Simple. Organized. Life.

Alaska Man To Spend Year Off-Grid And Alone On An Island

David — Tue, 15 May 2012 23:20:46 +0000

Charles Baird has always had a dream of moving to an island and living off the grid, and now he’s going to make that dream a reality. At the end of May he is going to move with his dog to Latouche Island in Alaska’s Prince William Sound, build a small cabin, provide for all his own food and live off the grid. Granted, he is bringing his solar and wind systems with him and having lumber delivered so that he can build his house, but with the island getting an average of 100 inches of snow and 70 inches of rain year I imagine he’s in for quite an experience.

In so many ways I am jealous of the people that have the capacity to try these grand experiments. It takes a lot of courage to just head to the nearest abandoned island and try to “make it” on one’s own. But honestly I would much rather do my off grid experimenting in the desert of South Texas like John Wells does rather than in freezing-cold and wet Alaska. Sure, water won’t be an issue, but nearly everything else will be.

Do you think you could live alone on an island for a year?

Value.

David — Fri, 11 May 2012 00:38:34 +0000

I have been thinking a lot lately about value. What it means to me, what it means in my life, my work, the purchases I make, the time I spend working, hanging out with friends, or just reading a book. It’s strange how as you get older, you start to give credence to ideas that you previously wouldn’t have spent much time thinking about. This is one of those things.

Having left a corporate job six years ago, my entire livelihood working online has been about providing value. (Corporate work didn’t care if I valued my “customer”; I wasn’t paid to have such insight) If I don’t provide enough value to others, I don’t get a paycheck; it’s that simple. My primary website is a good example of that. The Good Human now gets over 100,000 visitors a month, has thousands of subscribers through RSS and email, and has 11,100 followers on Twitter. It has become a brand that I need to work on every single day. For a website that started back on the Blogger platform on a whim, this is pretty amazing. I am still blown away by the community that has been built around the site. That’s not to toot my own horn; I am literally astounded that it happened at all. But were I not providing value, it wouldn’t have been a success. For six years and 2,300+ articles, I have done my best to provide value to the reader. I know I need to continue to do it or they will disappear tomorrow – I can’t afford for that to happen. So I strive to provide value a few days a week in hopes that long-time readers continue to read and new readers climb on board. My work is providing value, and I try to be good at it.

But what about in my own life?

Do I subscribe to the concept that value is important? Sometimes. I don’t always use my time wisely. I sometimes get lost on the internet, blindly clicking from one link to another. I sometimes buy a product that I know won’t last that long. I sometimes do something just because someone else thinks it’s a good idea, even if I realize I don’t. I sometimes watch TV shows I don’t want to watch, read books I don’t want to read, and attend events I don’t want to attend just because someone else thought they were good/worthwhile/important. I am accepting someone else’s definition of value and rolling with it.

I need to work on this.

And I am getting better. I am better at saying no thank you. I am better at standing up for myself. I am better at making the decision that is right for me, regardless of what anyone else thinks. I am getting better. I am bringing more value into my life.

If I go out of my way to provide value for others, I should be willing to do the same for myself, yes?

I hope you said yes.

And I hope you do the same.

Don’t live anyone else’s life, live your own. Your choices, your needs, your desires, your wants – they are yours to make and yours to live with. Bring value to your own life if you have been too busy trying to provide value to everyone else that you have been neglectful. It’s not selfish, it’s healthy.

Think about it.

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Do You Have The YES Virus?

David — Thu, 03 May 2012 22:09:08 +0000

Right now I am reading Crush It!: Why NOW Is the Time to Cash In on Your Passion by Gary Vaynerchuk and because of how much I love the book I also subscribed to his blog. His video post today is titled “The YES Virus” and I think it’s pretty helpful to any of us who have ever had it/still have it. What is it? Watch the video and find out. I know I had the virus, but I am working to shed myself of it. I have come to realize that my time is mine to control and I need to be better about what I do with it. Take a look:

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It’s All Too Much

David — Tue, 01 May 2012 23:03:37 +0000

Add up the constant barrage of information most of us are bombarded with and is it any wonder that we can’t sleep, we can’t concentrate, we can’t stick with things, we can’t make a choice, we can’t ever be satisfied? That we turn to shopping, consuming, and eating to make us happy? It’s all too much:

Garbage Television
Books
Magazines
Twitter
Facebook
Google +
Computers
iPads
Tumblr
Kindles
Electronic Billboards
Smartphones
Garbage Movies
Talentless Music
RSS Readers
Breaking News
Etc
Etc
Etc

When does it end? Where does it stop? I’m just as guilty as the next guy to get into that “information consumption” race that goes on every hour of every day. Constantly clicking from one link to another to Twitter to email; AHHHHHHHHH

A long while back I wrote about taking a digital sabbatical once in a while, and I wanted to bring that up again. Today I found myself overwhelmed by all the reading, writing, and commenting I was trying to keep up with for hours on end since 9:30 this morning. After reaching 2:30 without stopping for lunch, I realized what I was doing and finally put the computer to sleep, walked over to my Eames lounger, and took a cat nap.

It was a fantastic 25 minutes.

Let’s face it; nothing that most of us are doing all day is life-savingly important. Let’s start treating it that way if we can. Take a break. Go outside for 10 minutes. Read some fiction. Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em. (OK, don’t do that) Get on your bike. Pour some coffee.

Do something, anything, other than consuming for a few minutes every once in a while. Pull a reality check on yourself and what you are doing.

Your sanity along with your blood pressure will thank you.

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The Loneliest Cowboy

David — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 15:00:59 +0000

For this episode of Far Out, VICE went to Chilean Patagonia to meet Faustino Barrientos, one of Lake O’Higgins’ most infamous inhabitants. Lake O’Higgins comprises a portion of the border between Chile’s Aysén region and Argentina’s Santa Cruz province. Since 1965, Faustino Barrientos has lived alone on the shores the lake, in a house built from the remains of a shipwrecked fishing vessel. He’s a pastoralist, living mostly off the land and his livestock, with few modern amenities. His nearest neighbors are in Villa O’Higgins, a small community of several hundred people, 25 miles away, accessible only by a two-day horseback ride through rugged mountain animal paths. Every few years, Faustino makes this ride to sell his cattle in town. Check out the video:

Now THAT is simple living.

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You Do Some Stuff

David — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 14:03:40 +0000

Life is pretty simple: You do some stuff. Most fails. Some works. You do more of what works. If it works big, others quickly copy it. Then you do something else. The trick is the doing something else.

-Leonardo da Vinci

My Tech Gear March 2012

David — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 21:54:21 +0000

The other day I received a request from reader John for an update to the digital tech gear I use on a daily basis to run my websites. While I understand not everyone is interested in what I use, hopefully some of you guys will find this helpful… or at least partially interesting. If you feel like it, would love to hear about your setups in the comment section. I myself am always curious as to what people use to run their online lives!

Computer

My computer is a circa-2009 MacBook Pro which still works flawlessly. It is a 2.53 GHz Core 2 Duo machine with 4 GB of RAM. I am still running Mac OS X 10.6.8, but I will be updating to OS X Lion before summer. I have never understood the need for anyone to update their machine every year just because a company comes out with a new model. My computer still runs any and all software just fine, works just as fast as the day I got it, and has plenty of storage space left in it. I imagine I will get at least another year or two out of this computer. We aren’t in the old days of computers when they truly got exponentially better each model year; these newer machines can last quite some time before they need replacing.

Computer Accessories

External monitor is an ASUS 24″ Full HD/HDMI LED BackLight LCD Monitor, as I can’t stare all day at a 13″ computer screen.
Keyboard is a wireless Apple keyboard and my mouse is an Apple Magic Mouse.
External hard drive is a LaCie Starck 1 TB USB 2 drive, which gets backed up to constantly via Time Machine.
Printer is a Canon iP100, which mostly stays unconnected and in the closet.
Laptop case is from GreenSmart and is made from 100% recycled plastic bottles.
Batteries for mouse and keyboard are rechargeables, as otherwise would be constantly buying new ones.

Computer Software

To do everything I need to do every day, whether it’s for my own blogs, someone else’s, or a paying web client I have, I have several go-to applications that get heavy use almost every day.

Chrome, for web browsing.
Transmit, for FTP transfers.
Adium for chatting.
Reeder, for RSS feeds of my favorite sites. I have this open all day long.
ImageWell 4 for simple image resizing.
Spotify and Pandora for music.
Wunderlist for list-making.
MPEG Streamclip for ripping from DVDs.
Echofon for Twitter accounts (which, by the way, I just started one for this site. It’s @simpleolife.
LastPass for keeping passwords.
Adobe CS3 Suite for, well, all that stuff.
Final Cut Pro for video editing.
OpenOffice and Google Docs for word processing.
Dropbox for cloud storage
BackBlaze for automatic off-site backups.

Mobile

Phone – I am still rocking the iPhone 3GS and will do so until the next generation iPhone comes out. I was going to switch to an Android phone, but seriously – it’s the best looking phone that works flawlessly with all my Apple gear. I don’t care about open vs. closed, I am not a hacker; to switch would be crazy at this point. It is definitely on it’s last legs, but it should make it to the next update later this year.

Apps – The homepage of my iPhone contains the following apps: Maps, Safari, Clock, Calendar, TurboScan (for creating PDF’s on the go), Wunderlist, Fahrenheit, Words with Friends, Instapaper, Reeder, Tweetbot, Amazon, Messages, Mail, and Phone. I also have 4 folders on my homepage:

News – CNN, BBC, News360, LATimes, MSNBC, Dwell Magazine
Music – iTunes, Shazam, NPR, Ambiance, Remote, NPR Music, Pandora, KCRW, KPCC
Social – Trillian, LinkedIn, Tumblr, WordPress, Pinterest
Photography – Hipstamatic, CameraBag, Best Camera, Instagram, Plastic Bullet

I think that about sums up my tech gear and how I live my life online. I work from home and have for nearly 6 years, but unless I can find more work doing some writing, social media, content management, etc, I will be trying to find a desk job to pay the bills within a month or so. (So if you need someone, get in touch!)

Stop Worrying and Let it Ride

David — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 14:50:17 +0000

I need to stop worrying about everything. I have been on the move, packing my stuff, unpacking my stuff, throwing away my stuff, buying new stuff, and spending a lot on gasoline for what seems like eternity now. In the 2.5 years, I have lived in NM, CO, CA, NM, FL, VT – in that order.

I used to work in corporate America, gave that up in 2006, and been self-employed ever since. The money sucks but the freedom is mostly worth it. I say mostly because the money has dropped precipitously in the last 6-8 months and I am now ~~considering taking~~ looking for a full-time position somewhere. While the solid paycheck would be nice, I need health insurance – I can’t get it on my own due to having cancer cut out of my leg in 2008. Of course, actually getting someone to hire me in this economy is probably as difficult as getting the aforementioned health insurance. Denial, denial, denial.

In the last week, I have dealt with the following:

A Jury Duty summons. For the state of Colorado, where I haven’t lived since 2010.
A letter from the IRS. Seems they were curious why I didn’t report the extra $73,000 in income for 2010. Um, that’s because I didn’t have an extra $73,000 in income that year!
My web server was hacked. As in, where all my sites are hosted.
A gentlemen I hired to “fix” some nagging issues on The Good Human actually damaged the hell out of it. Traffic and income have dropped by about 50% since his “fixing.”
My girlfriend’s grandfather died.

Through all this, I am working hard on letting it all go. Letting it ride, so to speak. Eventually, it all has to stop and things have to turn around – I have to keep that in mind. It ALWAYS works out in the end; sometimes it just takes a long time to get there. I’m not dying, I’m not homeless, and I’m not a drug addict. Things are not that bad in the grand scheme. I don’t believe all that “The Secret” mumbojumbo, but I do believe that things will smooth out, calm down, and work out in my favor if I can allow myself to work with the struggle and not against the struggle.

Already in the few days I have come up a new idea for a business related to this website, gone on a new “diet” (Specific Carb Diet, if you must know) that has completely stopped any and all of my long-standing digestive issues, and…

Decided to move. Again.

Details will be forthcoming, but we are moving. Far. Sometimes you make mistakes that you don’t know are mistakes until you make them. Alas, moving here was one of those mistakes, and we have a plan for remedying it. It’s the best for both of us at this point, and it will pay off.

Right?

Right.

Stop Worrying and Let it Ride. What else are you going to do?

Related posts:

Stop Making Plans.

10 Tips To Reduce Your Clutter And Get Organized.

David — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 20:00:48 +0000

If I lived in clutter I would never be able to stop thinking about it and it would hinder every aspect of my life. Where are my keys? Where are the bills? Where did I hide my social security card? Some people really thrive on being “cluttered” but it would drive me crazy. If you are looking for some ways to get organized and to get your stuff in order, here are 10 things that have helped me to get and stay organize.

1. Have a place for everything – this means your keys, your wallet, your office supplies, etc. If everything has it’s place, it’s pretty hard to lose anything once you learn where that place is. My files are in the file cabinet, my keys hang by the door, and my wallet goes on the little table in the hall. There is no mad scramble to get out the door as I know where everything is!

2. When you bring one thing home, try to send at least one thing out the door. Buy a new shirt? Try to get rid of an old shirt at the same time. If all you do is bring stuff home and you never purge, you will never be able to beat back clutter.

3. Boxes, boxes, boxes – I am a huge fan of storage in the house. Even if you have tons of crap, having it in boxes makes it look and feel more manageable. However, I don’t pay for any storage containers – I use shoe boxes, shipping boxes, etc. Why not use the free stuff instead of spending money on the plastic versions?

4. Craigslist, Ebay and Amazon are your friends – Sell, sell, sell. Books, CD’s, DVD’s, clothes, televisions, you name it – if you have it, someone else is willing to pay for it.

5. Purge twice a year – Make it a point to spend a day or two twice a year doing nothing but purging.

6. Put stuff away in storage until you need it. I am not talking about paying for storage, but rather your garage or some place like that. Your Christmas supplies do not need to be stored in your closet in the house if you do not have the room for it…it’s going to be 11 months before you need them again!

7. Start small. If you have trouble because you are overwhelmed with the amount of “stuff” in your home, try doing just 10 minutes a day of purging. This is the system I have my mom on now – she spends a few minutes each day just doing a single pile or filling up 1 trash bag and taking it downstairs. It makes the process way more manageable and less scary.

8. Unsubscribe from magazines, catalogs, etc. – Catalogs you do no need because you can look at any of those products online on the internet, and magazines are available for free from the library. How many times do you read a single magazine? More than likely only once, so why pay for it and then have it hang around your house? If you can get it from the library, it will only be in your house for 2 weeks…and it’s free!

9. When you buy a product, buy a multi-function version. A coffee maker that both grinds the beans and makes the coffee. A remote control that runs your TV and your stereo. A blender that is also a food processor. By combining these type of goods, you can reduce the amount of “stuff” you have to find a place for.

10. Make lists. I have 1 small notebook that I have with me at all times, so I can jot down notes, story ideas, stuff I need to get done at home, etc. If you write it down when you think of it, you are more likely to follow through on whatever it is. So make lists – like what you will accomplish around the house next Tuesday, reminders to go to Goodwill and drop off your clothes, or just to file away or shred the paper in your inbox. Lists are an immense help to anyone having trouble with clutter.

Hopefully these tips will serve as a boost and incentive to get organized. If you have any additional tips to add, be sure to let me know!

Originally published 3 years ago; now updated and pushed back to the forefront. It’s important to keep these 10 tips in mind!

Related posts:

Tips For Dealing With Other People’s Clutter.

Take Pictures Of Your Mementos To Reduce Clutter.

Tips For Cleaning Out Your Garage.

Help!

David — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 21:06:23 +0000

UPDATE – Thanks. Got it, and will proceed. I appreciate the input, and be back real soon.

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