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 a new industry in town: a twenty-two billion dollar, 2.2 billion square foot industry—personal storage.

So we've got triple the space, yet 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 going to equal a 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 lifeedited.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 need to edit ruthlessly. We've got to clear the arteries of our lives, and that shirt that I haven't worn 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 we use them 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 sink combined with the toilet, a dining table that becomes a bed—same space. A little side table stretches out to seat 10. 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 seat 10! My office folds away easily, hidden. My bed just pops out of the wall with 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 a 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]