Why I Stay in a Small Apartment

I still live in the same small apartment. If I had more space, I’d fill it.

That’s Parkinson’s Law of space. Work expands to fill the time available. Stuff expands to fill the space available. Living in a smaller space naturally limits accumulation because you’re forced to make trade-offs. You’re forced to choose. That’s the whole benefit. Downsizing is a productivity hack.

Look at one area of your home or office that feels full. What is one item you can remove to create empty space?

When I buy a new item, especially clothes or gadgets, I immediately remove a similar existing item. One in, one out. It prevents accumulation and forces me to evaluate the true value of the new purchase against the old one. Pick one category, t-shirts or kitchen gadgets, and enforce the One-In, One-Out rule for the next month.

There’s a trick for the “out” half, because that’s where people stall. To declutter physical items, use local Buy Nothing or giveaway groups. It eliminates the friction of transporting items to a thrift store. If you can leave it on the porch, you’re more likely to let it go. Search for Buy Nothing plus your city on Facebook or local apps.

I used to think this only mattered because the apartment is small. The same thing happens to your calendar, your phone, and your credit card. Give a calendar a gap and a lukewarm meeting moves in. Give a phone empty space and notifications come back. Give a credit card a quiet month and an annual charge still hits. Then you get busy managing the pile.

Most productivity gains come from aggressively cutting what you don’t do. Focus on the empty space in your schedule and your life to create room for high-impact work. That’s the Negative Space Principle.

Does this sound familiar? You keep adding. You still have no room for the work that actually matters. Look at last month’s calendar. Find the hours that didn’t deserve to be there.

Audit your last 30 days of activities. Identify the negative space: time spent on low-value tasks. Cut one of those things this week. One cut. Not a full life overhaul.

So how do you decide what gets back in?

Derek Sivers has a test I use on any new commitment. Ask yourself: is this a Hell Yeah? If the answer is not an enthusiastic Hell Yeah, the answer is no. That filter naturally eliminates lukewarm obligations and frees up space for high-energy activities.

Apply the Hell Yeah test to the next three invitations or requests you receive. If you have to talk yourself into it, it’s a no.

I used to curate notifications one by one. Now I don’t do it that way. I turn off all non-essential notifications immediately. Then I slowly add back only the critical ones. Zero first. It’s easier than the reverse process because it removes the emotional friction of deciding what to keep.

Go to your phone settings right now and disable all notifications except for Phone, Messages, and Calendar. Don’t negotiate with the list. Flip them off, then earn them back.

The same reset works with money, except you go back a full year. Review your credit card statements from the past 12 months, not just the current month, to identify recurring subscriptions. That catches annual charges you might miss in a monthly review. Create a simple spreadsheet and sort every subscription.

Green: Keep.

Red: Cut.

Orange: Evaluate or replace.

Open your bank app and scroll back 12 months. Put the subscriptions in the spreadsheet.

Meetings hide the same way subscriptions do. If you must leave a recurring meeting, don’t just ghost it. Transition out. Ask the organizer to record it and send a summary, or use an AI transcription tool like Otter.ai, so you can catch up in 10 minutes instead of spending 60 minutes in attendance. Identify one recurring meeting where you are not a key contributor. Propose the record-and-summarize alternative to the organizer.

Some tasks are not Hell Yeahs, but they’re necessary. Data entry. Report formatting. Use AI as an energy vampire slayer for those specific drains. AI can turn a manual, draining CSV cleanup task into a single 5-second terminal command. List one recurring task that feels like drudgery and prompt an AI tool to write a script or automate the process.

Adopt a personal policy of not engaging in negative arguments or drama. If someone says something provocative, simply agree or disengage. “You’re right, have a nice day.” It’s a Keanu Reeves-inspired approach, and it preserves mental energy for high-value tasks. Practice the No Argument rule in your next low-stakes interaction. You don’t need to win the comment. You need your energy for the work.

Open your bank app. Scroll back 12 months. Find one Red subscription and cut it today.