Jason Murphy

Website Producer

There’s a song I listen to, this one, whenever I need to clear my head. I put my head phones on, crank it up to the highest volume I can tolerate, and let its chaos take its course. To be honest, the majority of their singles are a bit much for most peoples’ tastes. In particular, the song High Fives could best be described as “organized chaos”. It’s a myriad of instruments, synths, beats and scratches that if heard separately could hardly be tolerated. But they bring all this “noise” together in a perfect symphony of simple noises. Common sounds become beautiful. What starts out as pure chaos progresses into a stream of organized and balanced energy. This helps me zone out all the noise in my head and focus my attention on the task at hand. It’s very Zen.

I’m working on a better way to translate that energy to the physical realm. I can sort out the voices in my head by driving a piece of music into my ears. But I still tend to lose focus easily.

Problem is, I have too much stuff. I need to simplify my life by reducing the amount of stuff I carry around from me. Sometimes the “stuff” is tangible, like project papers and mail from 6 months ago (or longer). Other times it is less tangible but still just as heavy, such as projects, to-do lists, etc.

I was kindly awakened to the fact that I accumulate stuff way to easily when Paul Graham talked about his stuff. He offers some fantastic advice about how accumulation doesn’t just weigh you down, but it actually costs you a lot more than you realize just to keep your stuff. His breakdown of “stuff” is brilliant, to say the least.

The war against “stuff” is going to be a tough one for me. Mostly because my wife is a natural born packrat and we tend to always have “stuff”. Don’t get me wrong, she’s the most organized packrat you’ll ever meet. Boxes with large labels line our garage walls. She has a system and it works well for her. I, on the other hand, have no idea where anything is.

Like Paul, my biggest culprit is books. I love books. I used to be the same with CDs and DVDs. But since the advent of MP3s, Netflix, TIVO, Video-On-Demand and other extremely convenient digital delivery services, I haven’t felt the need to buy and keep discs of any format. Books are a bit tougher, and I truly love my books. But I can cut down on some of the older self-help, programming, and business books I have that are starting to become outdated. My fiction books will always remain with me.

Some other tricks to try to cut down on stuff include small little daily habits to help make your life easier and cut down on what you carry. Leo’s list of 10 minimalist things to do is an excellent place to start.

In my quest for becoming more effective and productive, I know that “stuff” is my true enemy. I have my work cutout for me.

• Today is Day 14 out of 30 for My Own Thirty Day Challenge.