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Comment by BoiledCabbage | Hacker News Reader

I feel like I'm reading a parallel post to "Why I gave up not eating food".

Her story is actually interesting, but the conclusion of the post (and the title's question) is "I gave up extreme minimalism so I could keep things and go back to them from time to time."

I mean this isn't exactly profound.

Paraphrasing: "I bought a book to study German. Normally I'd throw it away when I'd get bored of it. Instead I'm going to keep the book, so if I have the desire to study German again later I can just pick it back up rather than buy a new one."

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Not everyone have fixed hobbies or can have regular time for their fixed hobbies. I'm taking photos for a long time, but it's not a "regular" endeavor due to life circumstances. Should I sell my photo gear as soon as I don't feel like taking photos and re-buy all of it as soon as I want to go out?

Similarly I have a lot of books which I sometimes blaze through, or abandon for some time. However the desire never completely dies out. I simply doesn't have the time or energy at that time. Should I give away the books I had no time to read, but still desirable for me?

I also have a lot of small projects which I re-visit and work for short time regularly. They may be very far from completion, but they reward with very high experience since I look them from a very different perspectives and as a very different developer every time.

If that's working for her, and she's happy, let her be.

An important aspect of removing things from life is to make a decision about whether you intend to continue having something as a part of your life - either in thoughts, ambitions or as an object you possess. Without resolving this, the question of "should I keep this?" can not be answered satisfactorily. Our time is quite limited and these choices are either made actively through conscious decision making or passively through inaction. I am still trying to learn to make the decision actively.

You're right, however sometimes trying to shove things out of your life may not be easy or effective. I personally decided to dig deeper and understand why I accumulated that amount of stuff in the first place.

Instead of wasting time trying to actively make this decisions and drain your mental energy, why not try semi-passive observation? I found that putting everything away and getting things that I regularly use from that pile, and getting rid of the least used part regularly (weekly, monthly, semi annually, etc.) works best.

This way also decluttering doesn't feel like swimming upstream, at least for me.

A common solution to this problem is to make the decision based on the cost of replacing the items. If you haven't used an item in 3 months and it takes 20 minutes and $20 to replace then that's a candidate for throwing out. If if takes 3 days and $300 to replace with little resale value then that's a candidate for storing.

Sometimes I'll just put everything in my way into a cardboard box (for instance, everything on my desk, or the majority of a cluttered shelf). I write the date on the box and put it in a closet. The rule after that is I can take things out of the box if I need them, but I can't put anything else in. Any time I find a box with a date more than 1 year old I just donate the whole thing to a thrift store without looking inside.

Wow, that's a really good idea. Time to find some boxes!

On the contrary, to me it appears that we are in agreement. You have found a method (to figure out what can stay) that works for you and I'm yet to find mine. I will consider if your method could work for me.

We are actually in agreement, you're right. I just wanted to say that trying to decide too actively on what to keep, and what to let go may be too tiring and working against your purpose.

The method I mentioned is a way to set things in motion, and your brain unconsciously decides what to keep by getting it from that pile. Then you can give the rest (or some of it) away.

Hope it helps.

When talking about hobbies, relax and passion, why the need to make decision actively?

The hobbies often change as reaction to changes in environment - you like puzzles when work is underchallenging, but when work is mentally challenging you switch to different past time. You craft because you seen something inspiring, then you make music and some time later return to crafting when something inspiring comes around. You are tired so you do nothing, work was slow and boring so you are in mood to create on weekend.

No reason to ditch tools in the meantime, large benefit of having them is that you can switch impulsively without planning.

It doesn't have to be hobbies all the time. It can be stationary, sweaters or anything.

Only the author of the article is making her case over the hobby items or tools, however minimalism doesn't dictate the type of item to be reduced.

For a general rule for me, if you are planning to use it, you should keep it. At least in my case this rule works very well and prevents additional purchases effectively.

It becomes a little more interesting when taking into consideration the option of renting. Photography equipment is very widely available for rental, and if you use it for say fewer than 30 days a year, it may work out cheaper to rent, with the advantage of always being able to use the newest / most appropriate equipment.

A good compromise is renting lenses a few times before buying, a sensible means to avoid "lens lust" leading to buying lenses that rarely get used.

Get the impression that the author thinks themselves very special for “having hobbies” and “not being able to hold a job” too. Almost everyone has random interests and feels suffocated by having to do one thing their entire lives, but most people eventually consider money and a stable lifestyle more important. Everyone wants to have less things but most people eventually find out that having things is nicer than having no things. Big whoop!

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