We are swamped with items
Collecting many items was a good thing in the past of humankind but nowadays it is an inefficient strategy. Let us explain.
An average person owns thousands of individual items, most of them in their home. Some items are used daily, like your favorite shoes or your keys and wallet. Some items are just rushing through your life: The banana you eat on the next day you have purchased it or that newspaper you have barely read. It will be thrown away within days. But then there are still many things in your apartment jut sitting there. Hidden in a drawer or put aside for later. Those things we want to focus on, why do we keep them?
To minimize regret it was a good strategy to keep everything.
Collecting seems to be deeply embedded in the human mind. Small children start collecting random items at a very young age. And it makes sense. Throughout history the cost of keeping something was always comparably low, however the cost of repurchasing that same item down the road was often very costly or even practically impossible. To minimize regret it was a good strategy to keep everything.
This has changed.
Digitization helps us in two ways:
(1)
Es war noch nie so einfach, schnell und günstig wie heute, an einen beliebigen Gegenstand wiederzukommen. Denken Sie an das spezielle Werkzeug für Ihr Skateboard oder an die seltsam aussehende Glühbirne, zu der Sie nicht einmal mehr eine passendes Lampe haben. Werden diese speziellen Gegenstände in Zukunft wirklich benötigen, können einfach über das Internet kaufen und innerhalb von Tagen oder sogar Stunden in der Hand halten. Plattformen wie wie Amazon, Ebay-Kleinanzeigen und die hunderte spezialisierten E-Commerce-Händler verfügen über eine schier endlose Anzahl von Artikeln.
(2)
To get rid of stuff was never as easy and worthwhile as before. All the digital channels you can use to resell things reduce the effort and increase the revenue you get from letting go of an item. Websites like Momox, Ebay, Quoka enable you to sell to just the right person within minutes. This wasn't available in the past.
If you take the thought from above to an extreme, you migth end up with a lifestyle like Cédric Waldburger who chooses to live with an extreme minimal set of items. Check the video below.
To take the first step, declutter your apartment and subscribe to our newsletter. You will receive tips on this topic in the future.