Less stuff more happiness Graham Hill

[Music]

[Applause]

what’s in the box whatever it is it must

be pretty important because I’ve

traveled with it moved it from apartment

to apartment to apartment

sound familiar did you know that we

Americans have about three times the

amount of space we did 50 years ago

three times so you think with all this

extra space we’d have plenty of room for

all our stuff right nope there’s new

industry in town a twenty two billion

dollar 2.2 billion square foot industry

that a personal storage so we’ve got

triple the space so we become such good

shoppers that we need even more space so

where does this lead lots of credit card

debt huge environmental footprints and

perhaps not coincidentally our happiness

levels flatline over the same 50 years

well I’m here to suggest there’s a

better way that less might actually

equal more I bet most of us have

experienced at some point the joys of

less college in your dorm traveling in a

hotel room camping we got basically

nothing maybe a boat whatever it was for

you I bet that among other things this

gave you a little more freedom a little

more time so I want to suggest that less

stuff and less space are gonna equal

smaller footprint it’s actually a great

way to save you some money and it’s

gonna give you a little more ease in

your life so I started a project called

life edited at life attitude org to

further this conversation and to find

some great solutions in this area

first up crowdsourcing my 420 square

foot apartment in Manhattan with

partners mu topo and Zhu Vodacom I

wanted it all home office sit-down

dinner for 10 room for guests and all my

kite surfing gear with over 300 entries

from around the world I got it my own

little jewel box by buying a space that

was 420 square feet instead of 600

immediately I’m saving 200 grand smaller

space is gonna make for smaller

utilities save some more money there but

also a smaller footprint

and because it’s really designed around

an edited set of possessions my favorite

stuff and really designed for me I’m

really excited to be there

so how can you live little three main

approaches first of all you to edit

ruthlessly we’ve got to clear the

arteries of our lives and that shirt

that I haven’t wore in years it’s time

for me to let it go we’ve got to cut the

extraneous out of our lives and we’ve

got to learn to stem the inflow we need

to think before we buy ask ourselves is

that really gonna make me happier truly

by all means we should buy and own some

great stuff but we want stuff that we’re

gonna love for years not just stuff

secondly our new mantra small is sexy we

want space efficiency we want things

that are designed for how their you use

the vast majority of the time not that

rare event

why have a six-burner stove when you

rarely use three so we want things that

nest we want things that stack and we

want to digitize you can take paperwork

looks movies and you can make it

disappear it’s magic finally we want

multifunctional spaces and housewares a

sinks combined at the toilet a dining

table becomes a bed same space a little

side table stretches out to c10 in the

winning life edited scheme and a render

here we combine a moving wall with

transformer furniture to get a lot out

of the space look at the coffee table it

grows in height and width to see 10 my

office folds away easily hidden my bed

just pops out of the wall two fingers

guests move the moving wall have some

fold-down guest beds and of course my

own movie theater so I’m not saying that

we all need to live in 420 square feet

but consider the benefits of an edited

life go from three thousand to two

thousand from fifteen hundred to a

thousand most of us maybe all of us are

here pretty happily for a bunch of days

with couple bags maybe

a small space hotel room so when you go

home and you walk through your front

door take a second and ask yourselves

could I do with a little life editing

would that give me a little more freedom

maybe a little more time what’s in the

box it doesn’t really matter I know I

don’t need it

what’s in yours maybe just maybe less

might equal more so let’s make room for

the good stuff thank you

[Applause]