a dream

This past holiday season, I visited Houston, TX for a little over a week. Before I left, I had been working on minimizing my lifestyle for about a month. I was thoroughly excited about making a minimalist travel test run.

I decided to pack the largest functioning backpack that I have. It is a medium large REI backpack. This is not a hiking backpack with a frame. This is just a regular old backpack.

I took 2 pairs of pants, about 4 tshirst, a few pairs of socks, my laptop, my camera, my mp3 player, all of the necessary charging equipment, a book, and my purse. My purse was brought along to act as either a small bag to carry a few books or my camera. I wore a medium weight jacket, a sweater, and a polo to the airport.

At the time we were selling my house, so my former room was very empty. It was fantastic. My closet had a few hangers, a single oxford shirt, and a pair of shoes that matched both pairs of my khaki pants much better than my worn out pair of black shoes that I had brought with me. I had the perfect amount of clothes. I had to wash a few times, but frequent wardrobe changes kept my clothes fresh.

I loved having the small wardrobe I still had enough options that I didn’t feel like I wore the same thing the whole time, but I rarely had to think about what clothes to put on. I could see this amount of clothing working in the long term. I plan on traveling after I graduate school, so I am pleased that I could easily adapt to this reduced wardrobe size.

When I left, most of my tshirts were dirty. I didn’t bother taking more than 1 back with me. The polo shirt was worn out, so I ditched that too. This made room for the new pair of pants that I picked up in while in Houston. I also left my ratty worn out old shoes in favor of the older, but less worn out shoes that I wear currently. The best part is these shoes match all of my clothes.

I have returned to my expanded wardrobe, and it makes me a little sad.

simple gmail hack

This tip will help you simplify your online existence. I first learned about it from the podcast Marketing Over Coffee. If you are anything like me, you have at least 3 different gmail accounts. This is useful if you want to sign up for multiple accounts with services like twitter,

With gmail accounts, you can add a +”anything” right before the @gmail.com and google will ignore it. This is a little confusing, so let me give you an example.

If my email is brian@gmail.com (I wish I had that address), I could sign up for the first twitter account with brian+twitter1@gmail.com. I could then sign up for another twitter account with brian+twitter2@gmail.com. All of the emails would get sent to brian@gmail.com.

This is also useful if you want to track who sells your email address to spammers.
You can use dots (.) in a similar manner. Dots can be added anywhere in the email, and gmail will ignore them. b.r.i.a.n@gmail.com would work just fine.

My 100 friends

On my quest to reduce the complexity of my life, I decided to reduce the complexity of my existence on social networking sites. The first candidate was facebook. When I started I had a little over 120 friends. This is not a whole lot compared to some people that I have seen, but I still thought that it was too many.

I decided that my goal was to reduce my friend list to just 100. At first it was a bit difficult. I easily found some friends to let go of immediately.

Undaunted I continued to widdle away at my friends list little by little for a few weeks. Finally I was about 6 away one day, and I went for it. I made some tough calls, but I am glad that I made it down to my goal.

Now that I am down to 100 it is quite easy to stay there. I have added several new friends and it has been a simple task finding the old and inadequate friend for the new friend to replace. I also enjoy having this conversation:

I’ll add you on facebook!

Ok cool! I only have 100 friends, but I’ll find someone for you to replace. No Problem!

I don’t think that this will work for everyone, but I like that this will keep my list of friends a bit fresh. If someone does not make the cut, they could always become my fan.

How many facebook friends do you have? Leave me a comment letting me know. Prizes go to the person who has the most and the person who has the least.

Simple Minimalist Tip

This is a simple and effective method to simplify your life gradually over time. This is good for those of you who are overwhelmed and don’t know where to start.

Get rid of 1 unnecessary item every day. This can be a big or small item. You can throw it away, recycle it, give it away, or sell it. Do whatever is necessary to eliminate it.

Drawers are a good place to start hunting for these items. If you get ambitious, feel free to let go of a couple items at a time.

As time goes on, it will get easier and easier to get rid of items. I promise.

Give it a try right now!

Welcome to Adventures in minimalism

Welcome to Adventures in minimalism. My name is Brian Danowski. Kick back, grab a cup of tea, and take a moment to breathe.

I will be bringing you tips and tricks for streamlining your life based on my  own experience in reducing the complexity of my lifestyle.

If you too desire the freedom and clarity that a minimalist lifestyle promises, stay tuned.