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Comment by gpspake | Hacker News Reader

I like the idea of cataloging all my possessions. It seems like a nice way to put that particular necessity of life (owning things) in a box that can be neatly put away when you don't want to think about it and quantify/measure it in a way that lets you manage it (I don't want to own 200 things, etc). It also seems like it would be helpful for legal situations like a manifest for a house fire or a will.

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I've done this, and it's very liberating. Basically, all things I own, including consumables, fit inside a small Org file. It's less than 100 items. I went this route because I wanted to emphasize some good habits, and de-emphasize things that I considered less valuable.

The process I went through was basically thinking about my core habits, mapping said habits to some objects, and then thinking about extra objects to support those habits. After that, I slowly started purchasing what I needed. Timing was great, because I sync'd that with moving countries. I spent some effort thinking about quality of individual purchases, and I ended up with a very minimal home, which is also great for maintenance.

Something I am curious about. Does this list would include tools and all the thousands of parts and pieces one accumulates over the year when hobbying around?

It's funny this came up. I ended up writing a small webapp that runs locally and allows me to catalog my tools, parts and other important odds and ends in a SQLite database (and attach datasheets and other information I've picked up along the way). I'm almost certainly the opposite of a minimalist, but going through and actually documenting what I have, where I put it, and sometimes what it was intended for, has been incredibly useful, especially being able to use full text search to quickly look up things.

I relocated and I no longer have any hobbies that involve tools.

For a different lifestyle, this list would be much longer and that is fine.

There is nothing special about having just 100 items.

>There is nothing special about having just 100 items.

Depending on where you are located geographically there may very well be something special.

I live in the PNW and I bet if I counted all my forks, spoons, coffee cups, pots and pans, etc., I'd have more than 100 items right there, to say nothing about my tool chest. Between my home office and my wife's purse I probably have 100 pens and pencils around the house.

To own a grand total of 100 items would be extremely spartan for just about anyone around here.

I meant it's nothing to brag about. I agree that in many situations, it'd be inconvenient to own so few items as it'd leave you unprepared for e.g. emergencies.

But if you are renting a condo downtown, as it was my case, you may want to trim down your possessions as much as possible.

Nonetheless, I think people tend to own too much stuff and this prevents focusing on what actually matters, it's a bit like with bloated software.

>Nonetheless, I think people tend to own too much stuff and this prevents focusing on what actually matters

On this I agree with you wholeheartedly. It's very easy to accumulate cruft that one "might need later". I have a whole toolbox full of that shit. I might actually need a bunch of random capacitors, who knows?

My minimal backpack camping checklist has 25-50 items on it, and that's with counting "first aid kit" as one thing, "tent pegs" as one thing, not counting clothing I'm wearing, "food" as 1 item, etc.

There is no way that an adult has 100 things inside an entire flat they eat, work, leisure, and sleep in. I assume that they mean 100 valuable things that they wouldn't want to just lose.

You never know, some people go to extremes. One fork, one toothbrush, one sleeping bag, one laptop, one credit card, done. Toothbrush doubles as a shower brush and credit card is used to scrape off water instead of a towel.

Lol.

Of course, the shower isn't yours so it doesn't count. Using this, we can get rid of the sleeping bag and just roll up the carpet in the rented flat and sleep in that.

What else can we cut?

Toothpaste. We have soap/shampoo.

No no, dirt works perfectly as a natural scrubbing agent.

I have an inventory.yml. It’s not complete yet but every now and then I extend it. I put everything there and belongs together in a meaningful way. For example, AirPods. I don’t list each one and the case but just AirPods. I also note when I bought it and what it costs.

This is something I like about backpacking / camping. I make a mini-list of everything I bring with me, consider each item, and then know exactly what I have as I set off. Doing it for all my possessions is probably too hard.

You can also catalog when you use something - many things we own are once a month or year items - and some can be replaced with a rental or hiring out.

related useful post about insurance and keeping track of your possessions https://www.reddit.com/r/Tennessee/comments/fdju8r/cookevill...

My Hack: For insurance don't try and catalog everything in a spreadsheet or such; you're prematurely optimizing for a rare event that hopefully will never happen, you'll miss stuff or forget important details and it's impossible to keep it up to date.

Once a year walk through every room in your house with a video camera, openning all drawers and closets and record it all. Drop your 20-plus gigs of high-dev video somewhere (I use AWS glacier for pennies a month) and then IF you ever need to, you can painfully go through it and catalog everything.

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