Decluttering, the continuation

As I continue with my decluterring process, I rescued an old harddisk with about 160gb of available space, which is a plenty by today’s standard as people start to move to solid state disk in ultrabooks. It is interesting to note that as I start to embrace the concept of minimalism, the amount of things that I need seems to become less and less and the same goes with the amount of harddisk space. We used to clamour for bigger disks to store all our video and music collection, including all our memorable photos and apps that we had since forgotten the day we installed them.

But when we start to pare them down to the needful, which is something that I have been trying to consciously do, I realized that we don’t really need that big of a space anyway. Bigger is not always better. The only exception to the above is perhaps those photos and even then, 160gb is a plenty.

Anyway, although it was probably a mini DIY works with the toolkit (seen in the picture above), it was pretty liberating to dimantle the harddrive enclosure, cleaning up the bits and bytes that were long forgotten.

Now, I have a functional harddisk that I could just whip out when the occasion calls for additional digital space.

Decluttering and living in the now

As part of my quest to set myself on the path to live a slightly more deliberate life, I have survived 4 days of “without”.

A couple of days ago, this was what I do:
I removed facebook from my phone
I removed instagram from my phone
I switched off my Internet router at home

And what do all these entail? There is probably the good and the bad of doing this but it seems that 4 days later, I am getting used to it by a tiny little bit.

It’s true that I now lost touch on what my friends ate for dinner. Where they went. What sort of encounters they experienced. But come to think of it, those are perhaps not something that is extremely important. With all due respect, they shouldn’t be. So what does this translate to? I stopped taking a lot of photos during meals but I become more aware and deliberate in my conversations with friends. It probably could just boil down to inculcating the good habits of not being distracted with facebook/instagram but oh how I wish I could just remove whatsapp from my phone.

Next, the disconnection of my home Internet did create quite a bit of inconvenience. It’s just too bad that I couldn’t terminate my connection since it’s probably still a quarter through its contract period. I’m now relying solely on my iPhone’s 4G connection but because there is a data limit to it, it has now forced me to be, again, deliberate on the youtube videos that I want to watch, the streaming sites that I visit just to “spend” some time on the Internet, or as simple as just random websites. Is it inconvenient? Yes but it has forced me to plan my online time since I wouldn’t want to bust my data cap on my phone’s connection.

The past 4 days have been a short time of experimenting but it made me feel a little liberated, if not a whole lot. Like I said, it is an experiment and I may eventually reinstall those apps when I couldn’t fight the urge but for the time being, am happy to be living in this so-called distraction-free zone.

Gadgets Minimalized

As a sort of geeky me, I have always been amazed and impressed by the tech toys. I’m almost the type who couldn’t help but to want to get my hands on some of the latest stuff, and I have to admit, especially if Apple made them.

That said, having embarked on the quest for minimalism last year in 2013, and failed tremendously, I have decided to be very aware of my current tech status and practise the art of restraining myself. The key comparative phrase could perhaps be a “need” vs “want”.

My aim, thus, is to keep to my current set of tech toys for as long as I can and rewarding myself if I can break some records.

My iPad Mini has been with me since December 2012 and it is now a good 13 months. It’s now my dedicated reading machine. Love it’s size and mediocre screen.

My Mac Mini, which has been a blessing with its spacious 500 gb hard drive space (yes, from someone coming from macbook air which was sold) and it manages to process everything I throw at it from photos to video production. It’s crawling on some days but it suffices for now. Got it in May 2013 and it has now been 9 months.

Finally, the holy grail and the mother of all, my iPhone 5S, which has now been transformed to my social media and networking device. It’s a completely different beast from the iPad but it comes in a small and dense package, which is a wonder to behold. I super love the generous 64 gb space and I can never seem to run out of space. Altho, I don’t quite like the camera on this baby but that’s for a separate post another day. Got this in November 2013 and it is now only 3 months old.

Let’s keep these devices with me for as long as I can. No distraction.