrobe I wondered if I could list all my belongings, and if I could have them pitch me why I should keep them and make the effort of carrying them around — packing, and moving is arguably a pain.
Given that I was in Spain I dubbed this project: Proyecto Armario. But let’s back up a little bit before diving right in.
The Road to Minimalism 🎢
It’s been a long journey. Like most people I used to own too much stuff. But I started experimenting with minimalism a while back when I moved to a new flat in London. This article shows how I approached to topic back then: things I owned had to be either “essential or innovative or fun”. A relatively actionable framework!
Obviously moving flats and cities makes you acknowledge the burden of owning too much, and motivates you to reduce belongings.
But once you settle somewhere again, you start accumulating stuff again… It seems as inevitable as breathing… And I’m not event mentioning the ready-to-be-binned secret Santa gifts!
California
I went to California mid-May last year without knowing I’d spend 4 months there (we did YC—a startup accelerator) so I had just a backpack and a suitcase. When returning to Europe I realized I didn’t need more “containers”.
I’m now glad to say that more than one year after it’s exactly the same: I’m slow-travelling around accompanied by my blue backpack with white palm trees, and a 15-kilo suitcase.
Learning
Everybody’s got a different definition for minimalism. Last time I was at Sun and Co (a co-living space in Spain), we had a round table on minimalism and we all had different views. For me it was, and still is, about removing things that don’t spark joy. For another person this was mainly related to saving money.
Minimalism is a practice. It’s by hearing from people who’ve been trying it out that I could refine my approach. I read books, listened to podcasts and watched movies about the topic.
I also got influenced by trends around tiny houses, slow travel, zero waste, co-living, JOMO (Joy Of Missing Out) and coding. Yes, coding! I’m a software engineer who settled a while back on this empowering language: Clojure (I’m not alone). I found out Clojure adds a minimalist vibe to programming… look at this:
(map inc (range 3)) ;; Returns (1 2 3)
;; Beautiful!
Interlude 🎻
But Why? 🤔
Why being a minimalist you might ask? Fair question!
I know non-minimalist people who are really happy in their lives. Some people love chaos, or collecting things, and as long as it’s not a pathology ( compulsive hoarding) I don’t see any problem here. In my case, I’m doing it first and foremost because it feels good to ME.
It Feels Good⁴
- It feels good to have very little things claiming for your attention.
- It feels good not to be over-consuming and wasting resources.
- It feels good to have more money to spend on experiences instead of stuff.
- It feels good not to be tied to a physical location (more on that later).
What’s in the bag? 🛄
Sooo… the whole point of this article was to show you the list of my belongings, and discuss a little bit the process that led to it. We’re almost there!
Inspiration
I remembered seeing pictures of travellers unpacking their bags before an excursion — when optimizing every grams to be carried, and explaining the purpose of each items. But I figured that in my case the excursion was LIFE itself.
Then I stumbled upon this nomad dude who made a list of his 64 items:
I found it super interesting but his spreadsheet was underwhelming and I wanted to do something similar but better. For instance by adding a rationale for each item—as it was suggested to me by a wise Bavarian.
I asked my friend who’s a spreadsheet expert and he told me to use Airtable for this. As you will see, it works well with embeds.
Implementation
Damn, this was a painful process. Many hours were lost trying to find references to stuff I bought offline more than five years ago… Also, because I love Spain I decided to do it in Spanish… It turned out I didn’t know so many specific words to describe my items… So this added up to the total time being wasted on this. #mistakes
I’m not too ashamed of the final results even though it’s obviously still a work in progress. I settled on the following attributes:
Name / Photo / Brand / Link
Price / Quantity / Total
Rationale / Improvements / Container
Then grouping by container, with the top level container being called “Armario” — not travelling with a physical wardrobe though. 🙃
Without any further ado… Here’s the result: I’ve got 99 items!
Comments
Friends will be like “wait a minute you’ve got more stuff at your parents’!”:
Yes, my childhood bedroom is the definition of chaos… but I could just bin everything (this will happen).
Yes, I’ve got a suit there. Not needed either. I could rent suits for weddings etc.
Yes, I’ve got a pair of skis and a skateboard. I could rent the ski equipment (and probably stop skiing) — as for skateboarding it’s trickier as it’s more of a consumable… Considering adding it to my list… I can remove socks anyway! 🙈
I was surprised by this number. I mean just one backpack and a suitcase… 99 items!
I want to point out that I’m mostly talking about “material” minimalism here — but it can be applied also to digital life or relationships for instance.
Nomadism 🌞
Owning just these items feels like nothing and everything has changed.
One direct consequence is the ability to live anywhere anytime. Packing takes 10 minutes. Moving out takes 10 minutes. 10. minutes. It’s actually hard to understand that before experiencing it. It’s not about being remote—that’s when you have a base. It’s not about being on holidays far from a location that defines you.
We call this a new paradigm: it’s about being POST-GEOGRAPHICAL!
What’s Next? 🛋
Life is funny. Just when I was done with my Airtable I got this tweet:
I got mad but excited: people were building the app I needed for this process. An app for “minimalists with a list”. Damn! (Join here if interested—buena gente!)
They’re iterating on the app with feedbacks from first users, but I immediately appreciated that they added a field for feelings regarding items. Or that you can co-own stuff with others. There are also two shortcomings of my Airtable solution they’re tackling:
- Maintenance: remove as much friction as possible to keep revisiting the list and keeping it up to date.
- History: save snapshots of my items over time. Especially important for me with the rationale and improvements fields I don’t want to lose for replaced items.
It always starts with a spreadsheet, right?!
Outro 🎬
I’m a minimalist in progress.
I currently own 99 items.
I’d be happy to hear your thoughts on this. It’s often with critics from skeptical people that I got to refine my approach further.
I also like to hear from folks living this life. I remember spending one afternoon at a bar with another minimalist basically going through all his items. (We’re all so different, I would never travel with an extra screen as he did!)
—
Own less, be more.
