#2 - Clutter

I bet you weren't expecting to see me popping into your inbox again. Two weeks in a row!

Something I've been thinking about recently is clutter.

As you may or may not know, I live in my family home with my parents. Our house contains all the items that we've collected across our individual and collective lifespans.

As a result, we've got a lot of crap.

Recently, I've been feeling suffocated by how much stuff we have.

It's true what they say about environmental clutter contributing to mental clutter.

As individuals, my mother, father, sister and I all have contributed to this clutter in some way.

My Amma talks about decluttering and feng shui, but is resistant to the idea of the stuff she's collected being thrown out. Often that's because these are things that she's been given by other people or things that were difficult to attain because they've come from overseas.

Additionally, because she also feels that the house is cluttered, she's always on the lookout for new storage solutions to organise what we've collected, but this only further adds to the mess.

Similarly, my Appa, who is extremely simple in terms of physical possessions, never throws anything out because he always foresees a potential future use for it.

My sister lives out of home and so has the benefit of spreading her stuff out across two houses, which makes it feel like she doesn't have much contributing junk around the house.

And then there's me.

I wouldn't say that I'm consumerist (but I'm definitely not a minimalist) because I try to be intentional about the things that I spend my money on, but if there is something I want to buy, then I'll usually just purchase it.

Rarely do I think about the lasting effects of my purchases on adding to clutter.

Especially with this new hobby of YouTube. I have been so focused on making higher production quality videos that I've just accumulated so much stuff. Every light has its own protective case, every stand has its own carrying sleeve and every camera or lens has its own box and booklet.

I've also accumulated random stuff from doing a variety of things as a kid and I've never spent the time to get rid of what I don't need.

It's quite unpleasant to be in an environment where there is crap everywhere.

So, I'm making a change.

There are two things I'm focusing on:

1. Decluttering (increasing outputs). For example, I'm giving away all the textbooks I've bought and I'm donating all the clothes I haven't worn in the past 12 months.
2. Being more intentional about purchases (reducing inputs). For example, I wanted to buy a new microphone to up my audio quality in my YouTube videos, but I've decided against it because it isn't absolutely necessary right now.

When I move out of home at the beginning of next year to work in Sydney (or Adelaide), I only want to bring with me the things I use frequently.

I want to create a clean, minimalist and aesthetic living environment, filled with only the things that I absolutely need.

It's gonna be a tough ask given how much clutter I've accumulated. Wish me luck 🤞🏾

Enjoy your week,

Kajanan

Resource #1 - Book

I recently finished The Millionaire Fastlane.

Yes, it has an extremely cringe name. But it's in my list of top 2 life-changing books I've ever read.

If you've read any of my recent blog posts, you'd know that financial freedom is one of my core goals for the next 5-10 years.

What this book help me realise is that that's an extremely unlikely goal if I work in a traditional job and trade time for money, because there's only so many hours in the day.

The amount of money in your life is merely a reflection of the amount of value you have given to others.

When you work in a traditional job, you're just another cog in the machine, easily replaceable.

Early life financial freedom really only comes from doing something someone else couldn't do i.e. starting a business.

This doesn't have to be a new business idea, it just has to be slightly different and provide greater value than a pre-existing one.

It then runs through a bunch of useful decision-making models, business types and frameworks for thinking about entrepreneurship and motivates you to feel that you too can start a business.

I'll publish my detailed notes from the book on my blog at some point, so be sure to check it out if you wanna suss whether you should buy the book.

Resource #2 - YouTube Video

My sister came back home recently and reintroduced me to Would I Lie to You, perhaps the most consistently funny and entertaining show that I've ever watched.

It's this comedy show where there's two teams of 3 people and they take it in turns to say statements that may be true or false. Then, the other team has to ask questions to help them determine whether it is true or false. And at the end, you find out who was telling the truth and who was telling a lie.

If you've never checked it out, you 100% should.

If you want to watch the full show, episode by episode, you can catch it on ABC iview for free.