Minimizing systems

This will be a brief post in the hopes of writing more, smaller, posts more often.

I’ve long had a desire to minimize the number of things I own. This is for a number of reasons, a good subject for another day.

One of the recent realizations I’ve had – in the last year or so – is that one of the key reasons that I sprawl in ownership is due to a lack of focus.

This lack of focus – in creating and maintaining various systems that compete for my time and space – leads to an increased surface area of things that I am forced to think about and to care about.

And with a fixed amount of time, many of these systems will lie underutilized.

A few concrete examples of systems in my life could be playing guitar, running, or playing video games. Each requires distinct tools and time to utilize and progress.

The more of these systems I have, the more I have to buy, own, and maintain. Similarly, the more my time is spread over these different systems.

Because of this, I am starting to believe it is much more impactful to reduce the number of distinct systems in my life than to try to reduce within a system.

This feels analogous to goals: the fewer goals one has, the more focus one can have. The fewer systems I have, the more focus I can give to these systems to value them in my life.