Stuff seems to accumulate over time without a conscious effort to focus on whether it’s really needed. I’m certainly guilty of buying things I use once and hold onto for a long time. Could I have lived without it in the first place? Probably. If I did need it, did I have a neighbor or friend I could have borrowed from instead.
In this video I talk about living with less from the framework of moving into a smaller residence where there simply wasn’t room, but as I get older I think more about whether holding on to too many things really makes sense.
In the video I talk about divesting 10 computers prior to moving. Why did I have 10 computers? About half of them were used for testing scenarios that I wrote about here or in articles for other publications, but the other half? Most were becoming outdated and I simply hadn’t taken the time to check the hard drives for any important content.
As I strive to continue living with less, I’m looking more carefully at avoiding these scenarios going forward. I will gift or recycle technology when it starts to exceed it’s useful life for my purposes. I’m also slowing down on buying new gear by attempting to extend the life of things I own a little longer.
I’m not sure if that last change is due to the slowing in the pace of change for hardware or my own recognition of the overhead required to constantly chase the latest and greatest gear.
