three weeks pass...
two weeks pass...
one month passes...
____________________________________________
Simple Life and Information Management /Time Management
Plan your day around your priorities
* Carry your schedule
* PDA and TiVo do a lot to save time.
* Make a list. Split your current activities and tasks into two columns:
things I enjoy and things I don't enjoy. then ask yourself how can your
reduce the second column and increase the first?
* Organize everything. What takes up too much of your time? Simplify your
routines, paperwork, wardrobe and your life. Keep a (electronic) Price Diary. List all regularly purchased items so
you'll remember where to get the best deals. Plan your next day before going to bed Pay all your bills by automatic withdrawal Always read on public transport; always have a book on hand in case you
are caught having to wait somewhere. Come in to the office a little early to pay bills and do any personal
paperwork. The professional environment will help you be more productive.
Avoid signing contracts unless absolutely necassary. Read the paper at the public library or as soon as you bring in the newspaper,
take out the huge ads section and throw it away. Watch no addictions: you can also be addicted to online communication,
wich can become a huge time suck and you should avoid it at all costs. Have a small supply of dishes for daily life: each person just needs one
bowl, one plate, one spoon, one glass, one fork, one knife. It makes less
dishes to clean Use smart technologies like collaborative information filtering tools
to get answers to your questions and to get more pleasures in life. It is
particularly useful to process the high informational content of city life. Live where you don't need a car, and preferably can do most of what you
want to do within walking or cycling distance from home. Put a "No Circulars" sign on your letterbox. Reduce Unwanted Telephone Solicitation. remove yourself from their lists.
TACTIC:
Whenever you receive an unsolicited sales call via telephone, be prepared
to interrupt the caller and asked to be placed on their DO NOT CALL list.
Control your time. Reduce obligations. Learn to say no more often. Even
one fewer activity per week can allow you some down time Pick a day to do all your cooking and baking. Try to work around the weatherman
for this. Once a month cooking is great for saving time. Life is simple
when you have to come ine-mail box every Fridays and throw something in
the oven to cook. Use a barbeque Eat more fresh fruit, fresh vegetables and limit your cooking. Do the mopping, and hard cleaning chores, early in the morning or after
the sun has gone to sleep. Use only natural cleansers. Make shopping lists and shop only once a week. Shop at the hottest time
of the day or early in the week when lines are limited. Never go up or down stairs emptyhanded. There's always something which
needs tidying away. ____________________________________________
Simple Life and Organizing your Living Space
- Scan all of notes and pages and then burn them on CD so that you can throw
the physical one's away
- Consider getting rid of your TV . if you decide to keep it:
*Make your own tv schedule to avoid watching it too much, only turn it on
when you know what is going to be on.
* Unplug the tv/radio when you need to relax or work
*Have a weekly "no noise" day. Turn off the TV and radio. Tune
in to nature and your family
- Clean your desk
- Get yourself a "spamkiller"
- Get rid of clutter. De-cluttering strategy:
*Begin by grabbing an empty shopping bag.
*Walk around your home. Fill the bag with anything you don't use or love.
*Place the bag in your car and drop it off at a charitable organization.
*Repeat weekly.
*make sure you weed through your closets periodically for things to give
to Goodwill . It's amazing the things you will find in there!
*Spring clean the home and store everything that is used only in the winter
months. The less clutter in the home the less to cleanup and dust.
- Save the little black plastic canisters which rolls of film come in (for
those who still use film and don't have digital cameras, of course). They
make brilliant containers for things like buttons or drawing pins, or for
storing flower/vegetable seeds in.
- Open all mail as soon as you receive it. Throw out the junk mail, obviously.
Tear out bills and place them in front of their envelopes. Throw out excess
paper. Place in pile somewhere near the front door in order of due dates.
Must be in sight so that you don't forget about them.
- Pare down. Do you really need six spatulas or 30 pairs of shoes?
- Have a garage sale on ebay
- Big Ziploc bags are a great and fairly affordable way to sort things.
- use shelves
- Make an inventory of everything you own.
- Keep the windows open during the day to let the fresh air in. Be sure
to clean all the windows with club soda.
- Tidy up the house just before you go to bed
____________________________________________
Simple Life and Money Management
- Open the shades to take advantage of the heat from the sun
- Grow your own vegetables and herbs for cooking with. Easy, cheap, doesn't
take up much room, makes the kitchen smell lovely (and your food taste wonderful).
grow your own corriander, mint, thyme, parsley, and oregano, and when next
spring rolls around I will add basil, dill, and rosemary.
- If you are going on a long journey and are taking a picnic lunch thing
with you, freeze juice or water in plastic bottles to pack with the food.
The bottles defrost slowly, keep your food cool, and you get a nice cold
drink too.
- For a hot lunch on a long journey, take along a wide-necked thermos flask
into which you have put a cupful of long grain rice, a cupful of mixed vegetables
(defrosted previously-frozen ones) and a cup and a half of boiling hot vegetable
stock. Seal it up, and after two hours you have perfectly cooked savoury
rice. (Remember to pack a spoon)
- Shop with cash. Set your grocery budget and then make sure your menu and
grocery list fits your budget. Look high/ look low on the shelves to get
the best deals
- Know your net worth and your monthly cash flow and manage your money
accordingly: Make a budget.
* Know how much you are earning and spending.
*Each dollar represents precious time in your life that you worked.
* Are you spending money in ways that are really fulfilling?
jot down everything you owe something for each month and as soon as you
write the checks for those things, write down the amount and when you sent
the payment. If possible, keep the cancelled checks in your records for
a year. This will prevent any future emergencies, and will keep you in line
no matter what.
- Only ever pay interest on a mortgage or company start-up loan.
- Don't use credit cards for credit but if you do, cancel all but one or
two credit cards and pay them off the bill every month.. and don't routinely
buy stuff you don't presently have the money for.
- Keep your freezer at a temperature between zero to five degrees Fahrenheit.
Settings below this use more energy and are not necessary.
- Save on your entertainment. If you see a lot of movies, go to the second-run
theaters as much as possible. If you like to buy a lot of music, purchase
as much of it at secondhand music stores or through the Internet as possible.
If you love reading, secondhand bookstores are a good place to go.
- Figure out what's a good thing to do that's low-cost. I love going to
our big local main public library, where I only end up spending a few dollars
(for parking and copy fees) for numerous hours of entertainment. I get to
read very old copies of newspapers on microfiche, leaf through tons of government
documents, look through current newspapers from throughout the country,
and check out interesting books.
- Learn how to do as many things as you can, so you don't have to hire
anyone to do them. If you know how to mow the lawn, learn how to edge the
lawn to give it that professional look. Learn how to install or upgrade
your own computer components. Ask the mechanic in the family to teach you
what's supposed to look "normal" under the hood and how to fix
whatever's not computerized.
- Wash your own vehicle with soap and water. It always ends up looking
better than if you'd passed it through a car wash.
- Only spend on what you feel is necessary in your life. I've got cable
internet service because I view online service as a necessity in my life,
and it does save me money over what I was doing before, which was subscribing
to a dialup service and paying for a second phone line dedicated to online
access alone. I've got digital cable because that is where I get the bulk
of my entertainment. I will only splurge on those two, though. On the other
hand, I can take a shower in 10 minutes, and even though I brush my teeth
for five minutes I only keep the water going for 10 seconds before and 20
seconds after I've brushed my teeth.
- Always get the generic for your prescriptions (I'm on three and all three
of them are generics).
- Fresh fruit that's in season is a cheap and delicious snack.
- Instead of taking your friends out to dinner, cook for them at home.
You'll end up spending about 1/6 of the cost of going out to dinner and
you'll have a much better time.
- What you don't spend you don't have to earn
- Sell your car. or Let the car hibernate and do most of your everyday living
by walking, biking, or taking local transportation.Get a bicycle
- Avoid going to shops and mall.
- Before you buy, ask yourself
*Do I need it? Do I want to dust, dry-clean or otherwise maintain it?
*Could I borrow it from a friend, neighbor, or family member?
*Is there anything I already own that I could substitute for it?
*Are the resources that went into it renewable or nonrenewable?
*How many hours will I have to work to pay for it?
- manage lost pennies
- Do without. Stop impulse purchases. Each item you buy costs more than
the purchase price. Consider upkeep costs in both time and dollars.
- Don't spend all your money as soon as you get it
- Avoid using a clothes dryer if you don't need to Dry your clothes on an
outside line if possible.
- Buy in bulk where possible.
- Read magazines and newspapers at the library
- Reuse packaging as much as possible; otherwise recycle it
- Don't let anything into your home that can't be reused, recycled, sold,
given away, eaten, composted or leave of its own free will.
- Upgrade your computer when it dies rather than when it becomes obsolete.
____________________________________________
Simple Life Philosophy
- Do not worry about anything
- Avoiding foods with preservatives .
- Shirk responsibility!
- Don't get a drug habit
- If simplifying your life complicate it then change what you are doing
because you are doing it wrong
- Don't become consumed by hatred
- Take the philosophy: there's always tomorrow to clean, so play today.
(
- Only take shits at work
- No DIY projects.(. that includes buying furniture - if you can't bum it
off the ancestry it ain't worth it) (that includes any sort of codependent
or committed relationship - fucking's okay but only if they don't know your
name)
- no bills beyond cable, power & water
- no computers
- no job that you can't drop at a moment's notice
- no caring what other people think ever
- have loads and loads of spare cash lying around in case huge amounts of
expensive shit happen to you despite following the above advice
)
- search
for more frugal living tips, voluntary simplicity tips, decluttering tips
and share them with everybody.
____________________________________________
― Sébastien Chikara (Sébastien Chikara), Tuesday, 29 April 2003 17:13 (twenty-one years ago) link
Here's a list made of all the tips posted so far
____________________________________________
Simple Life and Information Management /Time Management
Plan your day around your priorities
* Carry your schedule
* PDA and TiVo do a lot to save time.
* Make a list. Split your current activities and tasks into two columns:
things I enjoy and things I don't enjoy. then ask yourself how can your
reduce the second column and increase the first?
* Organize everything. What takes up too much of your time? Simplify your
routines, paperwork, wardrobe and your life. Keep a (electronic) Price Diary. List all regularly purchased items so
you'll remember where to get the best deals. Plan your next day before going to bed Pay all your bills by automatic withdrawal Always read on public transport; always have a book on hand in case you
are caught having to wait somewhere. Come in to the office a little early to pay bills and do any personal
paperwork. The professional environment will help you be more productive.
Avoid signing contracts unless absolutely necassary. Read the paper at the public library or as soon as you bring in the newspaper,
take out the huge ads section and throw it away. Watch no addictions: you can also be addicted to online communication,
wich can become a huge time suck and you should avoid it at all costs. Have a small supply of dishes for daily life: each person just needs one
bowl, one plate, one spoon, one glass, one fork, one knife. It makes less
dishes to clean Use smart technologies like collaborative information filtering tools
to get answers to your questions and to get more pleasures in life. It is
particularly useful to process the high informational content of city life. Live where you don't need a car, and preferably can do most of what you
want to do within walking or cycling distance from home. Put a "No Circulars" sign on your letterbox. Reduce Unwanted Telephone Solicitation. remove yourself from their lists.
TACTIC:
Whenever you receive an unsolicited sales call via telephone, be prepared
to interrupt the caller and asked to be placed on their DO NOT CALL list.
Control your time. Reduce obligations. Learn to say no more often. Even
one fewer activity per week can allow you some down time Pick a day to do all your cooking and baking. Try to work around the weatherman
for this. Once a month cooking is great for saving time. Life is simple
when you have to come ine-mail box every Fridays and throw something in
the oven to cook. Use a barbeque Eat more fresh fruit, fresh vegetables and limit your cooking. Do the mopping, and hard cleaning chores, early in the morning or after
the sun has gone to sleep. Use only natural cleansers. Make shopping lists and shop only once a week. Shop at the hottest time
of the day or early in the week when lines are limited. Never go up or down stairs emptyhanded. There's always something which
needs tidying away. ____________________________________________
Simple Life and Organizing your Living Space
- Scan all of notes and pages and then burn them on CD so that you can throw
the physical one's away
- Consider getting rid of your TV . if you decide to keep it:
*Make your own tv schedule to avoid watching it too much, only turn it on
when you know what is going to be on.
* Unplug the tv/radio when you need to relax or work
*Have a weekly "no noise" day. Turn off the TV and radio. Tune
in to nature and your family
- Clean your desk
- Get yourself a "spamkiller"
- Get rid of clutter. De-cluttering strategy:
*Begin by grabbing an empty shopping bag.
*Walk around your home. Fill the bag with anything you don't use or love.
*Place the bag in your car and drop it off at a charitable organization.
*Repeat weekly.
*make sure you weed through your closets periodically for things to give
to Goodwill . It's amazing the things you will find in there!
*Spring clean the home and store everything that is used only in the winter
months. The less clutter in the home the less to cleanup and dust.
- Save the little black plastic canisters which rolls of film come in (for
those who still use film and don't have digital cameras, of course). They
make brilliant containers for things like buttons or drawing pins, or for
storing flower/vegetable seeds in.
- Open all mail as soon as you receive it. Throw out the junk mail, obviously.
Tear out bills and place them in front of their envelopes. Throw out excess
paper. Place in pile somewhere near the front door in order of due dates.
Must be in sight so that you don't forget about them.
- Pare down. Do you really need six spatulas or 30 pairs of shoes?
- Have a garage sale on ebay
- Big Ziploc bags are a great and fairly affordable way to sort things.
- use shelves
- Make an inventory of everything you own.
- Keep the windows open during the day to let the fresh air in. Be sure
to clean all the windows with club soda.
- Tidy up the house just before you go to bed
____________________________________________
Simple Life and Money Management
- Open the shades to take advantage of the heat from the sun
- Grow your own vegetables and herbs for cooking with. Easy, cheap, doesn't
take up much room, makes the kitchen smell lovely (and your food taste wonderful).
grow your own corriander, mint, thyme, parsley, and oregano, and when next
spring rolls around I will add basil, dill, and rosemary.
- If you are going on a long journey and are taking a picnic lunch thing
with you, freeze juice or water in plastic bottles to pack with the food.
The bottles defrost slowly, keep your food cool, and you get a nice cold
drink too.
- For a hot lunch on a long journey, take along a wide-necked thermos flask
into which you have put a cupful of long grain rice, a cupful of mixed vegetables
(defrosted previously-frozen ones) and a cup and a half of boiling hot vegetable
stock. Seal it up, and after two hours you have perfectly cooked savoury
rice. (Remember to pack a spoon)
- Shop with cash. Set your grocery budget and then make sure your menu and
grocery list fits your budget. Look high/ look low on the shelves to get
the best deals
- Know your net worth and your monthly cash flow and manage your money
accordingly: Make a budget.
* Know how much you are earning and spending.
*Each dollar represents precious time in your life that you worked.
* Are you spending money in ways that are really fulfilling?
jot down everything you owe something for each month and as soon as you
write the checks for those things, write down the amount and when you sent
the payment. If possible, keep the cancelled checks in your records for
a year. This will prevent any future emergencies, and will keep you in line
no matter what.
- Only ever pay interest on a mortgage or company start-up loan.
- Don't use credit cards for credit but if you do, cancel all but one or
two credit cards and pay them off the bill every month.. and don't routinely
buy stuff you don't presently have the money for.
- Keep your freezer at a temperature between zero to five degrees Fahrenheit.
Settings below this use more energy and are not necessary.
- Save on your entertainment. If you see a lot of movies, go to the second-run
theaters as much as possible. If you like to buy a lot of music, purchase
as much of it at secondhand music stores or through the Internet as possible.
If you love reading, secondhand bookstores are a good place to go.
- Figure out what's a good thing to do that's low-cost. I love going to
our big local main public library, where I only end up spending a few dollars
(for parking and copy fees) for numerous hours of entertainment. I get to
read very old copies of newspapers on microfiche, leaf through tons of government
documents, look through current newspapers from throughout the country,
and check out interesting books.
- Learn how to do as many things as you can, so you don't have to hire
anyone to do them. If you know how to mow the lawn, learn how to edge the
lawn to give it that professional look. Learn how to install or upgrade
your own computer components. Ask the mechanic in the family to teach you
what's supposed to look "normal" under the hood and how to fix
whatever's not computerized.
- Wash your own vehicle with soap and water. It always ends up looking
better than if you'd passed it through a car wash.
- Only spend on what you feel is necessary in your life. I've got cable
internet service because I view online service as a necessity in my life,
and it does save me money over what I was doing before, which was subscribing
to a dialup service and paying for a second phone line dedicated to online
access alone. I've got digital cable because that is where I get the bulk
of my entertainment. I will only splurge on those two, though. On the other
hand, I can take a shower in 10 minutes, and even though I brush my teeth
for five minutes I only keep the water going for 10 seconds before and 20
seconds after I've brushed my teeth.
- Always get the generic for your prescriptions (I'm on three and all three
of them are generics).
- Fresh fruit that's in season is a cheap and delicious snack.
- Instead of taking your friends out to dinner, cook for them at home.
You'll end up spending about 1/6 of the cost of going out to dinner and
you'll have a much better time.
- What you don't spend you don't have to earn
- Sell your car. or Let the car hibernate and do most of your everyday living
by walking, biking, or taking local transportation.Get a bicycle
- Avoid going to shops and mall.
- Before you buy, ask yourself
*Do I need it? Do I want to dust, dry-clean or otherwise maintain it?
*Could I borrow it from a friend, neighbor, or family member?
*Is there anything I already own that I could substitute for it?
*Are the resources that went into it renewable or nonrenewable?
*How many hours will I have to work to pay for it?
- manage lost pennies
- Do without. Stop impulse purchases. Each item you buy costs more than
the purchase price. Consider upkeep costs in both time and dollars.
- Don't spend all your money as soon as you get it
- Avoid using a clothes dryer if you don't need to Dry your clothes on an
outside line if possible.
- Buy in bulk where possible.
- Read magazines and newspapers at the library
- Reuse packaging as much as possible; otherwise recycle it
- Don't let anything into your home that can't be reused, recycled, sold,
given away, eaten, composted or leave of its own free will.
- Upgrade your computer when it dies rather than when it becomes obsolete.
____________________________________________
Simple Life Philosophy
- Do not worry about anything
- Avoiding foods with preservatives .
- Shirk responsibility!
- Don't get a drug habit
- If simplifying your life complicate it then change what you are doing
because you are doing it wrong
- Don't become consumed by hatred
- Take the philosophy: there's always tomorrow to clean, so play today.
(
- Only take shits at work
- No DIY projects.(. that includes buying furniture - if you can't bum it
off the ancestry it ain't worth it) (that includes any sort of codependent
or committed relationship - fucking's okay but only if they don't know your
name)
- no bills beyond cable, power & water
- no computers
- no job that you can't drop at a moment's notice
- no caring what other people think ever
- have loads and loads of spare cash lying around in case huge amounts of
expensive shit happen to you despite following the above advice
)
- search
for more frugal living tips, voluntary simplicity tips, decluttering tips
and share them with everybody.
― Sébastien Chikara (Sébastien Chikara), Tuesday, 29 April 2003 17:21 (twenty-one years ago) link
three months pass...
To prove wrong someone who wold say "The idea of a federal betting parlor on
atrocities and terrorism is ridiculous and it's grotesque" and prevent PAM
to be percieved by the majority as " morally wrong", "offensive to almost
everyone" and a "sick game", I think a solution could be to add a new
module to the idea, a form of electronic jurisprudence where people would
have the opportunity to be pro-active at the horrors and injustices of this
world instead of just being percieved as "passive observers who are
cynically cashing-in" . I would like to hear constructive inputs on how
this "e-jurisprudence" could be implemented legally and technically into
"idea futures" so "the evil running dog capitalists" will be able to have
what they want out of it while giving the opportunity to make new
laws/challenge existing inefficacious laws (speeding-up the evolution of the
judiciary system might I hazard) on different issues (not just on
terrorism).
Deleuze said (I translated as close as I could) : "It is jurisprudence that
really is creating rights: it should not be left to judges. We are already
thinking about establishing modern biology rights: but everything, in modern
biology and the new situations that it is creating, the new elements it
makes possible, is jurisprudence business. It is not a committee of
wisemens, moral and pseudo-competent, that we need, but users groups."
To Deleuze, a government cannot be from the left, there can only be
government that are either more or less favorable to the issues of the left
so he says that stopping injustices with jurisprudence is a very good
example of what being from "the left" really is.
The concept of "laws" and "human rights" are empty and complacent, what is
important is what's going on in the real world: the concrete problems of
life. All of the problems out there in the world are problems of
"territory", one just have to identify the territory concerned in the
problematic and arrange the law to stop the injustice so everyone will get
an appropriate territory to be happy.
Jurisprudence is the ensemble of decisions made by courts of law about these
concrete situations of life, including cases where the law is
re-routed, when we are not in accord with it. Globally there are laws, we
are submiting to it in our structures and behind it there is jurisprudence,
wich feeds the law and makes it evolve. When jurisprudence gets too big, the
law becomes obsolete and we are obliged to modify it. This is what is
interesting in the democratic system: I acknowledge that there is a law but
nothing impeach us to modify it.
By pointing out where confidence is lacking on various aspects of various
troublesome parts of the world, betting markets such as the Policy Analysis
Market could help to increase the production of judgements of courts of law
from these places. If something bad is likely to happen evidently some
people will suffer from it and it is up to them to sue to prevent it to
happen, to request a solution for their problem of territory using
jurisprudence either to apply solutions coming from similar cases or make a
new one if needed.
Access to internet still being patchy, this e-jurisprudence would be easyer
to implement in occidental countries at first but while waiting for more's
law to solve this problem, it's not that hard to imagine a non profit org
who would be created to distribute internet access to hotspots around the
world to give a voice to the people concerned by the bad stuff that is going
down, so as many people as possible could use these " virtual tribunals"
with their local laws to make things change. (In any case it is not like we
are short of problems right here at home, that could be solved with this
idea...) Problems should be solved regionally; interventions of an
international police would not cut it IMO.
It would be interesting to see the e-jurisprudence formulated by people who
have a better understanding of the law than me / who are more inspired when
it comes at making-up scenarii despicting how it would be used in real life.
If PAM is not truly dead yet, each one of us should write them ideas to
improve on it so we'll see it happen. Anyone knows who should be contacted
about this?
Sébastien Chikara
― Sébastien Chikara (Sébastien Chikara), Thursday, 7 August 2003 20:27 (twenty years ago) link
one year passes...
four months pass...
one year passes...