Nov 18, 2024 luggage to backpack 🎒. Clothes reduced to essentials
🆕
Feb 21, 2024 2 luggages → 1 luggage due to leaving the US
Packed into 2 luggage bags
All possessions that I have. Plus 1 iPhone taking the photo and 2 luggage bags
Background
Life never gets boring. Recently I decided to move out of California, which is my 5th relocation within the last 4 years, 4 out of 5 are cross country moves. One of the lessons I’ve learned since was that I don’t want to own shit. Andit seems a natural move for me to take the 100 things challenge, which I initially got introduced by reading Pieter Level’s blog post.
Motivation
Since we all like telling stories to rationalize our behaviors, here are a few reasons I gave to myself
Embrace a minimalistic lifestyle. It frees me from the burden of possessions so that I can literally pack and move at anytime. Meanwhile, to avoid being trapped into endless consumerism, I need to make conscious effort in differentiating what’s necessary, what’s nice to have and what’s not needed.
Just for fun. Trying things out is fun especially when those challenges may stretch ourself in certain ways.
Relocation and decluttering. Relocation is always a good chance for some decluttering and readjustments.
Embrace constraints
I’ve been trying to stick with some constraints listed below to avoid going viral with my possessions
One in one out. I would buy something if I have something else to give away unless I really need that thing. E.g. I bought a new MacBook after I traded my old MacBook, I bought a new headset only after the old one was lost etc.
Differentiate between necessity vs wants. Avoid buying unneeded or unwanted stuff (worse) by setting a cool down period, and only buying them when the same impulse pops into my head again and again.
Go prime for things that I do need. I would buy things with best quality at a price that I can afford rather than wasting time hunting for the best deal.
Embrace the Lindy Effect. Books or clothes that I kept for a while are more likely to continue being carried around with me.
Suggestions
This challenge might actually raise a lot of questions, such as whether you count this item or that, or whether you count a bunch of things as one item or not, or whether this item is considered “personal” or not. Decide it for yourself. This isn’t a competition, and it’s not a way to show off. It’s just for fun, and it’ll be different for each of us. https://zenhabits.net/minimalist-fun-the-100-things-challenge/
The Rules (I set for myself)
Get my possessions under 50 items
Collections count as a single item
The Challenge
I have (40 things, ~60 in quantity)
I sold
Surface Pro 7
I gave away
Kitchenwares
Clothes that I don’t wear (to homeless)
Conclusion
Most of stuffs that I decided to keep with me are things that I've at least used a few times in the last couple months, some of them I use everyday.
I keep extra clothes (thicker ones) with me in case of weather changes among seasons. I'm not assuming that I'll stick to places (e.g. California) with mild weather all year around.
I also realized that, as always, there's room for improvement. For example, I haven’t used the projector for quite long time. Or I can challenge myself a bit to fit everything into one large size travel bag like many digital nomads do. Continuous refinement is part of the journey.
