I remember studying the concept of half-life during my physics days. It is the period of time it takes for a substance to decrease by half. This concept was recently brought up again as I revisit my Project Dumping. I ruthlessly dump the things that I don’t read or use anymore. Sometimes, it is just not enough. The inputs are just coming in too fast, faster than the dumps. I believe this calls for some drastic measure. And this is where the concept of half-life comes in.
The concept is actually quite simple. You basically reduce your “stuff” by half. For example, you have 100 apps on your Mac. Reduce that by 50. That’s it. The next time you do it, assuming you didn’t add anymore apps, you reduce the 50 to 25. And so on.
It won’t get to zero unfortunately, as you will still be adding stuff in. But once in a while, try this method. Take what you have, half it. Dump the half. So here are the steps for you:
1. Pick a time
Block off some time for this. There might be a lot of stuff, or you might have a lot of emotional ties to your stuff. Pick a day to do this. Block off at least 1 hour. Tell everyone you’re doing this. No distractions.
2. Create a list of items
Start by creating a list of items that you think will benefit from this exercise. Be honest now. For me, my list is my bookmarks, my RSS subscriptions, my clothes, my apps on my MacBook, the apps on iphone, the audiobooks on itunes, the podcasts on itunes, the store room. I might add more in time to come. One thing at a time. 
3. Choose an item and reduce by half
You don’t have to do all items at once. Choose an item, e.g. the number of subcriptions. Cut that by half. The number of channels you watch, cut that by half. Or something simpler (?), the number of hours spent on the internet, cut that by half. I just did this for the number of things I read online through RSS. New stuff keeps coming in. I have a category I call “on probation”. Things that I haven’t read for a while, I put it in this folder. I use the block off time to dump half of those on probation.
4. Repeat for that item.
Repeat the same exercise for the same item after a couple of days, weeks, months, even years, depending on how frequent you feel comfortable with. You can set up a schedule to do this halving every 3 months, say.
5. Repeat for other items.
You can also use the steps to reduce other items on your list in 2.
I find that clearing the environment is always good for clearing the mind. It’s like clearing a path into the mind. It makes the journey within easier, or rather, less distracted. I do hope you try it, and let me know how your exercise went.
An alternative to this method will be to start from ground zero, like how TJ Luoma did to his iphone apps. Start with a blank page, and start adding apps that you actually use. Dump all the others.
p/s: this post is partially inspired by the Annual 50%. You can actually sell some of the things that you plan to dump!
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