feat: move essays of 2017

src/content/journal/2017/attention.mdx

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+---
+title: Self-Defense in the Age of Attention
+slug: attention
+author: Stefan Imhoff
+date: 2017-11-03T08:00:00+01:00
+description: A guide on how to get your attention back in the age of constant distraction.
+cover: /assets/images/cover/attention.jpg
+tags: ["self-improvement", "featured"]
+---
+
+## How to Win Back Our Time and Minds
+
+It’s been a while since I started questioning my behavior with technology, but also of all of us in general.
+
+The Internet has given us an **endless stream of information**, with nearly every question answered in seconds. It has given us more music to hear, more texts to read, more images to look at, and more movies to watch than one could ever consume in thousands of years.
+
+And this is a good thing, as it allows us to extend our minds in directions our parents and grandparents never could imagine. But with every benefit always come downsides.
+
+The most precious thing you own is not money or time. **It is attention**. We all have the same number of hours on this planet. But what we do with it, what we achieve, is up to us. We decide where we point our attention to. However, do we?
+
+<Pullquote author="Annie Dillard" source="The Writing Life">
+	How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.
+</Pullquote>
+
+## Feeding the Monster
+
+Pointing our attention in the right direction has become harder in the last few years, even for people with a lot of willpower. We have to withstand big corporations with thousands of trained designers, engineers, or product people. They operate in a competitive market **driven by advertising**. And I know this because I’m one of them, and yet I am a victim myself.
+
+Everything is about activating people, making them register, click, scroll, like, use, consume, and stay. We test every part of our interfaces to find out which color, font, and text is the most effective. Compared to the big players like Google, Facebook, or Twitter, we look like amateurs.
+
+Every item you interact with gets analyzed, computed, and stored. Algorithms calculate your next step, your direction. This is how the companies know what you want and when you want it. It enables them to provide you with a never-ending stream of things you crave.
+
+The human brain is prone to numerous cognitive biases and fallacies. It’s easy to manipulate because it’s the same brain as our ancestors living in the wild, seeking food, shelter, or enemies.
+
+We want to connect to others, yearn for distraction from ourselves and boredom, we want the attention of others.
+
+Every pull-to-refresh, every push message, every like, comment, and every new item appearing in our _continuous_ scrolling streams triggers the release of dopamine in our brains. They create a **habit loop**: _Trigger_, _routine_, _reward_.
+
+We are creatures of habit. A lot of our day-to-day actions are driven by subconscious habits. You don’t need to think about walking to the subway, pushing the shopping cart at the supermarket, or switching on the lights in a dark room. These have become habits. As have these movements of addiction: Grabbing for your phone, checking for updates, hundreds of times each day.
+
+This behavior changes our brain, makes it increasingly harder to follow longer texts, focus on one thing for a long time, and to think deeply. Studies have started connecting rising numbers of depression in young people with these addictive curated streams. Because we get more of the things we like, it encloses us in filter bubbles (echo chambers). There we don’t have to deal with new or contradicting ideas, but instead get validated all the time, which strengthens our ignorance of other ideas and people. But this is a topic of its own.
+
+And this will not get better anytime soon but will get worse, as big data, machine learning, and artificial intelligence get better every day. This is why you need to learn a new skill and teach it to your kids: **Fighting back on attacks to your attention**.
+
+As this is a _metaphorical_ attack on your attention, you should handle it as one. The key aspects of successful self-defense are **Avoidance**, **Awareness**, and **Prevention**.
+
+## Avoidance
+
+The first step for successful self-defense is avoidance. Try to avoid as many dangerous situations as possible. In this context, this would mean, staying away from every distraction, which doesn’t add a lot of value to your life. Does Reddit or Twitter improve your life? Does surfing hours on Instagram or Facebook help you with your life goals? If not, stay away if possible. This is a personal decision, what might be a distraction to one person, might improve the life of another.
+
+These are the countermeasures I took in the last few years or things I experimented with:
+
+- **I deleted many social media apps** like Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, and Instagram from my phone.
+- **I deleted my bookmarks to social media sites** from my browser and visit them once a week deliberately. I stay less than a few minutes, to get the most important things I missed during the week.
+- **I deleted all messengers**, except the ones my family is using.
+- **I stopped reading or watching the daily news** (7 years ago). I’m the last to hear about the newest terrorist attack or the newest threats by Trump to the world. And I avoid the water cooler talks and coffee machine chats as hell. You can’t avoid the news, but not actively searching for news filters out a lot of the noise.
+- **I use RSS/Atom feeds** as my major information source because I can choose where and when to get my content from. I pull the content, when I want it (_Pull vs. Push Principle_).
+- **I use many analog things**. I use Evernote to save content for later access, but I started writing a lot on paper. I always have a pen and a notebook with me. Likewise, I use [sketchnotes](/sketchnotes/) to extract the key aspects of an idea. The combination of writing with hand and drawing helps me remember things. And when I save content in Evernote, I make sure to mark the key aspects and write a summary at the top.
+- **I rarely post links to social media** sites these days. I want to avoid attacking the attention of other people. People interested in what I write or like can go to [my website](https://www.stefanimhoff.de/).
+- **I don’t check in** or brag about the places I am at on social media.
+- **I share photos** with my family and not the whole world.
+- **I block the shit** out of advertising sites, these creepy ads following you around the internet. Pages using ad-block countermeasures, I leave and never come back (or grab the text for later reading). But I started supporting selected sources with money every month on platforms like [Patreon](https://www.patreon.com/). Pages should start producing more content of quality instead of masses of low-quality content. It might be that people would start to care and pay for quality content.
+
+## Awareness
+
+One of the key aspects of successful self-defense is awareness. You need to be aware, that you are being attacked. This is not always easy, as attacks might come in different forms, like niceness or promises.
+
+The first step is to recognize, that the own behavior is problematic and harms the well-being. We tend to think we have everything under control and are well-trained in media usage. Or we search for excuses like not having an option or needing to be informed.
+
+My journey started 2 years ago when I began doing mindfulness meditation every morning for 20 minutes. Meditation is the opposite of distraction, it’s focused attention. It doesn’t matter if you point attention to your breath, body parts, an idea, or anything else. Meditation forces you to _be_. Distractions will try to lead your attention away while you meditate. The Buddhists call this **Mind Monkey**, as uncontrolled, restless, confused thoughts will flood the brain during a meditation session. But with time you will get better and be able to focus for longer periods and silence the monkeys.
+
+I think my meditation practice was the main trigger in questioning my behavior with technology, and It is a key factor for a well-balanced person in the future. As we (should) train our body, to strengthen it, we should do the same with our minds.
+
+These are a few of the things I did in the last few years to strengthen my awareness:
+
+- **I started with Meditation** and did more than 730 sessions, more than 210 hours since then. Besides my daily 20 minutes session, I try to do half a dozen of breathing sessions for a minute throughout the day. I used the additional short sessions of my [meditation app](https://www.headspace.com/) to learn about mindful walking, eating, cooking, sleeping, running, and commuting. The app has an extra section for kids and courses for students.
+- **I practice selective ignorance**. It’s not easy, but sometimes caring less is the best option, to get the attention back.
+- **I try not to use my headphones in the subway**. When I’m reading, I can practice focusing on the book and not on my surrounding. Sporadically, I intentionally do nothing but focus on the people in the subway.
+- **I read a lot about the brain and its weaknesses**. If you know all the biases and fallacies, you are less likely to be a victim of them.
+- **I read a lot about habit-forming, addiction, and multitasking** (which is not possible in humans). I try to do intentional single-tasking: reading, eating, or watching a TV show, without the distraction of multiple other things at the same time.
+- **I started living a [Minimalist](/minimalism/) life**. Fewer things mean less distraction and more attention to the things, which matter to you.
+- **I watch and consume intentionally positive, inspiring, creative and uprising** videos or texts (e.g., [TED Talks](https://www.ted.com/)), to change the ratio of positive to negative messages I hear about.
+
+## Prevention
+
+While avoidance is about trying not to be exposed to dangerous things, prevention is more about attenuating situations. It’s about making it harder for dangerous things to be successful.
+
+These are a few of the ideas I implemented or tried in the last few years to prevent my attention is taken away:
+
+- **I deactivated many push messages**, keeping a few exceptions. I disabled push messages on an app from the moment it first pushed irrelevant, triggering, needy information to me. I allow relevant apps like weather warnings, and family messages to send real-time updates. When an app has useful messages but doesn’t allow selecting which ones, I switch them off. I love _Google Inbox_ because it allows me to select which type of message is allowed to use push messages.
+- **I switched off all notification icons** (the red, annoying counters on app icons).
+- **I use ‘Do not disturb’ on every device**, including phone, tablet, computer, and landline phone during off-hours (21:00-8:00). My inner family can bypass this wall.
+- **My phone is silenced** during work hours (vibrations turned on), and even beyond.
+- **I switched off autoplay of videos** wherever possible (YouTube, Netflix, Twitter). And if not possible, I intentionally quit the process of loading the next video, after each video. I go grab something to drink, or do push-ups before I continue watching.
+- When in doubt, if I will be able to be aware of the time (like when browsing on Pinterest), I **set a timer** to 15 or 20 minutes, to be reminded of the passing time.
+- **I put all my devices on my worktable** when relaxing on the sofa. It prevents the quick _let’s answer this question_ habit and adds a barrier. Plus, it will give you more movement.
+- **I put my devices upside down on the table** to not get distracted by incoming messages.
+- **I use mute filters to filter out content**, which drives my attention to places I don’t want it to go.
+- **I tried to leave my phone in another room** while eating with my family.
+- **I switched off Nostalgia features**, like ‘your day one year ago,’ wherever possible. These are annoying because they attempt to activate you again.
+
+It’s not easy and sometimes even not possible at all to overcome the obstacles of attention-grabbing media with pure willpower. But by building habits of **mindful media consumption**, you might be able to get your attention back. Not every day, but it is a process worth working on. It’s not the device, it’s you. The device can be used to be creative, connect to other people, and be inspired. Or it can be used to distract yourself mindless for hours. It’s your choice.
+
+By following my advice, I was able to finish redesigning [two](https://www.kogakure.de/) [websites](https://hamburg.stefanimhoff.de/) and wrote a book this year.
+
+If you have read to this point, without being distracted, kudos! Now put down your phone and look out the window for a few minutes.
+
+## More links on this topic
+
+### Videos & Podcast
+
+- [Look Up](https://youtu.be/Z7dLU6fk9QY) (Garry Turk)
+- [Social Media’s Dark Side: How Facebook and Snapchat Try to Steal Our Self-Worth](https://youtu.be/HBRLMoL_vTQ) (Tristan Harris)
+- [How a handful of tech companies control billions of minds every day](https://www.ted.com/talks/tristan_harris_the_manipulative_tricks_tech_companies_use_to_capture_your_attention) (Tristan Harris)
+- [Put social back in social media – TEDxLinz](https://youtu.be/gnbLLQwZxeA) (Christian Heilmann)
+- [Hurry Slowly](https://hurryslowly.co/)
+
+### Articles
+
+- [It’s No Accident We’re Addicted to Our Devices](https://bigthink.com/robby-berman/its-no-accident-were-addicted-to-our-devices) (Big Think)
+- [Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/09/has-the-smartphone-destroyed-a-generation/534198/) (The Atlantic)
+- [‘Our minds can be hijacked’: the tech insiders who fear a smartphone dystopia](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/oct/05/smartphone-addiction-silicon-valley-dystopia) (The Guardian)
+- [Technology is destroying the most important asset in your life](https://qz.com/1091883/technology-is-destroying-the-most-important-asset-in-your-life/) (Quartz)
+- [Alarming Statistics That Show Just How Addicted We Are To Mobile Devices](https://www.breakthetwitch.com/statistics-mobile-devices/)(Break the Twitch)
+
+_This article was first published on [On Advertising](https://medium.com/on-advertising/) and featured by Medium._

src/content/journal/2017/gitbook.mdx

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+---
+title: I Wrote a Book in GitBook
+slug: gitbook
+author: Stefan Imhoff
+date: 2017-06-27T16:16:34+02:00
+description: I finished writing my first book in GitBook. I worked on it for the last six months, and it’s available to read online, as PDF, EPUB, and Mobi.
+tags: ["book"]
+---
+
+I finished writing my first book. I worked on it for the last six months. To be honest, I didn’t write it recently, but over 18 years.
+
+<Figure caption="GitBook: kogakure">
+	<a href="https://www.kogakure.de/">
+		<Image src="/assets/images/posts/gitbook-kogakure.jpg" alt="GitBook: kogakure" />
+	</a>
+</Figure>
+
+It was always available for _free_ for everyone on [my website](https://www.kogakure.de/). I started writing in 1999 with my first website, containing a collection of notes and thoughts about **Ninja** and their martial art, **Ninjutsu**.
+
+I never indented writing a book but was asked regularly by visitors to my website, why I didn’t write a book. It was out of the question to write a commercial book because a part of the essays on my website are translations of texts by Peter Carlsson. He permitted me to use the translated version on my website (unfortunately the original is gone).
+
+Furthermore, writing a print book is a pain, takes a lot of your life, and isn’t profitable (unless you are a mainstream author). I know of a colleague, who gets a share of **€0.95** per book sold for **€49.95** by a well-known publishing company. He worked nearly always on it for a year and sold 3000 copies. That’s something you do to become famous, not to earn money.
+
+## GitBook
+
+Last year I stumbled upon **GitBook**, which is an Open-Source [software package](https://github.com/GitbookIO/gitbook) and a [hosting service](https://www.gitbook.com/), and decided to write a book with it.
+
+GitBook’s hosting service has a free plan, which allows public books and a custom domain. And you can add your book from GitHub. You can use the software, without the need to host your book on the hosting service.
+
+## What is Git?
+
+If you’re a software developer, you can skip this section. Git is a version control system, created by Linus Torvalds (the creator of Linux) in 2005. It allows you to take snapshots of the current state of your project and save them securely for later reference (locally and on servers). It’s best suited for text files but allows binary files to be added. With Git, it’s easy to create alternative versions of your files, try out different ideas, compare versions, and integrate your ideas with the current state. If you want to learn the basics of Git, GitHub provides a free [15 minutes course in the browser](https://try.github.io/). Because Git is fantastic, it became the de facto standard in the last 10 years for using version control.
+
+## Git and Markdown
+
+A book is in its basic form text with basic formatting (_italics_, **bold**, and quotes). I could have written my book in Word or another proprietary software. But then I need to buy software, which allows editing the format.
+
+The files would be likely saved in a binary format, a local database, or a mixture of text and binary format. This makes it hard to track changes over time (unless the tool provides a history functionality). And even then, creating alternative versions would mean duplicating the Word file. The integration of my changes back would be hard or even impossible.
+
+This is one of the reasons, why the combination of [Markdown](https://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/) and [Git](https://git-scm.com/) is optimal for writing text. Even this blog post is written in Markdown.
+
+You can write your text in any editor you like (even Word would be possible), but optimally it should support Markdown (for a preview). Markdown can be learned in a few minutes. Markdown editors allow exporting the text into Word, RTF, or PDF.
+
+## What I’ve learned
+
+It was fun writing the book in my favorite text editor and _push_ (sending on a server) my changes to my GitHub _repository_ (project container). GitBook supports Markdown or AsciiDoc to write text in, supports multiple languages, covers, plugins, a glossary, a nice theme, and much more. It provides a search out of the box. I ran the local GitBook server and while writing the book could always see the result in my browser.
+
+There are over [600 plugins for GitBook](https://plugins.gitbook.com/) available, but I use a few (e.g., hint boxes, BibTeX support).
+
+As a downside, I found out the glossary feature isn’t usable at the moment.
+
+Firstly, because it doesn’t support any special characters, non-English languages are out of luck. German umlauts? Nö. Japanese characters? いいえ.
+
+Secondly, the page rendering gets slow, you can’t work anymore. This is a known issue that might be resolved in the future. The more the term occurs on a page, the slower the rendering gets.
+
+And it’s visually not appealing because every occurrence of a word gets underlined. And I used the word _Ninja_ a lot.
+
+GitBook provides a discussion feature and change requests, which make collaborative working nice (didn’t use it yet). As the book owner, you have access to statistics and can decide if you want to provide E-Books (PDF, MOBI, EPUB), allow discussions, and inline comments (a pleasant feature to mark typos or grammar errors). You can add collaborators to work with multiple authors in the same book.
+
+GitBook is not only good for books but to write documentation for anything.
+
+## What’s in my book?
+
+First thing: The book is available in **German** only 😒 (the [website](https://www.kogakure.de/en) is now in English available). I reviewed every sentence of the website for the book and changed parts of it.
+
+I reordered sections and replaced many images with better versions (when possible vector images) and added new images. Likewise, I would have liked to replace all images of weapons, tools, and techniques, but I couldn’t find the original colored versions of all images or the 3D data on my hard disc. Any skilled illustrator around wanting to contribute to the Open-Source project?
+
+I reviewed the whole glossary and unified the writing of all Japanese terms (using the Hepburn system). All changes are mirrored back to the website.
+
+Additionally, I added a section with the history of my website and screenshots of how the design evolved over the years.
+
+And I needed to design a cover in two sizes for the book.
+
+## Resources
+
+- Download **PDF**, **EPUB**, **Mobi** versions on [GitBook](https://github.com/kogakure/book-kogakure/releases)
+- Read the [online version](https://www.kogakure.de/) of the book
+- [Source code](https://github.com/kogakure/website-11ty-kogakure.de) of the book
+- Found an error, typo, or mistake? Report it [here](https://github.com/kogakure/website-11ty-kogakure.de/issues).

src/content/journal/2017/minimalism.mdx

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+---
+title: Minimalism
+slug: minimalism
+author: Stefan Imhoff
+date: 2017-06-07T18:30:00+02:00
+description: Minimalism is currently popular, but Minimalism is hard to understand, and many misconceptions can be found. This essay carries my thoughts on Minimalism and my history with it.
+tags: ["minimalism", "self-improvement", "featured"]
+---
+
+## The Pursuit of Minimalism
+
+Minimalism has come a long way. It recently got again a lot of traction with its highest search volume on [Google](https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=minimalism) ever recorded in January 2017. Because Minimalism is **hard to define**, it leaves a lot of **room for interpretation** and its meaning shifted recently more from being a philosophy to a lifestyle.
+
+In his video [Being a Minimalist](https://youtu.be/D4bFYJ0JUMk), the creator **JP Sears** jokes about the extremes of Minimalism. People move to Minimalism for different reasons. Some are overwhelmed by capitalism and the accelerating speed of life. Others care about the ecosystem, as a result of balancing sick excesses like fast fashion and constantly rising consumption of resources. Many people follow a _trend_ to feel unique or set a statement on their wealth, by not having things as a symbol of status.
+
+## The Spectrum of Minimalism
+
+Many people misunderstand Minimalism as a form of a search for expensive design objects to fill their houses with, which is not Minimalism but a form of **hyper-capitalism**. It’s not inherently wrong to surf on sites with Minimalist items to buy or be inspired by simple design, as long as it doesn’t result in buying things to try to _become_ a Minimalist.
+
+On the other side of the spectrum, you can see the **extreme** Minimalists, living out of a box, owning 19 items, racing to be the most minimal Minimalists, and sitting in empty rooms on the floor. If you follow this philosophy, you are only allowed to use white and black colors for everything as an extreme Minimalist. This form of Minimalism is suitable only for a few people. It _deters_ plenty of people to try out Minimalism. But it helps to be interviewed in media, sell your book, or be invited to conferences.
+
+Minimalism is **not glamorous**, it’s **humble** and a result of **deep mindful thinking**. It is a mindset or philosophy, not a method. And _the reduction of physical possessions is a result of Minimalism, not Minimalism itself_, as Colin Wright explains in his article [Minimalism Explained](https://exilelifestyle.com/minimalism-explained/).
+
+## Criticism of Minimalism
+
+Critics of Minimalism describe it as cold, empty, and without personality. People following Minimalism would deny their past or prove their inability to connect to other people. It would be a hopeless attempt to control life, as Linda Tutmann described Minimalism in her ZEIT article [Alles mein](https://www.zeit.de/2017/06/besitz-minimalismus-dinge-erinnerungen-besitztum).
+
+<Figure caption="Sorry, it doesn’t look cold, empty, and without personality. I failed as a Minimalist.">
+	<Image src="/assets/images/posts/minimalism-office.jpg" alt="My Minimalist home office" />
+</Figure>
+
+This misconception of Minimalism is the result of its shift to a lifestyle and of extreme Minimalists, who live in sterile homes. Minimalism is not about having as few things as possible. It is about _not_ owning things, which don’t bring joy or getting rid of things, which were acquired as a result of other reasons than a _need_ or _love_ for an object.
+
+The wrong reasons might be diverse: Boredom, inner emptiness, the desire for status, procrastination, the uncomfortable feeling of thinking of oneself, the attempt of freezing time for nostalgic reasons, and many more.
+
+## The Origins of Minimalism and Simplicity
+
+As everything in this world is connected, Minimalism has its roots in multiple different schools of thinking. One closely related is **Simplicity**. I found this definition (source unknown) about the difference between Simplicity and Minimalism:
+
+<Pullquote>
+Minimalism is the reduction of quantity.
+
+Simplicity is the reduction of complexity.
+
+</Pullquote>
+
+Minimalism is sometimes defined as _Simple Living_. Simplicity will inevitably be part of a Minimalist's life. The reason is deep thinking results in love for simple forms. Objects, which are resistant to temporary fashion, which endure time and follow the concept of _form follows function_.
+
+As Kenya Hara writes in <cite><AffiliateLink asin="0714866962" text="Wa: The Essence of Japanese Design" /></cite>, the origin of Simplicity can be found in the European _modernism_ as a result of the society getting free of sole rulers (who were defined by objects of decoration and excess of material objects). Rationality was the basis of this concept, resulting in _Bauhaus_ in 1909 and the founding of _Domus_ in 1928.
+
+<Bookshelf>
+	<AmazonBook asin="0714866962" />
+</Bookshelf>
+
+The Japanese Simplicity is described as _Emptiness_ by Kenya Hara and has a complex background: Japan was positioned at the end of many routes of cultural influence. From Rome along the Silk Road to Central Asia, China, Korea, and south from Turkey over India, South Asia, and north along with Russia. But after a civil war from 1467-1477 (_ōnin no ran_), which destroyed countless objects of art (temples, statues, paintings, and kimonos), may be out of necessity, a new form of simple and quiet design emerged.
+
+Different ideas like _shintō_, _zen_ Buddhism, and Daoism influenced this form of Simplicity (and Minimalism) in every aspect of life. In _shintō_ the concept of emptiness is the result of the creation of a space for the _kami_ (deities) to fill it. _Zen_ Buddhism brought aspects like _Upādāna_ (Sanskrit. the attachment, clinging, or grasping on ephemeral things). As a result, many new ideas based on _Emptiness_, Simplicity, and Minimalism emerged: [_wabi-sabi_](https://youtu.be/QmHLYhxYVjA), [_kintsugi_](https://www.theschooloflife.com/thebookoflife/kintsugi), [Japanese gardens](https://youtu.be/7kaKYer6x5A), [_bonsai_](https://youtu.be/NfdGGTb5_Ts), _ikebana_, [_chadō_](https://www.theschooloflife.com/thebookoflife/the-great-eastern-philosophers-sen-no-rikyu) or [_haiku_](https://www.theschooloflife.com/thebookoflife/the-great-eastern-philosophers-matsuo-basho).
+
+## Why Become a Minimalist?
+
+Minimalism in its core idea should **free a person** many ** limiting things**: Fewer things, to think of, less to hang your heart on, less to clean, less to deal with every day, less lingering of the past (Nostalgia), less fear of losing things, less debt, less guild for buying useless things. Instead, one **gains** more time, more space for people, more money, more inner peace, and more space for thinking. Time for your health, relationships, passions, growth, and contributions.
+
+That’s why I think extreme forms of Minimalism can result in less freedom. If a Minimalist owns five shirts and needs to clean them every weekend or will run out of clean shirts, Minimalism hinders freedom.
+
+## My history as a Minimalist
+
+I was always a Minimalist, even when the term didn’t exist. My first contact with the idea was in high school, where we had to read <cite><AffiliateLink asin="178093680X" text="To Have or to Be?" /></cite> by Erich Fromm.
+
+<Bookshelf>
+	<AmazonBook asin="178093680X" />
+</Bookshelf>
+
+The next thing which influenced me was the book and movie [Fight Club](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0137523/). It’s filled with quotes against consumerism, capitalism, and property. It has countless Anarchist ideas, which is the main reason it was rated PG18.
+
+<Pullquote author="Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt)" source="Fight Club">
+	The things you own end up owning you.
+</Pullquote>
+
+The next step was reading David Allen's book <cite><AffiliateLink asin="0143126563" text="Getting Things Done (GTD)" /></cite>, which is a productivity system, but at the beginning of the process is the inventory of your things.
+
+<Bookshelf>
+	<AmazonBook asin="0143126563" />
+</Bookshelf>
+
+This way I got rid of many things for the first time.
+
+<Figure caption="My office before cleaning up">
+	<Image src="/assets/images/posts/gtd-before.jpg" alt="My office before cleaning up" />
+</Figure>
+
+The exhibition [LEVEL GREEN](https://www.autostadt.de/en/-/level-green) in Autostadt Wolfsburg introduced me first in a differently drastic way to the concept of sustainability. People could learn, by answering questions about how they lived, and how big their impact on the earth was. To maintain my lifestyle from back then, I would need 1.8 planets of Earth. This changed my idea of how to live responsibly a lot.
+
+The books of Marie Kondō brought Minimalism again into my mind, and I did another big cleanup of my flat. In general, Japan provides good ideas for the concept of Minimalism. This is because of their history (as mentioned above) and because Japanese homes are small.
+
+In the last few years I changed my ideas of how to live in many ways:
+
+### On Getting Rid of Things
+
+I cleaned my whole flat of things I didn’t like or needed anymore. It took me three days to clean my basement from packages, cables, and technical waste, which I acquired over 10 years.
+
+<Figure caption="Cleanup of my cellar">
+	<Image src="/assets/images/posts/minimalism-cleanup-cellar.jpg" alt="Cleanup of my cellar" />
+</Figure>
+
+I gave more than 150 books away (I own 763) and sold my car. I use the subway, bus, car-sharing, and train to commute or travel.
+
+Not only that, but I scanned my documents into digital form and recycled the paper.
+
+Recently, I counted all my possessions: I own **2486** items, which is a _fourth_ of the amount a European person owns on average (10,000 items). I counted everything, from my wardrobe to dental brushes. 356 items in my bedroom, 242 items in my corridor, 68 items in my bathroom, and 1820 items in my living room and kitchen. I repeated this [count](/i-counted-everything-i-own/) in 2022.
+
+### On Consumption
+
+I changed my relationship with consumption. Quality over quantity. I buy natural things, made from natural materials. I learned to find the passion for nice and crafty things (I bought a [Traveler’s Notebook](https://www.travelers-company.com/products/trnote/about) and a [Laguiole en Aubrac](http://www.laguiole-en-aubrac.fr) knife). Likewise, I try to buy fewer physical books, though I love them. My rule for books is: They need to be designed with love and care, or I’ll buy them as e-books.
+
+### On Fashion
+
+I never had a high interest in fashion, this was easy for me. I buy good quality; simple, plain, timeless. Black, white, blue, beige, and other simple colors. No motives or fancy slogans. Cotton, wool, leather, linen, denim. And I'm not concerned with the brand. But if the nicest and best fitting glasses have Dolce &amp; Gabbana printed on the side, fine. I try not to grab something because it’s a special brand.
+
+### On Sustainability
+
+I switched to green energy a few years ago, buy organic food if available, and think long if I want a new product. I own no microwave or dishwasher and don’t miss them. Likewise, I do waste separation (we Germans are world champions in this discipline). My waste disposal company wrote a letter to me recently, telling me I use little garbage (and waste money). I used 305 liters of the yearly **obligatory** 1560 liters. I should think of selling my waste rights.
+
+### On Living
+
+When I was young, I always wanted a big, big house (preferably on a remote private island). But living in a small space is helpful for a Minimalist. It forces you to make decisions in your interest. I live on 51 m², and this is enough space for 1-2 people. That’s why I think if I need to buy something. I like the concept of small space living, but I’m happy to have a separate bedroom. This is much more relaxing, because of the different temperatures in the living and sleeping area. And I do not keep electronics in my bedroom.
+
+<Figure caption="My Minimalist living room">
+	<Image src="/assets/images/posts/minimalism-living.jpg" alt="My Minimalist living room" />
+</Figure>
+
+### On Digital Minimalism
+
+I deleted many apps from my digital devices. Less distraction, fewer push messages. By uninstalling social media apps, I’m less likely to surf social media and form bad habits.
+
+I reduced my contacts on social media to roughly around Dunbar’s Number, which is a suggested cognitive limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships (150 people).
+
+If I find information that I want to remember, I try to store it less in digital form (I used to have 10,000+ notes in Evernote), but instead, use more analog, and create [Sketchnotes](/sketchnotes/) of the basic concepts of an idea.
+
+My calendar is nearly empty, I attempt not to fill it with appointments and live less planned.
+
+And on multitasking: It doesn’t work for humans, this was proven in more than enough studies. Even the best multitaskers are slower while multitasking as if they would do the tasks in sequence. That’s why I try to single-task if possible. I keep my phone on the desk while watching TV and attempt to read less while eating.
+
+## Conclusion
+
+Minimalism is not a goal to reach, it’s a **steady process**, which you have to decide from moment to moment. This is possible if you are **mindful** and think about your relationship to material objects.
+
+As JP Sears jokes: <q>It’s not about being so poor, that you have the inability to have things. That’s poverty. It’s about being so rich, that you can afford to live like a poor person.</q> Following the Minimalist philosophy will benefit your wealth. You will not be rich in things, but use your saved money to invest wisely, or spend it on intangible things, make experiences, follow your passions, and live a life worth remembering.
+
+## Recommended Videos, Articles, and Blogs
+
+- [Minimalism: A Documentary About The Important Things](https://www.netflix.com/title/80114460)
+- [Less stuff, happier life](https://youtu.be/6XSJ-kI4VVg)
+- [Life is easy. Why do we make it so hard? | Jon Jandai | TEDxDoiSuthep](https://youtu.be/21j_OCNLuYg)
+- [TEDxO'Porto - Mark Boyle - The Moneyless Man](https://youtu.be/-PuyYVVVkIM)
+- [Less stuff, more happiness | Graham Hill](https://youtu.be/L8YJtvHGeUU)
+- [TEDxBoulder - Grant Blakeman - Minimalism - For a More Full Life](https://youtu.be/ES_u5b1CAr4)
+- [A rich life with less stuff | The Minimalists | TEDxWhitefish](https://youtu.be/GgBpyNsS-jU)
+- [TEDxAsheville - Adam Baker - Sell your crap. Pay your debt. Do what you love.](https://youtu.be/9XRPbFIN4lk)
+- [The less you own, the more you have | Angela Horn | TEDxCapeTown](https://youtu.be/CyKmpyYy14k)
+- [What exactly is a 'tiny house'? | Amy Henion | TEDxNortheasternU](https://youtu.be/DTPsASRO7WA)
+- [The Art of Enough](https://experiencelife.com/article/the-art-of-enough/)
+- [The Minimalists](https://www.theminimalists.com/)
+- [Aesence/](http://www.aesence.com/)
+- [Becoming Minimalist](https://www.becomingminimalist.com/)
+- [Minimalissimo](https://minimalissimo.com/)
+- [The Everyday Minimalist](https://www.everydayminimalist.com/)
+- [Minimalist Life](https://minimalism.life/)
+- [5 STYLE](https://5style.com/)