paint-brush
How I live: My 115 thingsby@stervy
46,435 reads
46,435 reads

How I live: My 115 things

by Stephen CognettaApril 4th, 2017
Read on Terminal Reader
Read this story w/o Javascript
tldt arrow

Too Long; Didn't Read

<em>This post is part of a larger attempt to share my personal “systems” that help me organize my life. By sharing my system, I hope to get feedback and inspire others to share as well.</em>

Companies Mentioned

Mention Thumbnail
Mention Thumbnail
featured image - How I live: My 115 things
Stephen Cognetta HackerNoon profile picture

This post is part of a larger attempt to share my personal “systems” that help me organize my life. By sharing my system, I hope to get feedback and inspire others to share as well.

Minimalism: Living with Nothing

I started becoming a minimalist two years ago, inspired by sites like The Minimalists and Marie Kondo’s The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up. I quickly got addicted to reducing my possessions, and found more and more ways to declutter. I now have only 115 items! There are three main reasons I’m a minimalist fanboy:

  • Reduced cognitive overload — I don’t have messes anymore and I rarely worry about losing items.
  • Focusing on experience-based happiness as opposed to material-based happiness. I seldom found long-term joy in the physical items I purchased for myself.
  • Being a minimalist has allowed me much more financial freedom, for example, freeing up the money I would have spent on a new bed frame so that I can invest the money.

I’ve outlined exactly the 115 items that I own now, although I’m still working on decreasing this number. I hope this inspires others to share their material systems, and I want to highlight some key multi-purpose items that allow my list to be so short.

My three favorite minimalist items

These items are great because they’re multi-purpose, compact, and very cheap, so I don’t worry about damaging or losing them.

Radix One Slim Wallet (Amazon Link)

Curious what’s inside my wallet? Check out my financial break-down article.

Foldable Storage Ottoman (Amazon Link)

Swiss Army Pocket Knife (Amazon Link)

My full 115 items

Methodology: This list is a list of items that I would take with me if I were moving. It does NOT include shared items (e.g. common room couch) and it counts pairs of items as one (e.g. a pair of socks). Otherwise, I generally try to count items as separate unless they’re clearly in a “bundle” (I’ve labeled these items with “[bundle]” to clarify I’m counting them as one item).

Clothing (60)

Note: not all clothing pictured

Toiletries (17)

On-the-go (7)

Electronics (11)

Furniture (13)

Miscellaneous (7)

Not included in this list

  • Shared Kitchenware (borrowed from roommates)
  • Shared Furniture (borrowed from roommates)
  • Consumable Items (I cycle through these on a biweekly basis)
  • Books (I’ll donate them when I move, and I mostly use e-books — if you’re curious for more, here’s a post about my reading organization system)

If you found this interesting, you can follow me on Twitter at @stervyc. Check out some of my other articles below: