In about a week I will be dragging my family along on a real world experiment in lean living. In past posts I have discussed matching capacity to demand in living space. With this in mind we will be moving from a 2000 square foot house to a 900 square foot apartment. If this sounds crazy to you you are not alone. I have been excited about this new experience ever since we made the decision, but I have
been amazed at the inability of most people to understand. Virtually everyone I have spoken to about our new living space immediately assumes that this is a temporary move to get through my job transition. No one can imagine that we would not want to buy a house at the earliest opportunity. For us however this is a chance to simplify our lives by physically limiting our footprint. We have sold off nearly all of our stuff and made many difficult choices about what we will keep. There will be no room to keep the unnecessary. In addition, the new apartment is as walkable as we could possibly find. We are making an escape attempt from the suburban driving culture. Nearly everything that was only a short drive away will now be only a short walk away. This walkabilty is calculated to reduce the time cost of many of our frequent tasks and gain us more discretionary time for each other. The next few months may be a difficult adjustment but they should at
least be interesting.
