jump to navigation

Simplification – Part II June 19, 2009

Posted by atharkhan in : Personal , 1 comment so far

A couple of days after that last post, it occurred to me that simplification need not be limited to physical objects. My life is cluttered with plenty of other distractions such as email, social networking sites, and even people. So, I used Rescue Time to track my activities on my personal laptop. I found that I was spending a shockingly disproportionate amount of time processing email, keeping in touch with contacts, and participating in networking sites.

First, I used a combination of Xobni and X1 to estimate a ratio of how often I initiated the conversation. Using this approach, I was able to delete about 2425 contacts which I had added to my email addressbook over the last 10 years. There were indeed plenty of people that I would have loved to stay in touch with because they were “important” but I figured that having an important person’s contact information did me no good if that person wasn’t particularly interested in keeping in touch with me. Perhaps it was a hint that I should have taken a long time ago.

Now, when I visually scan my addressbook, at least I can identify (somewhat) more quickly, the people I have not spoken to or corresponded with in some time. It also eliminates the guilt of failing to keep in touch.

Then, I installed LeechBlock, a FireFox extension that limits the amount of time that I can spend on any given website. Looking at my Rescue Time statistics for this week, I didn’t waste much time at all.

Simplification June 4, 2009

Posted by atharkhan in : Personal , 1 comment so far

Since the last post, we’ve been eliminating as much excess stuff as possible. We had no need for a patio chair so it was sold via Craigslist. Other items that have “left” the apartment one way or another include shoes (even new, unworn ones), clothes, CDs, papers, and electronics.

I’ve also been working on consolidating electronics wherever possible. A couple of examples: Instead of a a 500GB NAS, a 300GB NAS, and a 300GB USB Drive, we now have one mirrored 2TB Firewire 800 drive. Similarly, instead of a router, an ethernet switch, and two WDS repeaters, we now have a single 802.11n router.

I’ve also been conducting an experiment — i.e. I will not wear anything twice unless everything in the closet has been worn once. And, if there are clothes that I hesitate to wear (because they are ill-fitting, need repair, or simply because I don’t like them,) then they don’t belong in my closet. Basically, the premise is that if I can’t wear it to work or on the weekend, I don’t need it. This helped identify a bunch of clothes that needed alteration — some were too big (yaay!), and others were (sadly) too tight. Either way, they are now being fixed or discarded.

All in all, I think we’re getting closer to leading simpler and more enjoyable lives.

On track for 100 Things. April 14, 2009

Posted by atharkhan in : Personal , 2comments

Last year, while taking a break from preparing for the California bar exam, I came across David Michael Bruno’s “100 Thing Challenge.” Given that the last few years, I have been acquiring significantly more than the average consumer, I thought it would be a nice thing to do but never really got around to it.

Then, we moved to Chicago and had to fit two condos worth of stuff into a small cramped apartment. As we looked around at our living room (which had a barbecue grill in it!) we decided it was time to divest ourselves of possessions we never seem to use (e.g. my “solar powered air vents”).

Denise came up with a great idea: for every one clothing item we acquired, we had to give up two of the same category. So, we got rid of old, and ill-fitting clothes and donated them to Good Will.  Since then, we have held on to this rule. Whenever I feel like getting something, I have to try and find two to get rid of. It’s been working great so far.

A friend suggested looking around for “alligators” — he calls anything that has a subscription fee an “alligator” because “it eats you alive.” Colorful, but you get the point. So,we started slashing things we never seemed to use. The home phone and a car were the first to go. I did some speed tests and noticed that I never got speeds better than 7Mb so it was pointless to pay for a 20Mb connection. We quickly downgraded our cable speed.

Now, as an extension of our “pay-as-you-consume” model, we’re about to get rid of our car and opt for ZipCars. Having paid almost $1500 in parking over the last 6 months, I can’t wait to get rid of this alligator.

The funny thing is that as we get rid of more stuff, we feel better. I am wondering what it will be like when we actually hit 100.