Dear friend,

An easy way to create more: destroy more.

I. Kill your past self.

For me, I let my last self hold me back. My regrets of the past, my fear of judgement from others and other bullshit.

One day I woke up and thought to myself,

This is all bullshit. I’m gonna create a new identify for myself. I’m gonna kill my past self, by purging all my old possessions and memories, and become reborn.

I started off by giving away most of my personal possessions. I subtracted all my cameras by giving them to friends, and people who I thought could use it better than me, until I just had one camera and lens (Leica MP and 35mm f2 Summicron). I hid all my devices, and stuck only to my laptop. I only kept three music albums on my laptop to listen to. I donated 95% of my clothes to the Salvation Army.

I felt free. New. Reborn.

I destroyed my past self, to create a new self.

II. Don’t listen to me.

Of course, don’t do what I did. I’m the crazy one. But it worked for me. It probably won’t work for you.

Everyday, I try to uninstall one app from my devices. By removing distractions I am able to find innovation and creativity.

For example, I stopped reading Kindle ebooks. I then figured out I can download free ebooks on archive.org and project Gutenberg. So now I just read all my ebooks as text files, using Ulysses on the mac or iPad.

I got rid of all my digital cameras. Now only Ricoh GR II. I learned to innovate with the fixed 28mm lens, and integrated flash. It’s the only digital camera I like.

I wanted to travel less, so I’m trying to do fewer workshops. So Cindy innovated with Haptic. So now we’re selling products, which gives us more freedom.

So friend know if you remove options you will force yourself to be more creative.

III. Always subtract.

When in doubt, subtract. Don’t add. Adding will create confusion, complexity, and stress to your life.

Subtract until you have nothing left to subtract. Like the iPhone bliss of just one button. Or the minimalist lines of a Porsche. Or a light weight Mazda. Or a minimalist zen garden.

More is less. Less is more.**

Be strong,
Eric