Cleaning Out 2024 to Give Space for 2025

Why subtraction is an effective path towards fewer better things

An unusually gray day in Santa Barbara, perfect for spending quality time at the library after a quick morning surf. Photo: Per Håkansson.

During my early morning beach walk, a substitute for swimming now when the pool is closed over the holidays, I decided to spend the rest of this unusually gray weathered day to clean out the things I don’t want to bring with me into 2025.

I was inspired by a quote I read by Lao Tzu, the famous Chinese philosopher:

“To attain knowledge, add things every day. To attain wisdom, subtract things every day.”

In Western culture we favor addition over subtraction to add meaning and happiness in our lives. But maybe it’s just the opposite that’s true, by taking away what doesn’t bring joy, real meaning might appear will little effort.

The first thing that has to go is the part of social media that is making everyone miserable, mostly represented by Meta and Twitter (now X). Luckily, there are now better platforms, like LinkedIn and Bluesky Social that are healthier choices.

Information Diet

But it’s not just new media but also old media that can be quite overwhelming. We need to ask ourselves what we really need so that we can engage with the relevant media outlets and receive information that is actually actionable.

It’s okay to just sip from a small cup instead of gulping down everything from the firehose. New knowledge and skill acquisition should be a pleasant experience and not feel like living in a black ops site being forcefully waterboarded.

For next year I’m cancelling all news and focusing my attention on magazines because the best ones offer depth and not just more of the same never-ending misery. I prefer understanding over knowing what goes on in the world.

Mailbox Better

I’m also reorganizing my mailboxes. I’ve one old mailbox for the necessity of having an email address for “official business” and one new for all the good stuff. The old is turned off, rarely checked, and the new is the default.

I’ve done these things to own my own reality, to create a holistic lifestyle that I enjoy, void of fragmentation and disruption, and filled with what I’m interested in, not chosen by an algorithm to sell me more stuff I don’t need, but by myself.

Beginning 2025 really lean, and not drowning or suffocating in stuff (which incapsulates everything), will create more space for real meaning. Everything that lacks this truest form of meaning needs to go, one way or the other.

Less about material downsizing

Luckily, my decades long material purging has made this cleaning exercise more about habits, beliefs, and activities than about material downsizing. I’ve exactly what I need in that department, maybe even a little bit less.

And I can tell you this, not having enough stuff is really a great advantage. It forces you to appreciate what you have and use it frequently, to be more creative and think about alternative solutions (borrow or rent) or abstain.

I’m also cleaning out in the peoples category. First by closing down the aforementioned social networks and then by being much more selective in who I spend my time with. All friendships are simply not meant to last.

This might sound crude but it’s either that or being back to suffocating and drowning in past-due relationships that at one point in your life meant a lot but now no longer does. You can still value past times and live well in the present.

Less is simply more

I could go on and on about the importance of cleaning out your house, your garage, your digital footprint, your friendships, your todo list, your projects, habits, beliefs, and activities, but you get the point. Less is more.

Cleaning out stuff is easy because we know what we frequently use. It’s the disposing that is hard for four simple reasons: