# Back from holiday; minimising the office; Decimal.Business update

> An end-of-2025 update: I'm back from holiday. Small business is full-steam-ahead. And I threw away half the office.

Hey all. I thought I'd mentioned this here but evidently not: I just got back from a 3-week holiday. My whole family visited from the UK. Mam, dad, sister, brother-in-law, and two nieces.

Ages ranged from 9 to 78. We visited Sydney, Canberra, and the Gold Coast. It was amazing, but you know that old cliché that _I need a holiday to recover from my holiday_? Well yeah, that's definitely true.

## I threw away half the office

I got back, took the few personal items out of my bag, and put them on my desk. Pencil case with a few pencils and charging cables. Notebook. Glasses case. Battery pack. Wallet.[^wallet]

[^wallet]: In daily life, I don't carry a separate wallet. Apple Wallet (the software) handles my bank cards, and Apple Wallet (the [magnetic one](https://www.apple.com/au/shop/product/MA7A4FE/A/iphone-finewoven-wallet-with-magsafe-blackberry) that sticks to the back of your phone) holds my drivers licence[^licence] and a couple of business cards. But when travelling I take a couple of extra cards – health insurance, medicare, credit card – so these go in my tiny Bellroy wallet which typically stays in my bag.

[^licence]: Which I hate having to carry around – I don't drive, on a typical day – but I've been burned one too many times by not having ID on me. As soon as the ACT introduces digital licences, I'll stop carrying the magnetic wallet.

Not much. I travel light. But still, I saw them there and was immediately filled with a tiny dread: that of putting them away in a messy drawer.

So what option was there other than to pull everything out of every drawer and throw half of it away? ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯

The time felt right. End of the year: might as well start 2025 with a clean slate. I took a bunch of photos but it'd take too long to embed them here. [Here's an iCloud shared library of the 'before](https://www.icloud.com/sharedalbum/#B2K52plgjaYTml)' if you're interested. That's each drawer's contents laid out on my desk.

### If _you_ don't throw it away...

Lucy started to do the same, and while neither of us are hoarders – those photos don't show _that much_ stuff – we had a startling realisation.

Which is that if _you_ don't throw this thing away, somebody else has to. Maybe not for a while. Depends when you die. But, eventually.

So those [16 cards](https://www.icloud.com/sharedalbum/#B2K52plgjaYTml;86466F57-5E7E-438C-8E94-56FCEE89B9DE) I was 'saving' in a little box along with my still-current bank cards. Why? My old UK drivers licence. PADI diver cards from 2003. Expired Qantas frequent flyer cards. To what end?

It's not like I considered them mementos. I didn't get them out and spread them lovingly on the table. They were just there, waiting to be thrown away. So I did, along with anything else that I don't **actively use**.

### Tending towards minimalism

On a scale of minimalist (1) to hoarder (10) I'd put us at a 4. In counting what I put back in the drawers – not counting, say, individual pencils – I have 112 items.[^inventory] `@Skjolnir` over on the Discord has 700 items in his life, _total_.

[^inventory]: Now tracked in a spreadsheet at [`12.14 Inventory`](/las/12.14/).

But I'm comfortable that everything in those drawers has a use. I questioned every item: do I actively use it? Would I pay to put it in storage?

The result feels amazing. My (physical) [desktop](https://www.icloud.com/sharedalbum/#B2K5NI45MLCtxx;42A5B840-E364-4E43-9554-A6453178BA1B) now contains a laptop, a trackpad, a keyboard, and a mouse. [Every drawer](https://www.icloud.com/sharedalbum/#B2K5NI45MLCtxx) is neat and only contains what's necessary. As disposable items age out, I won't replace them. And I've got an entire drawer empty.

**I definitely recommend this**. There is an undeniable mental clarity that comes from having less stuff around you. Less stuff means less decisions.

## Decimal.Business

And so, back to work with a clear mind. We're both 100% focused on the upcoming [Decimal.Business](/) system. Christmas means nothing to either of us so, other than allowing ourselves a watching of _Die Hard with a Vengeance_ and a bottle of something bubbly on the 25th, we'll be working hard to get it out as soon as possible.[^die-hard]

[^die-hard]: We feel like we've seen the first two movies recently enough.

For those of you who've pre-purchased, you have our deepest gratitude. We'll have it with you as soon as humanly possible.