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The one hundred item challenge
Could you live with no more than one hundred possessions? A group of Americans have accepted this challenge. I found this passage insightful:
Walsh isn't surprised that decluttering is so popular these days. Between worrying about gas prices and the faltering economy, people's first reaction, he says, "is often, 'I need to get some control over my life, even if it is just a tidy kitchen counter.'"
And of course there are cheaters:
One of the trickier questions is what counts as an item. Bruno considers a pair of shoes to be a single entity, which seems sensible but still pretty hard-core when you're trying to jettison all but 100 personal possessions. Cait Simmons, 27, a waitress in Chicago, takes a different approach. Although she has pared down her footwear collection from 35 to 20 pairs, she says, "All my shoes count as one item."
The pointer is to Jason Kottke.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on June 18, 2008 at 08:35 AM in Education | Permalink
Comments
It would have to be 100 items (plus books)
Posted by: Ray at Jun 18, 2008 8:39:26 AM
So.. 'all my books' are/is one item?
Posted by: MattF at Jun 18, 2008 8:39:47 AM
Hm. That would be extremely tough. Think about something like flatware...does one service count as one? Or must you count every fork, spoon and knife?
Posted by: Jonathan at Jun 18, 2008 8:52:04 AM
Are all my books in my kindle one item? Are my dogs one item or two? How would the cat feel about that?
I come from a family full of clutters but I've come up with a simple solution over the years. I emotionally detach myself from items and ask myself do I need this item in the next six months? No. Its gone or I don't buy it. (books are an exception but in 90% of the cases I refuse to buy the book if its not available electronically)
Posted by: tim at Jun 18, 2008 9:00:22 AM
i would start by buying a Kindle.
Posted by: DK at Jun 18, 2008 9:00:26 AM
That's a cinch. I'm down to one item: house (including contents of course).
Posted by: tom s. at Jun 18, 2008 9:00:37 AM
Jonathan, use a spork.
Posted by: Alex J. at Jun 18, 2008 9:20:59 AM
Yes, its possible. In fact I've done it. Dropped out of college and lived out of a backpack for a couple of years back in the 70s. It was not easy, but it was interesting, and it taught me some valuable lessons. First of course is that poverty sucks, but I also learned that true freedom is possible and that most of the freedom we abandon is by our own choice.
Posted by: Randy at Jun 18, 2008 9:46:45 AM
It would cost too much. But a laptop to replace my tower, monitor, keyboard and mouse. Buy a Kindle to replace (!) my books. Buy a single unit washer/dryer to replace my separate washer and dryer. Buy a futon to replace my couch and bed. Buy a spork. I'm all for cutting down clutter, but not at the cost of going broke!
Posted by: tom.a at Jun 18, 2008 11:16:34 AM
Does the items count if you are only renting them instead of owning them? Item 1: credit card. Item 2: large bank account to pay off credit card.
Posted by: Jim Hu at Jun 18, 2008 11:39:52 AM
Paul Graham has an explanation for this:
Stuff used to be rare and valuable. You can still see evidence of that if you look for it. For example, in my house in Cambridge, which was built in 1876, the bedrooms don't have closets. In those days people's stuff fit in a chest of drawers. Even as recently as a few decades ago there was a lot less stuff. When I look back at photos from the 1970s, I'm surprised how empty houses look. As a kid I had what I thought was a huge fleet of toy cars, but they'd be dwarfed by the number of toys my nephews have. All together my Matchboxes and Corgis took up about a third of the surface of my bed. In my nephews' rooms the bed is the only clear space.Stuff has gotten a lot cheaper, but our attitudes toward it haven't changed correspondingly. We overvalue stuff.
More at the link.
Posted by: Jake at Jun 18, 2008 11:49:22 AM
In a lot of ways this is silly. I'm not a huge collecter of stuff but I do have much more than 100 items, paring down what I have would be wasteful, and not likely to benefit anyone else. For an example, living in Alaska I have a fairly wide array of jackets (probably 12) and shoes (8 pair). If I had less, I would simply be less comfortable in some types of weather and have to replace the items I do have more frequently. How would that be beneficial?
For the record, there were periods in my life that were under 100 items. My 3 years enlited in the Army, and 18 months bike touring.
Posted by: JimS at Jun 18, 2008 1:59:32 PM
Time magazine seems to have issues with grammar. "100 Thing Challenge" is perfectly correct (just like two-way street, three-piece suit, four-wheel drive, Five Man Electrical Band, six-string guitar, Seven Nation Army, eightfold path, etc).
I agree that stuff used to be rare. For instance, a person sentenced to hang for taking part in a rebellion in the 1830s bequeathed his large winter overcoat to a friend; who today would mention such an item by name in their last will and testament?
Posted by: at Jun 18, 2008 2:01:30 PM
Uncluttering your material surroundings isn't worth it if the cost is cluttering your mind. You'd spend half your day in Gilligan's Island or MacGyver mode, trying to improvise half-baked solutions to trivial everyday issues. It sounds like that family that tried to go one full year without buying anything made in China: an ostentatious fad that someone's probably trying to turn into a book.
Posted by: at Jun 18, 2008 2:13:24 PM
Hurray for collective nouns.
I may own many books which would put me over the limit.
Luckily I only own one Library.
Also I just have one Music collection.
Shaving kit, first aid kit .... etc.
I don't see how anyone could do it if there wasn't some grouping. Take the basic abulations for example: soap, shampoo, conditioner, toothbrush, comb etc. Heck I know many people who would go over the hundred just there.
Posted by: Baronger at Jun 18, 2008 2:15:26 PM
How about using 100 base 16? Or if you still need more stuff, you could go Babylonian and use 100 base 60...
Posted by: Foobarista at Jun 18, 2008 2:53:46 PM
There is nothing like getting through a couple of natural disasters (like hurricanes in South Florida) to make this a more approachable challenge. Except for shoes--I have one shoe collection....
Posted by: Cora at Jun 18, 2008 4:19:09 PM
What about a house? Does it all count as one thing if it's bolted/nailed/glued/screwed together? Would that include the curtains or blinds, which are removable? What about appliances? Or tools? Is a socket set one item or 20?
And if we had 6 fingers on each hand, would we have set the magic number to 144 instead of 100?
Posted by: Noah Yetter at Jun 18, 2008 5:27:04 PM
Just try counting how many unique items are in your house. There are like a thousand, and I know where they all are and when I need them. It's kind of crazy, the complexity of life.
Posted by: Noumenon at Jun 18, 2008 6:02:44 PM
Why stop at 100 things? Why not just 50, or 10?
Posted by: Enrique at Jun 18, 2008 7:16:00 PM
One of the trickier questions is what counts as an item. Bruno considers a pair of shoes to be a single entity, which seems sensible but still pretty hard-core when you're trying to jettison all but 100 personal possessions.
Funny. I'd consider each shoe an item and any other arrangement as simply cheating. After all, if you're willing to allow high levels of abstraction 'all of my stuff' is simply one item. I guess that makes me super-hard-core (mitigated to an extent by the fact that I'm not actually participating in the challenge).
Posted by: sidereal at Jun 18, 2008 7:36:09 PM
Forgot my other comment, which is that virtualization breaks the intent to some degree. For example, if I replace all of my physical books with digital reproductions of same, have I actually simplified my life at all? I've certainly made moving easier and cheaper, but I'm not sure that's the intent. In the limit -- if virtualization is allowed -- then with sufficiently advanced technology my only 'possession' will be a direct neural connection to a reality simulation environment, in which I will probably have a million different virtual pairs of shoes. A little further away from the limit, a single laptop now replaces several hundred possessions (notably books, newspapers, board games, letters from friends, televisions, etc) that I would have hoped to have in previous eras.
Posted by: sidereal at Jun 18, 2008 7:43:25 PM
If you would have asked me even 3 months ago, could I have lived with only 100 items, I would have definitely said no. However, about a month ago my husband and I decided to sell everything and move into an RV with our 2 toddlers.
As it turns out, I have less than 100 items and that's counting each shoe and each sock. There's just no room for fluff. It definitely hasn't been easy though. I blog about the transition everyday on my site http://www.2adults2kids.com.
Sadly to say, my most popular post is where I am just pissed about getting rid of all of my stuff. Now that some time has passed, I realize it was all junk. It was all stuff I didn't need.
That reminds me, there's a ChangeThis.com manifesto called "The Invisible Badge". It's a great piece about owning what you need and not letting your stuff define you.
Posted by: KJ at Jun 18, 2008 11:43:29 PM
This is kind of a cool idea as I, too, have found my home cluttered with stuff.
However, I think it would work better in terms of percentages - for example, count the number of items you own and then give yourself six months to reduce that number by 50%.
That way it really wouldn't matter how you group things - getting rid of 50% of your 20 shoes leaves you with the same result as getting rid of 50% of your 10 pairs of shoes.
Posted by: Dan T. at Jun 19, 2008 9:01:26 AM
I would consider any items that needed each other to function (a pair of shoes, a cup with a lid) to be a single item. That said, the minimum possessions on record that people actually can get by with are the "skyclad" sect of Jain monks in India, who own nothing but a begging bowl. For obvious reasons, the sect does not have nuns; and it is not workable is most climates. (Jain nuns have robes, a head covering, and a begging bowl. 3 items minimum. Women's needs are different.)
In a variable climate you need at least two hats: a sturdy warm winter hat, and one giving shade in the summer. Ditto jackets. So some of the decluttering proves to be climate dependent.
Then there's the matter of dependents. What does your baby need? Your toddler? Your school age children? Your dogs or cats? OK - you don't need your pets, but if you have them already, they need you.
Anyway, much to think about. But the best person to meet that challenge is a single male in a steady and warm climate.
Posted by: Pat Mathews at Jun 19, 2008 9:52:10 AM
