• Get a Master’s degree
• Get my first tattoo
• Buy a DSLR
• Visit Bruges
• Drive Across Europe
• Visit all 50 States: New Jersey
• Visit the Vatican
• Go camping
• Sell stuff at a car boot sale
• Send a handwritten letter to a friend
• Digitise my quotation collection

In 2011:

• Find out about my genetic history
• Visit the Grand Canyon
• Photograph the Eiffel Tower
• Chill out in Amsterdam
• Visit all 50 States: Arizona
• Visit all 50 States: California
• Visit all 50 States: Nevada
• Win/Lose money in Vegas
• Own less than 250 things
• Own less than 150 things
• Fly in a helicopter
• Be my own boss
• Give a public presentation
• Go to see Take That

Next, I wanted to reduce further to 100 possessions by the end of 2011. I set the goal of 100 items as a benchmark amount that would force me to really prioritise and make value judgements, on an unprecedented scale. Saying to myself, “Right Yael, you only have room for 100 items – what are they gonna be?”, really focused my mind down to decide what was truly valuable to me. This was eye-opening.

So, I didn’t quite get to 100, but honestly – it isn’t the final number that is important. It is going through that process of prioritisation and long thought about what I choose to make part of my life. From this exercise, I have learnt so much.

Here is a breakdown:

• I now own 125 items (full list at the bottom of the post)
• Of that, 85 items are for wearing – clothes (39),shoes (8), underwear (25), accessories/jewellery/bags (13)
• 14 are techie gadgets
• Caveat: I didn’t include anything I own in the count that is replenishable, like toiletries, or pens, or food. I count electrical items and any of its accompanying cables and cases as one item – as the other stuff would not exist without the electrical item itself (an exception to this is when I have bought something extra that it didn’t come with, like the alupen stylus I bought for my iPad.) I don’t own any furniture, or utensils etc.

You can see that the vast proportion of my remaining items are to do with my personal appearance. This was the toughest area to cut back on. Although I think I have quite a limited wardrobe in comparison to many girls, learning that 83(!) items I own are things I wear came as a surprise. I know that within those items, there are things that I definitely don’t need – but turns out, I value those clothing items over the other stuff I decided to throw out in its place. Who knew?!

The other big clump of items comes in as gadgets. Gadgets are invaluable for me as I try to cut back on my possessions – without my kindle, I would have included lots of books on the list; without the ipad, lots of notebooks and stationary; without the laptop, well, I dread to think the amount of actual folders I would need to match the number of virtual folders I have!

So, what have I learnt on my minimalism journey so far?

• Find out what you truly value

There is something incredibly unencumbered and free about ridding yourself of all that excess stuff in your life. But each person will have a different idea about what that ‘excess stuff’ is. Exercises like ‘you can only live with 100 things, what are they?’ are really invaluable in forcing you to make value judgements on your things, and may reveal some surprising things about what really you can’t do without and what you could actually cope fine with.

• Quality over quantity

Having less stuff means that you want what you do have to be of the utmost quality. I now buy more expensive things than I used to, because a) I’m not wasting money on things that I never wear/use and b) everything I buy is viewed as an investment. Buying things based on proper value judgements (“Do I really really need this?”) means that everything I buy should be in my life for the long haul. This means it needs to be incredibly perfect for me and great quality. I used to buy cheaper clothes because I bought into this whole Primark culture of almost disposable fashion – clothes that are so cheap you do not feel guilty in wearing it only a couple of times and going for more shopping trips. No more.

• Think multi-purpose

I have also learnt about the beauty of thinking about things in a more multi-purpose way. Because every extra thing counts, if you can buy one item that does multiple things, this is obviously a bonus. A classic example of this is my new coat, which was an excellent buy. Previously, I had a heavy black long coat, with no hood. This, from a minimalism perspective, was  probably the worst coat I could own! It had no hood, which meant I had to own a hat. It was heavy, which meant I had to own a lightweight jacket as well. My new coat however, has ensured that all I need is one coat – it has a great big hood, which removes the need for a hat, and has a detachable inner lining which means it turns into a lightweight coat. 3 items down to 1 – perfect!

• Own what you own, girl!

Finally, this process has taught me to really love everything I own. Each of my things is special and really really wanted. I don’t have anything that is languishing in the back of a cupboard or that sits on a shelf. Nearly everything gets used regularly, and I love the sense of utility and pride that I get from my things.

So thats it – I can say that I have achieved my minimalist goals for 2011 with a big smile on my face. But this isn’t the end – I view minimalism as a lifestyle choice that I will continue learning from and working towards in the coming year as well!

And for the hardcore reader:

A full list of my items, also viewable as a flickr set:

1. Lacie hard drive

2. Hair straighteners

3. Apple hard drive

4. Wacom tablet

5. Passport

6. Travel padlocks

7. Travel light

8. Day bag

9. Doc Martens

10. Perudo, the best game in the world

11. Samurai picture 1

12. Samurai picture 2

13. Towel

14. Laundry basket

15. Comic book store print

16. iPhone

17. Hairdryer

18. Shoe boots

19. Purple flats

20. Black flats

21. Pink vest

22. Grey tiger tee

23. J’adore vest

24. Tetris tee

25. Leopard print vest

26. Grey tee

27. Flying birds vest

28. Black smart vest

29. Black & white smart top

30. Printer

31. Folder

32. iPod

33. Spare earphones

34. Spare apple charger

35. Little camera

36. UX cards

37. Pencil case

38. Thule laptop case

39. Wallet

40. Kindle

41. Alupen stylus

42. iPad

43. Oyster card

44. Umbrella

45. Keys

46. Thule backpack

47. Toiletries bag

48. Jewellery case

49. Blue feather earrings

50. Pearl earrings

51. Blue India earrings

52. Pearl ring

53. Red Michal Negrin earrings

54. Owl necklace

55. Grey feather earrings

56. SkullCandy headphones

57. MBP

58. ‘She Who Must Be Obeyed’ mug

59. Leather Gloves

60. Scarf

61. Black boots

62. Black bow shoe boots

63. Flip flops

64. Converse

65. Black clutch

66. Converse travel bag

67. Guitar

68. Travel moneybelt

69. Nikon camera and bag

70. Shrug

71. Paypal Slanket

72. Nike Joggers

73. Blue jumper

74. Blue jumper

75. Grey joggers

76. F is for Foxy tee

77. South of France tee

78. Love tee

79. Owl tee

80. Matisyahu tee

81. Metallic vest

82. Blue vest

83. Black vest

84. Black cardigan

85. Yellow jumper

86. Grey cardigan

87. Long grey cardigan

88. Dress

89. Blue dress

90. Black formal dress

91. Black dress

92. Black & white dress

93. Leopard print blouse

94. Black jeans

95. Worn black jeans

96. Blue jeans

97. Mirror

98. Bed linen

99. Coat

100. Business Cards

(That brings us to 100 items! Not pictured: underwear! Grand total: 125 yay )

Charity Hack is an event that aims to bring technology and charities together by asking teams to work towards coming up with an awesome hack that can help charities in some way. Each team has about 24 hours to plan and execute their brilliant charity-focused idea, as well as getting fed with copious amounts of pizza, beer, and caffeinated drinks!

My team was myself and Rob - and we started hacking on Rob’s awesome idea called Charity Spuds!

Photo: Kai Chan Vong

The idea focused around ‘Charity Hot Potato’ – you “bake” a potato for a particular charity and then throw it on to a friend, who has to donate to throw it on and so forth. The thing about this idea is that the viral aspect is particularly interesting – your potato could travel a long way, raising lots of money for a bunch of charities – you would be able to see that Leroy the potato has travelled 340 miles, raising £289 pounds for 4 charities! Pretty powerful.

Though we had some slight hiccups along the way during the hack that prevented us from having something polished to show, we got a bunch of important things up and running that meant we could demo it effectively to the rest of the Charity Hackers. Reception was pretty good – people really liked the social and gaming aspects to this simple idea. And whilst it is not finished quite yet, we hope that a more polished version of Charity Spuds will be coming to rock an Internet near you soon!

In the meantime, I thought I’d give you a little look at how I plan what life list items I will be crossing off next! Its really important to have a plan when trying to cross items off a life list, because you can very easily just write the list and never actually get round to doing anything that you write on it! The list is actually pretty unimportant; its having the actual experiences that counts. But it seems like a lot of people forget that bit.

To avoid this happening to me, I wanted to keep my eye on the ball, and keep my life list items really close.  So I came up with a little solution:

Using the awesomeness of magic whiteboard sheets, I made little boxes that correspond to the different life list categories that I have on my blog. In each box, I’ve written the category it represents, and have left space to put post-its inside each box, like this:

The post-its are the life list items that either I decide I want to tackle next or are already in progress. Having them on my wall staring me in the face every day keeps me accountable to the goals that I have committed to and keeps me motivated to getting them done.

You’ll also notice that I’ve put a few inspirational quotes along the side to remind me of why I’m doing this and to give me big smiles!

And thats it; a quick look at how I manage my life list and keep getting things done!

Do you have a life list? How do you keep motivated and accountable to your goals? I’d love to hear from you!

(* Caveat: This does not include any replenishable items like toiletries, stationery etc)

Back in December, I moved house, and I took that opportunity to really cut back on 75% of my stuff. I recycled, threw away, gave away, and sold most of my possessions, and it felt GREAT! After doing a bit more cutting back since moving into my new place, I managed to hit under the magical 250 item mark!

Inspired by Colin Wright of Exile Lifestyle fame, I decided to photodocument all my possessions for this here blog, as a nice way of visually tracking my progress as I move further and further towards hitting under 100 items.

Another caveat: things that I have not taken pictures of but have included in a final count are:

- the clothes in my laundry basket (14 items)

- underwear (because, seriously?!) (33 items)

- my car (1 item)

- the 2 household items that I own in the whole world – my bowl and my wok (2 items)

Everything I Own in the Whole Wide World

1. My Mac including peripherals

2. LaCie Hard Drive

3. Mouse, my constant desk companion since I was 16.

4. Mannequin Dude, Mouse’s best buddy

5 – 8. Mirror/ Make-up box/ Desk Tidy thing/Lamp

9. Headphones

10. Straighteners

11. Printer

12. Backpack

13. Throw for snuggling

14. Blanket for snuggling some more.

15. Banksy Print 1

16. Banksy Print 2

17 . Banksy Print 3

18. Phoenix Cinema Print

19. Pomodoro Notebook

20. Apple hard drive

21. Wacom tablet

22. Passport

23. Holepunch

24. The most dilapidated Travel Sewing kit in the whole world

25. Travel Padlocks

26. Screwdriver things

27. Box of stationery

28. Travel headlight

29. Travel tags

30. Box of writing stuff

31. Bag

32. Hat

33. Wallet

34. Scarf

35. Coat

36. Boots 1

37. Boots 2

38. The best game ever. Perudo

39. Sketchbook (large)

40-42. Geeky books

43. Sketchbook (small)

44-45. Project files

46. Business Cards

47. Notebook

48. Awesome Samurai Print 1

49. Awesome Samurai Print 2

50-56. Books plus bookends

57 – 99. DVDs

100-101. Towels

102. Laundry Basket

103. Alien thing

104-106. Bed stuff (counting this as one + 2 cushions)

107. Comic Book Store print

108. Iphone + peripherals

109. Headphones

110. Laptop

111. Umbrella

112 – 132. Jewellery box (and jewellery)

133. Hairdryer

134. Converse

135. Boots 3

136. Boots 4

137. Flats 1

138. Flats 2

139. Heels

140. T-shirt

141. T-shirt

142. T-shirt

143. T-shirt

144. T-shirt

145. T-shirt

146. T-shirt

147. T-shirt

148. T-shirt

149. T-shirt

150. T-shirt

151. T-shirt

152. Top

153. Top

154. Top

155.Top

156. Jumper

157. Jumper

158. Jumper

159. Trackpants

160 – 163. Jeans

164. Jumper

165 – 170. Cardigans

171. Dress

172. Boyfriend Shorts

173. Camera plus peripherals

(View the set here)

So, the photographed items come to 173 items, plus 50 items that I haven’t photographed here = 223 items! This is considerably under the 250 items that I wanted to achieve!

As you can tell from my list, I’ve still got a lot that I could potentially cut. By April, I want to have reduced to 100 items or less. Watch this space to check on how I’m doing!

I’m still figuring out what that means in all practicality, but my ultimate goal is to be able to own the bare essentials for my dream life on the road. Basically, ‘I own what I can carry’.

For me, if I want to achieve a truly location-independent lifestyle, travelling all over the globe, the less stuff that I have, means less stress and more ease. I’m a couple of years off being able to achieve that dream yet, but there is no reason to start cutting back where I can.

This is why my ultimate lifelist goal at this stage is to own less than 250 things. 250 sounds like quite a lot, but even just looking around now at my desk, I can probably count around 50 items. Almost all completely non-essential!

So this weekend I decided to make a start – beginning at the biggest offender of clutter in my life – my wardrobe. Like many people, I have a ridiculous amount of clothes, most of which I never wear. But, again like most people, I seem to have a pathological inability to throw clothes away. Its always “Oh, but I might need this disgusting red and orange oversized poncho for some ridiculous occassion”, or “But, black lace rompers could come back into fashion?”

This means that I wear about 15% of my wardrobe on a regular basis, and 85% of my wardrobe is consigned to highly unlikely, hypothetical situations in which items may be called upon. This has got to stop!

Reluctantly, I made a start. But actually, once I started going through my clothes, I morphed into some ruthless clothes-killer. I had 3 piles: definitely a keeper, possibly, and hell to the No. At the end of 45 minutes, this was my hell to the no pile:

It had only taken 45 minutes, and I had got rid of 40 items of clothing! (to my local charity shop – recycle folks!)

My Possibly pile was quite a bit bigger, comprised of around 80 items. These were the items that I wasn’t sure whether I quite had the heart to dispose of yet. I decided a good plan of action for these would be to pack them away into a box, but keep the box for the next 2 weeks. If in these 2 weeks, I find myself really wanting to wear a particular item in the box, I will be allowed to retrieve the item from the box, and put in back in my wardrobe. All clothes left in the box at the end of 2 weeks will get shipped off to the charity shop with all the ‘hell to the no’ clothes. Sounded like a fair strategy to me, and hopefully this will be impetus I need to severely cut down on all these ‘hypothetical situation’ clothes that have been so effective in cluttering up my wardrobe.

Finally, the ‘definitely a keeper’ pile – this was obviously the largest pile of them all, around 100 items. I know that I am going to have get very strict with myself over the coming weeks. But I am really happy with the start I made. Next week, I will be properly documenting all my ‘definitely a keeper’ clothes and making some tough choices to get these down to 50 items. (It hurt even to type that!)

This is going to be a slow process, but its actually kind of fun (until next week!) I feel less cluttered and more streamlined already. Bring on 250 items or less!

As always, each Friday, I round up some of the best and most interesting links that I have been reading this week! Here goes;

- This video has been going viral, but for those who missed it – A 2.5 Year Old Uses the Ipad For The First Time – a really interesting UX experiment

- A collection of Photoshop cheat and reference cards

- 35 Free Fonts to add to your collection!

- Should Wireframes always be a first-step deliverable for clients? A really interesting read

- A nice little article discussing What Not to Neglect on Your Blog

- The Graphic Design Resume Guide

- As we are now in April, this week I checked out this article that I bookmarked way back in February to see how we are doing – What to Expect in 2010: UX Design Simplicity

Aaaaand thats it for this week. Hope you enjoy those links, and have a great, productive weekend!

The long awaited Favourite Things Photo Project is finally on the Internet for your perusal.

Check it out here to see it in slideshow form, or to examine the photos in more detail, follow on here

Thanks to all my friends who participated, much appreciated!