The other week an acquaintance sent me a link to a YouTube video about a woman living in 90 sq. ft. in Manhattan. Wow! I clicked on some of the related links and spent almost two hours watching short clips of people living in tiny homes. I was hooked.
I try to be lean and mean with my personal physical belongings, but these tiny home dwellers made me look like a hoarder! I’m always amazed at these people who so effortlessly keep their homes free and clear of stupid, tiny, scraps of paper and other “stuff.” Maybe they don’t assign meaning and value to things as easily as I do. I aim to be tidy, but it takes real effort on my part. Also, don’t these people have hobbies? Admittedly my practice area is pretty compact, but I still need space for my instrument, tools, sheet music, stand, etc.
A few days later I watched “We The Tiny House People (Documentary): Small Homes, Tiny Flats & Wee Shelters” by Kirsten Dirksen. One of my favorite segments featured a man living in 450 sq. ft. in Manhattan. He talked about how living in a small space made everything feel meaningful to him because he didn’t have space for anything he didn’t value. He also said that he liked having to make choices.
I started thinking about how well these ideas and philosophies translate to the digital world. When was the last time we had to make a decision about what to keep or toss in digital format? I think more often the decision is between purchasing the 2-terabyte or 5-terabyte storage plan.
When we are faced with restrictions and limits, it forces us to make decisions and assign value only to those things which are most important to us. This idea applies to almost everything, including people and the time we invest in them. One recurring theme with the tiny home dwellers was how liberated they felt not having to worry about so much stuff all the time.
I was super curious to know if this liberated feeling of the tiny home dwellers transferred to their digital belongings. Maybe they’re really skilled at keeping physical items to a minimum but are secret digital hoarders.
Perhaps there will be a parallel movement of tiny digital dwellers for those of us who would like to be lean and mean in the electronic world.
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