300,000 Things

Apparently, the average American owns around 300,000 things.

I just did a quick count around my office and, without moving from my spinny chair, I counted well over 600.

Without opening any drawers. Without counting the individual pieces of paper in piles or business cards in boxes or dice in my gumball machine (don’t ask).

It’s funny how we nest.

Looking around my office again, things fit into a few categories that conveniently fit on a little 2×2.

Things I like and need

These things are the most important items in my office. I can’t do my normal life and work without them and they come with me when I am out of the office or traveling.

Things I like and don’t need

I could only have a kindle, but there is something about being surrounded by physical books. I don’t have to play golf, but it’s nice to have the option. I could get by with only my trackpad, but I prefer to use a mouse. I don’t need the nameplate from my grandfather’s office on my wall, or my guitar, or the Shinola Runwell clock my wife gave me on my 30th birthday, but they put the home in home office.

Things I don’t like, but need

Printer. And it’s my favorite printer I’ve ever had.

Things I don’t like and don’t need.

This feels obvious, but we tend to hoard and collect things. Old magazines, the charger from your phone 6 years ago, that weird thing your grandma gave you that she probably got at TJ Maxx but for some reason you feel weird getting rid of it.

Okay so now what

If we are overburdened by stuff, solving each of these areas requires a different approach:

Things I like and need: OPTIMIZE!

I have never understood how people buy cheap desk chairs. My ass spends entirely too much time in my chair for it to be the source of pain. I get it. They can be expensive. Stop buying junk and save your money for the things you actually need and use. Get a good laptop. The fast charger. The better wifi router. The comfortable chair. The good headphones.

Things I like and don’t need: REDUCE!

In the process of counting things in my office I counted that I have 103 books in here. A lot to some, a few to others. While I love having those books, the reality is that I do read mostly on my kindle or listen to audiobooks. The actual value relative to the space those books take up may not make sense. I could easily get rid of half of the stuff in this category and not notice. Not only that, but it would actually make me appreciate the stuff I chose to keep even more. Marie Kondo, where you at.

Things I don’t like, but need: DIGITIZE, ELIMINATE, AUTOMATE

We like to think we need things that we really don’t, and sometimes we actually benefit from not having them. For example…

I feel like I need my printer. In reality, 80% of what I need to print, I don’t actually need to print. I prefer some things on paper (like drawing the above 2×2s) but if my printer broke, I could easily find a digital replacement and save a few trees.

I feel like I need my trash can. In reality, the convenience of a trash can at my desk leaves me often throwing things away that could have been recycled.

I feel like I need all the paperwork related to my business. In reality, I never look at it and probably couldn’t find what I was looking for, even if I needed it. It should all be digitized.

Things I don’t like and don’t need: TRASH

There is a funny thing that happens where we hold an old micro USB cord in our hands and say “I might need this”. So we put it in a drawer with the other old cords. And then three years later, we need that exact cord. But we can’t find it. So we just order another one on Amazon.

It’s privilege at its finest. And it’s gross. But that doesn’t make it untrue.

It’s time to really take a good, hard look at what we choose to keep.

Doing the math

A house is a lot of things, but ultimately it is a place we keep our stuff.

When you buy a house, one consistent metric is “price/square foot”.

The average American home has tripled in size over the last 50 years.

Much of that simply accommodates the growing amount of stuff we have.

The average US home is around 2,200 square feet and has a median price/square foot of $233.

We spend a lot of money on space to hold things we don’t even like.

Is it worth the cost?

I don’t know about you, but I think $233 feels like a lot for a spot to hold a slightly more convenient trash can.

Just for the fun visual, if you took all 300,000 things you own, and put them each in their own little $233 square foot of space, it would cover 5 football fields and cost just under $70 million.

Or you could buy Diddy’s house.

be good

z