Derek Hatchard writes on the theme of "improving experiences" which includes managing technology, user experiences, life hacking, and some business related stuff. Derek has a software development blog at ardentdev.com and a product review site at wellrated.com. He is a Principal Member of Technical Staff (PMTS) at Radian6, a salesforce.com company. All views expressed are his alone (or those of any guest writers) and do not represent the views of Radian6 or salesforce.com.

Living in Excess

toys Several weeks ago I packed up three garbage bags with toys: one of damaged / abused toys to discard, one of more gently used toys to give away, and one of toys to pack away for a few weeks.

This past weekend I collected a box of toys from my recently claimed home theatre / media room.  I stashed them in the storage room with the previous bag of packed away toys.

Today after everyone had cleared out of the house for the day, I collected another load of toys from the home theatre in order to a clear a path to my home office.

Given that the stick was recently inducted into the National Toy Hall of Fame (linkage), I must admit that my children have a glut of toys.

On a related note, our clothes dryer has been broken for 9 or 10 days.  Last week we made some trips to neighbourhood and family houses to catch up on laundry.  But now it’s been a while and after a replacement circuit board failed to correct the problem today, I assessed the laundry buildup from the past week.  Yikes!  We have a lot of clothes, too.

Admittedly there are two adults and three children in our house, but still I am embarrassed by the lack of simplicity in our lifestyle and living space. And I don’t think we are unusual in middle class North America. Something to think about as we race into the gluttonous holiday season…

(Photo: Brent and MariLynn)


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One Response

  1. Foster says:

    I feel your pain/realization Derek. I have 2 youngsters and a wife who spends and I have that feeling all the time. There are things we all need but not to the level we bring it. After watching this video I was even more aware of the trend and never ending pile of stuff we each collect, http://www.storyofstuff.com/

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