Electronically Obsessed A tech addict's guide to using the Internet to streamline your life

Moving to the Cloud: Taking Inventory

That's it, dude.  I got tired of all this clutter.  Eliminate, eliminate, eliminate. I've reduced my entire life down to one suitcase and a single Blu-ray disk. - Jason

Admittedly, I'd always found Jason (not his real name) a bit crazy, but interesting.  Jason grew up in Toronto and moved as far away as possible once he graduated from college.  He ended up living in Thailand for the next nine years.  During the first few years, he threw himself into the party lifestyle of Bangkok.  He played in bands, stayed out late, and was quite involved in the ex-pat community.

One day, he realized that despite the constant party, he was unhappy and unfulfilled.  He sought to eliminate the resource-sucking clutter in his life and concentrate his attention on things that actually interested him.  He now spends his time living simply, learning new languages, and training Muay Thai kickboxing in Bangkok.

I understand that many people can't or won't go to such extreme lengths of clutter reduction.  I am one of those people.  However, there are many things that many people are programmed to accept.  Here's a short list of time or resource-intensive things that you can eliminate today with a computer, scanner, and access to a broadband Internet connection.

1. Cable or Satellite Digital Video Recorder - Solution: Hulu, iTunes, and/or Netflix Watch Instantly
2. Stacks of CDs - Solutions: iTunes, Zune Store, Pandora, Last FM for new content; Digitize your CD collection using iTunes and put the CDs in storage (or sell them if you aren't that attached to them)
3. DVD/Blu-ray Movies - Solution: Buy the ones you will actually watch repeatedly; Netflix subscription for the others
4. Semi-important documents (e.g., receipts, contracts, etc.) - Solutions: Scan and shred.  Upload the images to Amazon S3, Mozy, Dropbox and keep a local copy on a CD-R, DVD-R, Blu-ray disk, or a large capacity (750 GB or more) external hard disk drive.

So, today, make a list of things that you can eliminate or compress.  If you like, feel free to share your list in the comments below.  In the coming weeks, I'll go through detailed steps on my experiences with streamlining my entertainment and data using the Internet.

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