If you would like to see more pictures of very small dwellings, check out Jay Shafer’s book.

Johnson’s house, which was built in 1949, is heralded as an icon of minimalist design. As you can tell from the image, the house has four glass walls and sparse furnishings. It is a home without excess and a home without clutter.

I’ve always admired Johnson and his ability to live so minimally … that is, until I went to visit his home.

Was he a minimalist? Ha ha! Ho ho! Hee hee!

In addition to the glass house, the 47-acre grounds are covered with numerous other homes and buildings where Johnson spent his time:

1. the brick house, a small guest house that also hides the mechanical support systems for the glass house
2. the Popestead farmhouse, a second guest house with an enormous kitchen he used to cook in when he had guests (even though he had a kitchen in the glass house and another in the brick house)
3. the studio and library, where he did his work and stored his collection of books
4. the painting gallery, which housed 42 of Johnson’s friends’ large paintings
5. the sculpture gallery, an entire building devoted to his sculpture collection
6. Da Monsta, which Johnson built for no apparent reason and named it to sound like a hip-hop reference (not a joke)
7. Grainger, the house where he watched television
8. Calluna Farms, a fifth house on the property where his boyfriend lived that is currently occupied by the grounds keeper

In my mind, there is nothing minimalist about a nine-house/gallery property. If you have a separate house where you watch tv and another house where you keep your books and another where you keep your boyfriend and all of his things, it completely defeats the purpose of calling oneself a minimalist.

If I had more than one house I could easily keep one of them in the perfect minimalist condition. Imagine how clutter free you could be if you had nine houses/galleries to contain all your stuff.

Oh, and I should mention that Johnson also had an apartment in New York City containing even more possessions.

Was the glass house architecturally amazing? Yes. Was the property beautiful? Yes. Do I recommend seeing the property if you have the chance? Yes.

Do I still think of Philip Johnson as a minimalist? Not in the least.

After the tour it felt as if the glass house was little more than a publicity stunt.

Philip Johnson’s glass house is located at 199 Elm Street in New Canaan, Connecticut. The house is a National Trust Historic Site and tickets to tour the home can be purchased online.

(Image by Eirik Johnson for Time magazine’s article “Splendor in the Glass“)

A friend who is getting married recently asked me what I think are the essential items in my kitchen. I first directed her to the “Creating a multi-tasking wedding registry” post I wrote last year. Then, I made a list of the 10 things I can’t live without in my space.

Making “essentials” lists is a risky endeavor. Obviously, the items I turn to every day aren’t going to be what other people use. It was still a fun experiment and I created my list by answering the question: “If my home were destroyed in a disaster, what 10 items would I replace first?”

The minimalist kitchen:

1. 10″ cast iron skillet. The Lodge version and the Le Creuset enamel-coated version both get the job done extremely well. I prefer the enamel coated version because I don’t have to season it and can throw it in the dishwasher, but both are excellent and the Lodge price tag is unbeatable. They work on the stove top, in the oven, and on the grill.
2. 12 qt. stock pot with lid. The best and cheapest way to get one of these is to head to your local restaurant supply store and pick up a well-made aluminum one for under $30. You can make soups, pasta, and sauces, as well as using it for frying and soaking. It also works in the oven and on the grill.
3. 9 qt. cast iron Dutch oven. Roast or braise in this amazing product. You can fit an entire chicken in this bad boy. Plus, it can go on the grill or directly over an open flame. Expensive, but it will last you a lifetime.
4. Two silicone oven mitts. I use an Orka brand, but there are many others out there. Because they’re silicone, I can reach into boiling water and grab things without risking burns (the way you do with fabric oven mitts).
5. A good knife set. I’m a big fan of the Cutco 5-Piece Set because they’re durable, can go in the dishwasher, and come with a solid warranty. Plus, since there are so many dealers around, it’s always easy to find where to have them sharpened.
6. Cutting board. I love my Epicurean Cutting Surface because it’s nice on my knives, can be tossed in the dishwasher, and can be used as a trivet (up to 350 degrees F). I’ve had mine for a number of years and it is as good as new.
7. Tongs. Not a lot to say about them, but love that they lock closed for easy storage. Long-handled stainless steel ones can be used for items in the oven as well as on the grill.
8. Food turner. I grew up calling these things spatulas, but apparently that is not their official name. Again, you can use them on the stove, grill, or in the oven. They also do nicely in the dishwasher.
9. Infrared thermometer. Simply point it at your food and know the temperature. Nothing to clean, and really cool.
10. Baking pans. All you’ll need to get started are anodized aluminum sheet cake, loaf, and jelly roll pans.

I believe anyone can make fantastic meals with only these items. Do I have more in my kitchen? Definitely. This is just a basics list and nothing more. If I were to add five more items, I’d throw in a long-handled ladle, heavy-duty stand mixer, bread machine (I use mine twice a week minimum), coffee pot, and tea kettle.

Are there essentials that I have forgotten from my list? Do you think any of these items are unnecessary? Give your opinion in the comments.

This week, I learned about the Piegato One shelves and instantly wanted to share them with you. They’re designed by Matthias Ries and will be manufactured by his company MRDO Products. The shelves ship flat and then you bend the metal into place with very little effort:

A short video shows how to setup and install them.

I know that the industrial look isn’t everyone’s favorite style, but you can still appreciate that such a beautifully engineered product exists. This shelving system is simple, streamlined, and wholly uncluttered.

(via Dwell)

Sure, there are chores (about 30 minutes a day) I don’t love, but doing them keeps stress and other negative effects out of my life. My overall life is better because I have routines in place to take care of the not-so-great parts.

One thing I don’t like doing is gardening or anything to do with the yard. I know that some people love gardening and are horrified that I don’t like it, but I enjoy things that I’m sure they have no interest in doing (cheese making, doing stand up comedy, reading mystery novels, playing the pedal steel guitar). We’re all different, which is what makes unclutterers so great.

Since I’m not fond of gardening, I have fake plants in all of the flower boxes on the front of my house. These are high-end fake plants. Even when you’re standing inches away from them, you have no idea that they’re not real. But, unlike real plants, I don’t have to do anything to maintain their beauty.

• No watering.
• No weeding.
• No dying plants.
• No plant diseases or pests.
• No maintenance.

If you’re interested in sprucing up a flower box with fake plants, follow these tips to make it so that no one on your block has any idea:

• Use high-end fake plants. If it looks bad in the store, it’s going to look bad in your flower box. The French make the world’s best fake plants, and if you can afford them, buy them. My favorite is Trousselier at 73 blvd Haussmann in Paris. If heading to France isn’t in your future (Trousselier doesn’t have an online shop), check out your local craft store and be very picky about what makes it into your cart.
• Buy plants, not flowers. You don’t have to worry about things blooming in the wrong season if nothing blooms. And, even when they are very well made, fake flowers can still look fake.
• Only display the plants during appropriate seasons. If a fern wouldn’t be growing outdoors in January, don’t have a fake fern outdoors in January. Store it into a garbage bag in your garage, and put it back out in the spring.
• Only buy fake plants that could grow in your region.
• Take the time to plan out and landscape your flower box before you go shopping for fake plants. You want the plants to look as natural as possible.
• Buy fake plants with realistic looking imperfections. Not every leaf on a plant is the exact same shade of green, and sometimes a leaf or two is brown. Nature isn’t perfect, and neither should your fake plants be.
• “Plant” your fake plants in gravel with fake moss or fake grass as ground cover. Weeds won’t grow in rocks, but they will grow in dirt. If you “plant” in dirt, you’re still going to have to pick out weeds.

Okay, now you know my time-saving secret. Where do you cut corners to free up time in your schedule to pursue the things that matter most to you?

(My apologies about the picture being small. It was hard to line up an image that didn’t flash my neighbors’ license plates to the internet.)

From the product description:

The concept was fairly simple: I buy t-shirts online and they always come wrinkled and I always run out of coat-hangers. So I designed a sustainable, reusable way to send and keep your t-shirts. As you open the package you create a coat hanger. The packaging could be made from recycled material whether it is card or plastic and the only waste is the green tear-away tab.

Do you know of additional product packaging that keeps clutter and waste away? We’re always on the lookout for great, uncluttered design.

(via Packagings of the World)

It seems like nearly every day, I go to a popular website and see examples of how not to design a site. And the number one no-no that all of these highly-trafficked sites commit is that their designs have too much thoughtless clutter.

The worst case is when a seemingly clean site has a random patch of cluttery buttons in the corner somewhere. I took this screenshot yesterday of a popular dictionary site.

Apparently the makers of the site decided to cram as many social networking site buttons into the upper-right corner of the webpage, in hopes of getting attention on social sites.

Would you click on any of those buttons? I know I wouldn’t. Aside from placing those buttons in the last place they’ll be seen on the site, they just add clutter. The buttons have effectively taken attention away from the core section of the site (the definitions and dictionary look-up), and are digitally waving their hands and screaming “look at me! look at me!” in the nose-bleed section of the layout. I think it’s safe to assume that those buttons have a really, really low click-through ratio.

If I was going to use one of these buttons, I’d have to take about 20 minutes to scan through all the buttons just to find the bookmarking service I wanted. Also, the buttons feel like they were hastily added, as an afterthought. It’s as if some big-wig in the company read about social networking in the newspaper the night before, burst into the designer’s cubicle and demanded the designer increase their “social media whatchamacallit” NOW.

Would I Click This?

Every element should pass the “would I click on this?” test. When I’m laying out a design and want to add something (like a button or a link) outside of the content, I always ask myself if I would click on it as a visitor. If I won’t, then visitors probably won’t either.

Every ounce of space is precious. When you have a great minimal design like Unclutterer has, every tiny thing you add to the layout is going to be seen. Especially if the element is added thoughtfully and tastefully.

Take Unclutterer’s new “Subscribe on Twitter” link. Erin mentioned yesterday that the Unclutterer Tips Twitter account had received a ton of new followers last week, probably due to the recent addition of a simple link and button to the sidebar. Compare these two implementations and ask yourself which you would rather click on:

this

or this

When it comes to design, every bit, every piece, every ounce must be weighed and thought through. Adding even a tiny thing dilutes the rest of the design, but if added carefully and thoughtfully, can actually enhance the overall design.

A description of Eryn, one of two sphere options from Free Spirit Spheres:

Made of Sitka spruce, Eryn is 10 ½’ (3.2m) in diameter giving her 1.8 times the volume of Eve [the other sphere model]. A well-appointed interior with galley, table/sitting area, double bed and loft bed, Eryn can sleep three. The loft bed has a weight restriction of 165 pounds. The galley includes a sink, small refrigerator, microwave and dishes.

Eryn has five windows. Two large windows; one next to the bed, the other beside the table, and two small windows; one in the door and one over the galley counter. A large skylight facilitates communing with the forest canopy and the stars. Every window is dished to the same radius as the sphere shell.

Eryn is insulated, plumbed and wired for 20 amps, 120/240 volt AC. She is easily heated with a small electric heater.

A view of the “kitchen” in the Eryn sphere (people included for scale):

A view of the “living room” and front door in the Eryn sphere:

There don’t appear to be any laundry or bathroom facilities in the spheres, so you would need to find additional methods to tackle these vital tasks. Otherwise, I think they look pretty cool. I don’t think I could live in one full time, but they might be perfect for a vacation. What do you think? Could you take up residence in a minimalist sphere?

(Thanks to reader Jessica for bringing the MSN article to our attention.)

The New York Times recently published the article “Move Up? Move Out? Families Squeeze In” on the topic of middle-class families choosing to live in small urban spaces.

“There seems to be a large contingent who don’t move to the suburbs anymore,” Mr. [Andrew A.] Beveridge [a demographer at Queens College of the City University of New York] said. “Oftentimes both parents are working and have lives in the city and don’t want to commute in and then worry about having to get back home. There is a much bigger traction to city life.”

The article looks at families in New York City and San Francisco who live in one bedroom apartments with at least one child. Clutter and stuff in general is eschewed since there simply isn’t space for it.

Setting up a one-bedroom home for a family of four is not easy. In the making-space-out-of-nothing department, Dina Weiss and Jason Severs are master illusionists. A walk-in closet in their one-bedroom co-op on the Lower East Side was converted to a nursery in 2005, when their son, Sam, was born. But when their daughter, Matilda, followed 19 months later, they gave up their master bedroom for the children to share.

“We don’t feel like we’ve compromised,” Ms. Weiss, 35, a part-time teacher, said on a recent tour of their bright, clutter-free home. The couple sleep in the 8-by-9-foot former closet that housed their first baby. It is now a cozy cabin with a wall of built-ins and a queen-size bed tucked into the shelves. “We’d rather have another bathroom,” she added. “In New York people will do anything to have an extra bathroom.”

The article is inspiring and does a nice job exploring the possibilities of small-space living.

Image by Tina Fineberg for The New York Times.

As I mentioned yesterday, we see meal planning as the best process for planning healthy meals, creating a simple shopping list, and avoiding the stressful “what’s for dinner” moment in front of the open refrigerator. A meal plan helps to keep clutter out of your body, and streamlines your at-home eating.

One of the ways you can use a freezer to help with meal planning is by vacuum sealing foods you buy in bulk. If you don’t own a product like a FoodSaver Vacuum Sealer, using freezer-safe zip-top bags and squeezing out as much air as possible can work as well. To get the air out of a zip-top bag, close the bag except for an inch at one of the corners. Submerge the exterior of the bag in water almost to the top of the bag. Let the pressure of the water release air from around your food, and then quickly close the last inch at the top of the bag. Be careful not to let any of the water into the bag and onto your food.

The way we use our FoodSaver is pretty straightforward. We start by buying fish filets, beef filets, chicken breasts, roasts, ground turkey, some pork cuts, and usually one or two other meat items based on what is freshest at our butcher’s shop. (If you buy half a cow from a CSA or another animal in larger portion, ask to have the meat butchered for you. My butcher does the vacuum sealing for his customers for a small fee.) Then, we head to our farmer’s market or grocery store and pick up some lettuces and other vegetables that are in season. We buy what we know we like and will use in the next three months.

After shopping, we go home and divide everything up into meal-size portions (we’ll put two fish filets in one vacuum bag, for example). We seal up the storage bags, adhere a piece of masking tape with the date written on it, and throw them all in the freezer. Well, except for the vegetables we want to eat fresh and the lettuces. Lettuces should never be frozen — you don’t want to freeze vegetables with high water content. When you put meat into their bags, you also can add marinades in with the food and they can absorb flavors during the time in the freezer.

When I create my meal plan, I “go shopping” in my freezer and see what I have and what meals I can create from the food in the freezer. I write down what meat I need to pull out of the freezer and transfer it into the refrigerator to thaw two days in advance. (Don’t thaw meat or fish on the counter.) Vegetables I usually don’t thaw ahead of time.

How do you use your freezer to keep meal planning simple? I’m looking forward to getting our deep freezer and having the convenience of being able to buy more in bulk than we already do.

How minimalist is your workspace? An uncluttered workspace is a thing of beauty.

I write a lot about minimalism on Zen Habits, including guides to creating a minimalist home, minimalist housework, and beating clutter entropy.

On Unclutterer, my favorite feature is the Workspace of the Week, with its cool setups.

Today, I thought I’d share my pretty minimalist workspace, and share some thoughts on how to go about creating one of your own.

What’s a minimalist workspace?
That question will have different answers for each person. There can be no single definition. The ultimate minimalist workspace, I think, would be to have no desk or papers or computer or anything of the kind — just yourself. You’d think, and talk, and maybe sit on the floor.

Of course, that won’t work for most of us, so it’s more useful to look at our minimum requirements, and focus on creating a workspace that addresses these essentials and nothing more.

So the first step is for you to consider your requirements for working, and what’s essential to your workflow. If possible, streamline and simplify that workflow and those requirements. Then, once you’ve got that down to a minimum, see what the minimum setup would be for those essentials and your workflow. Eliminate everything unnecessary.

What are your requirements?
It’s interesting to note that what you think your requirements are might not be the minimum. They might just be what you’re used to doing.

Taking myself as an example: I used to work with tons of paper, files, sticky notes, and all the usual office tools (pens, pencils, notebooks, pads, stapler, hole puncher, whiteout, calendar, personal organizer, etc.). But then I realized that it’s possible to work without paper, and I’ve eliminated the need for all that stuff. In fact, as I’ve eliminated paper, I’ve eliminated the need for drawers.

Now, you might not have that luxury, and I’m not saying you need to go that extreme. Your needs may be different than mine — but the point is to see if it’s possible to change the way you work, so that you still get the essentials done, without all the same requirements. It’s worth some thought at least — and if you make changes, as I did, you might find that changing things in small increments is better. I didn’t do away with paper altogether. I did it in steps, eliminating different needs for paper one at a time.

My Minimalist Setup

Basically, I have an iMac and a table. No need for papers, files, drawers, other tools.

I work from home these days, and I do everything online. I do have a phone (elsewhere in my house, so it doesn’t disturb me) and a cell phone (also elsewhere), but I don’t have a PDA, an iPod, a printer (though my wife has ordered one for her needs), a scanner, a fax machine, or anything like that. I don’t print anything and I don’t use fax (an outdated technology).

On my computer, I mostly just use Firefox, as I do nearly everything online. I also use text programs for writing (TextEdit, WriteRoom mostly) and a couple other utilities such as CyberDuck for uploading files, Quicksilver for everything, and GIMP for photo editing.

All my organizing needs are taken care of on the computer: Address Book, Gmail, text files for to-do lists and errands and ideas and projects, Gcal for scheduling.

Tips for Creating Your Own Minimalist Workspace
You won’t need to have my setup, but once you’ve determined your minimum needs, here are some tips for making your workspace as minimalist as possible. Not all tips will work for you, so pick and choose which ones will work best for your workflow.

1. Have one inbox. If paper is a part of your life, keep an inbox tray on top of your desk and make sure ALL papers, including phone messages and sticky notes, go into this tray. You might have to train your co-workers if they’re not already used to this. Don’t leave papers scattered all over your desk, unless you’re actually working on them at this moment. You might also have a “working file” folder for papers you’re working on but not at this moment, but put this working file in a drawer, so that it’s out of the way. Clear out your inbox each day — nothing should go back in there after you process them. It’s not a storage bin, but an inbox. Read more on clearing your inbox.
2. Clear your desktop. Aside from your computer, your inbox tray, your phone, and maybe a nice photo of a loved one, there should be nothing on top of your desk. No papers (again, unless you’re working on them), no notes, no stapler or pens or other junk. Clear as much of it off as humanly possible. If you want to include a couple other essentials, you should, but be sure they absolutely must be there. Keep it as clear as possible, as a clear desk is a relaxing workspace.
3. Get rid of knick-knacks. This goes with the above item, but many people don’t even think about all the little trinkets they have on top of their desk. They’re usually unnecessary. Toss ‘em!
4. Clear the walls. Many people have all kinds of stuff posted on their walls. It creates visual clutter. Get them off your walls. If it’s a reference guide, put it on your computer and set up a hotkey so you can call the guide up with a keystroke when needed.
5. Clear your computer desktop. Many people also have tons of icons on their computer desktop. It’s the same principle as a real desktop — clear it of everything unnecessary, so you can have a nice simple workspace. Keeping icons on your desktop is usually inefficient. It’s hard to find them among a jumble of files. If they’re necessary to open many times a day, file them away and use a hotkey to call them up. Quicksilver for Mac or Autohotkey for Windows are my favorite programs for this.
6. Re-examine your paper needs. I started doing this a little over a year ago, and one by one, I realized I could eliminate my different needs for paper. I stopped printing stuff out to read (duh!) and just kept it on the computer. Yeah, that’s obvious. I also stopped keeping paper copies of files I had on the computer, as they just took up more space. Also fairly obvious, perhaps. I also asked people to stop faxing me stuff, and to email it instead. That should be obvious, but I think a lot of people ignore this step. I also asked people to stop sending me paper memos, and use email instead. Stop circulating documents by paper. I stopped bills and notices coming in by paper that I could get online. I stopped catalogs and newsletters coming in by mail. I still get some mail, but for the most part I toss it. You might not be able to eliminate paper, but you can probably reduce it.
7. Eliminate unnecessary tools. Think about each tool you have in your desk, in your work area, and even in your office. Do you need a stapler and hole puncher? Do you need all those pens? Do you really need a fax machine? Or a scanner? You might not have control over all these types of tools, but if you do, eliminate the ones you don’t really need, maybe one at a time.
8. Simplify your filing. As mentioned above, it’s unnecessary to keep paper copies of files you have on your computer or can access online. Back stuff up online if you’re worried about losing them. Having stuff digitally makes them searchable, which is much better than filing. Just archive, and search when necessary. If you do need paper files, keep them alphabetically and file immediately, so that you don’t have a huge “to be filed” pile. Once every few months, weed out unnecessary files.
9. Go through each drawer. One drawer at a time, take out all the contents and eliminate everything you don’t need. It’s much nicer to use drawers if you can open them and see order. Have a designated spot for each item and make sure to put those items back in that spot immediately, every time.
10. Use a minimalisk desk. As mentioned above, I just use a table, as I don’t need drawers. While you might not want to go to that extreme, you can find desks without too many drawers or contraptions or designs. Simple as possible is best.
11. Clear the floor. There should be nothing on your floor but your desk and chair. No files, no boxes. Keep it clear!

Obviously, this is intended for small living spaces and isn’t going to be very useful for larger families. For a small space, however, it is well done.

(via Tuvie.com)

Self-imposed limitations

I’m not the first to note the challenge that modern computing presents to human concentration. Writing is a hard thing to do, and when you have to do it, easy things like email, feeds, and Facebook can tempt and paralyze you.

The name of the game is focus and a cottage industry of apps has sprouted around eliminating distractions. The poster-child for these is WriteRoom, which hides everything on your screen except a monochrome text-editor. Slate has called these programs “zenware,” while the New York Times took a more Western tack and called them “biblical.”

These programs work because they allow users to self-impose limitations in order to concentrate and get more done in less time. Internet-related distractions are not the only target. In large part these tools are a revolt against the tyranny of Word. That was the focus of the New York Times piece, which was inspired by the Steven Poole essay “Goodbye, cruel Word.” In it he explains how the Microsoft flagship long ago gave up the pretense that it was a tool for the art of writing. A good tool disappears in the act of creation. Word might once have been such a thing, but that’s certainly no longer the case. Poole, an author of two books and countless articles, writes:

Many people agree that revision 5.1a, specifically, was the best version of Word that Microsoft has ever shipped, combining utility and minimalist elegance with reliability. Sadly for me, although it wasn’t strictly necessary, after a few years and a colour Performa I “upgraded” to Word 98, and somehow the magic was gone. Yes, I turned off all the crappy lurid toolbars and tried to make the compositional space as simple as possible, but by this time Word was stuffed with all kinds of “features” that let you print a pie-chart on the back of a million envelopes or publish your cookery graphs to your “world wide web home-page”, and it already felt to me that Word was only grudgingly letting me write nothing but, you know, words. Trigger Happy got out of Word 98 and onto the streets, but not without routine crashes and the occasional catastrophic loss of a few finely honed paragraphs.

He goes on to say that he’s converted to WriteRoom and Scrivener, but not before giving us a tour of the tools that he’s loved the most. Apart from Word 5.1a, they include a Brother LW-20 electric typewriter with a 6-line LCD screen, and an ultraportable Psion 5. What he likes so much about WriteRoom and the rest, he says, is how much they imitate the single-minded purposefulness of those old tools.

Retro-computing

That brings me to the second theme in this story. One way to achieve zen word processing is to hide the fact that your modern computer is a modern computer. (Out there, no doubt, is someone who paid $1,800 for a MacBook Air only to then run WriteRoom on it.) It’s an attempt to travel back to a time before virtual tailfins. Another way to zen, however, is to simply use the tools from that era—the era in which word processing had been perfected.

Writer Paul Ford has said that his weapon against distractions was installing WordPerfect for DOS on his computer—the original that WriteRoom emulates. As a result of switching to the mouse-less, crash-less WordPerfect he says, “My average daily word count has doubled, and my stock of fresh ideas seems to be replenishing.”

Another promoter of retro-computing is Andy Ihnatko who inspired me to look not just to old software, but to old hardware as well. He sings the praises of his NEC MobilePro 790, a Windows CE device he picked up for $10 at the MIT flea market. It doesn’t have the MacBook Air’s 1.6 GHz or good looks, but it matches its weight, comfortable keyboard, and more than serviceable screen. But when distraction-free writing is the goal, the latter matters more than the former.

The AlphaSmart Neo

I think I did Andy one better, though, or at least more retro. I discovered the AlphaSmart Neo, in part thanks to Paul Ford’s writings because the Neo is his companion to WordPerfect. What is the Neo? It’s a full keyboard with six-line LCD attached. That’s it. No distractions. It’s a thing of beauty.

At two pounds, I take it everywhere. I love my MacBook, but it kills my back, and for no good reason since most of the time I just want to write. Instant-on, and automatic save of every keystroke make it even more appealing. Some other retro advantages:

• At an all-day conference my three-hour battery on my Mac isn’t much help and I have to be on the hunt for limited power outlets. (The NEC MobilePro wouldn’t fare much better.) The Neo’s frugal processor and simple screen, on the other hand, gets me 700 hours from 3 AA batteries. That’s about a year’s worth of normal use.
• The keyboard is amazing. It’s a real, honest-to-goodness keyboard with satisfying travel and quiet clickitiness. It really feels better than my Apple Bluetooth Keyboard, which is the same design as the Air’s. It also beats out the MobilePro’s slightly cramped keyboard.
• AlphaSmart was started by two former Apple engineers and it has overtones of the eMate 300. Like the eMate, the AlphaSmart was designed for the education market, and it shows in the build quality. If it’s tough enough for kindergardeners, it’s tough enough for me.

Most important, though, is that it keeps me focused. If I go to a coffee shop to get some work done, the only thing I can do with my Neo is write. There are no distractions. There isn’t even bold or italics (something I get around with Markdown). When writing is the only thing you can do, you get it done, and it remains an enjoyable activity because it’s not the thing that’s keeping you from Twitter.

At some point in our technological past we perfected word processing. Every feature since then seems to have subtracted from the experience. Do yourself a favor and look into some single-purpose, “underpowered,” and self-limiting tech.

This isn’t the most unclutered workspace I’ve ever seen, but there’s still something very charming about it. I like the symmetry bewteen the right side of her desk with the walls and the open desktop on the left for multi-purpose workspace. I find it comforting.

Want to have your own workspace featured in Workspace of the Week? Submit a picture to the Unclutterer flickr pool. Check it out because we have a nice little community brewing there. Also, don’t forget that workspaces aren’t just desks. If you’re a cook, it’s a kitchen; if you’re a carpenter, it’s your workbench.

Acknowledging that dishes will break resulted in a few changes to our registry. First, we decided to register for plain, white dishes of which we had no emotional attachment but served high utility. We went with a pattern that had been produced by a major manufacturer for decades because we knew that it was likely to continue or at least be easily replaced off of Replacements, Ltd. Also, we went with plain white because we knew that we could dress it up or down, as well as put it in the dishwasher.

Second, we decided to register for glassware that we knew was being discontinued. This kept the cost low, and paved the way for our real hope with our glassware. The idea was that as each piece broke, we would replace it with something completely different from our original set. If any of our friends broke a glass and offered to replace it, we’d just tell them to buy an inexpensive glass of their choosing. Variations in glassware look creative and inspiring against our plain white plates when we set the table.

It may sound cluttered to have non-matching glassware in the kitchen, but it’s not. We don’t have more glasses than we need, all of our glasses are functional, and they are stored appropriately. Being uncluttered doesn’t mean looking exactly the same, it means using and honoring what you have and being organized with its storage system.

The idea of mismatched glassware against a plain background can be instituted in many areas of your home. Think about having every chair around your dining table being different pieces from the same period or knobs on your kitchen cupboards being the same style but in different colors. Remember that good design and an uncluttered life can be full of variety and creativity in unconventional ways. You don’t have to live in an uncomfortable, soul-less museum to be clutter free.

I was wondering whether you might have any thoughts on what to do with the empty spaces left behind from de-cluttering. Specifically, we have decided that two full rooms of our house – the guest bedroom and the formal dining room – are serving no purpose and we would like to get rid of everything in both rooms. But what should we do with these new wide-open spaces? Having a blank formal dining room right as you walk in the house is a bit of an eyesore, and moreover it creates a temptation to fill the space with new purchases we don’t need.

Now, you should take what I’m about to say to you with a grain of salt, because you’re talking to a serious unclutterer here, but I would take the opportunity to do something radical.

Sell your home and move into something smaller.

American home sizes have more than doubled since the 1950s, yet we constantly complain about not having enough space. The bigger a house we buy, the more we buy to fill it, and this has led to the proliferation of the self-storage industry. Now that you’ve realized that you don’t need those two extra rooms, why look for excuses to fill them up again? That said, if you’re passionate about ballet, for example, and you’ve always wanted a dance studio and it will bring you joy to have one, by all means repurpose the room to be a dance studio. But, you wouldn’t be asking what to do with your space if you had a definite idea.

To me, a formal dining room is a unitasker. If you don’t use it more than two or three times a year, why bother with it at all? And, think of how much money you’ll save if you move into a smaller, cozier space. You could have your house paid off in much less time, or move in closer to the city to shorten your commute.

Not so long ago, creating professional music tracks required racks upon racks of specialized equipment and cost tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars.

While thousands of little blinking lights and twisted nests of cables may look impressive when Sean “Puff ‘P Diddy aka Puffy’ Daddy” Combs rolls up with his entourage to cut a new single, such setups can do serious damage to both your wallet and your limited space.

Apple recognized the burgeoning independent music market in 2002 with the first version of it’s Logic Pro software, and truly brought production abilities to the masses in 2004 with GarageBand. It didn’t take me long to ditch my PortaStudio, VS-840, and associated bins of tapes, disks and patch cables.

GarageBand is currently included as a standard software application on all Macintosh computers as part of the iLife suite. It’s perfectly suited to quick recordings when inspiration strikes, and even producing very passable demos. Professional quality recordings, though, still demand more robust — and much more expensive — software.

But yesterday, Apple changed the game again with the announcement of Logic Studio, which integrates Logic Pro 8, formerly separate application Soundtrack Pro, a new interface for using Logic Pro for live shows, as well as thousands of loops, plugins, and software instruments. This is a pretty incredible suite, and I predict that some musicians will literally be abandoning their racks for Macs and USB controllers.

And the best part — the whole package can be had for just under five bills, which makes it the ideal solution to serve as the hub of a minimalist recording setup. Add a decent mic, and good pair of reference monitors or headphones, and you’re in business. As an added bonus for us unclutterers, Apple also has abandoned the annoying USB dongle that formerly plagued pricey pro software packages.

Way to go Apple — yet again.

A team of engineers at MIT believes that these frustrations are caused by visual clutter. In response, they have designed a visual clutter detector to identify when bad design hampers a person’s ability to understand information, causes confusion, or interrupts concentration. The clutter detector is “a breakthrough that could help everyone from fighter pilots to Web site designers.”

A PC World article discusses the clutter detector’s methodology:

… clutter is perceived differently by different people, so coming up with a universal measure of what’s hard or easy to pick out in a display is challenging. The model takes into account such factors as color, data and contrast.

Visual clutter is obviously different from physical clutter, but if you rid your view of clutter then you rid yourself of distractions. Check out the article and the underlying research (available for .zip download here) for more details.

That said, I’m so excited about Book Swim, a new service that promises to do for books what Netflix has done for DVDs. You pay a monthly fee, come up with a list of books, get three in the mail (no postage fees either way), return them when you’re done (no late fees) and get the next one in your queue. How awesome is that?

It sounds like a great way to sample books you might not otherwise pick up. They have plans from 3 books out at a time for $19.99 a month, to 11 books for $35.99. Sure, the library is always another great option, but this is so convenient for busy folks. One feature I dig: If you really love a book you can just keep it and pay them for it. I’m not sure how great their selection is, but I plan to get a subscription and report back with details. Anyone out there already a Book Swim member?

I hated carrying around my keys so I installed combination door lock deadbolts on my house doors. ”Look ma! No more keys!” … There’s also no need to give spare/emergency keys to family, they just know the code.

He points us to this keyless lock solution from Codelock. Not sure keys bother me that much, but if they bother you, pair this with keyless entry in your car and you’re home free.