Author: Brian Chandler

For this experiment I spent 2 weeks learning how much money I wasted buying literally nothing.

Paperless Statements + Auto Pay. Years ago I embraced the “conveniences” of automatic bill payment and paperless statements for most bills. In other words, I stopped paying attention. It dawned on me that maybe that was a bad idea, so I started reading.

Here’s what I found.

Electricity: Warning – math and science below. 

From a recent (winter season) bill in Seattle:
Level 1: First 944 Kilowatt Hours (KWH) at 7 cents per KWH = $66
Level 2: (we used an additional 573 KWH) at 13 cents per KWH = $75

We paid more for the last 573 KWH than the first 944. So reducing just a little will go a long way.

Light Bulbs: “Kill the Kilowatts” started with replacing some incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescents and LEDs. And over the summer I realized we get about 22 hours of daylight, we opened the blinds. Free lights!

Trash Collection: At our house garbage rates increase by bin size. We’d been paying $34/month for our half-filled 32-gallon trash can. By changing to an 18-gallon container for $26/month, we’ll save $96 in the next year by DOING NOTHING DIFFERENT!

Water In, Water Out: Complaint of the day: I don’ t like paying for water twice – first out of the faucet, and then down the drain. What if we could reduce one or both? Could “pasta water” be dumped outside – or water the flowers? What if we composted more and used the garbage disposal less? How many weeks days can I wear jeans before washing? How important is flushing, really?

Dog Food: We’ve been proudly serving our dogs two different “5-star” foods. Then I learned a dirty little secret: Big dogs and little dogs can eat the same food because it’s literally the same food. Switching to one shared bag, and reducing from “5-star” to “4.5-star” food (don’t tell the neighbors), we’ll save $200 in the next year.

Car Fit Bit: I added a Bluetooth device to the car (State Farm Drive Safe & Save) that allows them to collect user data like miles driven, speed, deceleration, and my innermost thoughts. Since I rarely leave our neighborhood anymore, our annual cost savings is estimated at $200 for DOING NOTHING DIFFERENT.

Too Much Data: I discovered we had been using 7 GB of a 15 GB cell phone shared data plan. I was flabbergasted that AT&T didn’t tell us we were buying data we don’t need! By reducing our plan from 15 GB to 10 GB, we will save $10/month by DOING NOTHING DIFFERENT.

Just a Little Patience: I found a door-mounted pull up bar on Amazon and put it in my shopping cart. While deciding whether to purchase, the same item popped up in our neighborhood giveaway group! It pays to procrastinate.

Final Tally. By identifying a few hidden costs, we are set to save more than $600 in the next 12 months on those things that required little-to-no change. I spent roughly 2 hours of combined research, paperwork, etc., to make it happen.

What else is out there?  How might we recoup even more?

Image credits (top to bottom): 401(K) 2012 via Flickr Commons; https://flic.kr/p/aYWk56. Keith Ellwood via Flickr Commons; https://flic.kr/p/dWRtep. Gary Larsen.

The worst day to start a new diet?  January 1.

Immediately, New Year’s Eve’s leftovers beg to be consumed. Four weeks later, the Super Bowl party offers an array of meats and cheeses and dips and beers. Then come the sweets. The Girl Scouts start Sugar Season with their aggressive sales tactics and fructose-gluten bombs. Add Valentine’s chocolates to the mix, and by mid-February I’ve given up on healthy eating for the year.

The Experiment:  Indulge in all the goodness of early-year treats, and then start a new health style mid-year. I stuck to Michael Pollan’s basics: “Eat real food. Mostly plants. Not too much.” I  eliminated added sugars and “white carbs” (bread, rice, potatoes), drastically reduced dairy and any caloric drinks, and stuck mostly to fruits, vegetables, eggs, and beans.

One more rule.  I took a photograph of EVERYTHING I ate, from a full meal to a single “lick the spoon off” bit of peanut butter.  Every single thing.

Day 1. I’ve always snuck a few bites while fixing breakfast or packing lunches for the kids, and then licked the knife of cream cheese or peanut butter or jelly or all of the above.  My new photo requirement (inconvenience of getting my phone out, and the potential embarrassment of 14 cream cheese pics) changed how I ate.

At 10:30 my internal “cereal alarm” went off. Instead, I poured another cup of coffee, and noted that I might need a bigger breakfast the next day. I literally ate four times today, compared to my “snack and graze” norm. Thanks, observation bias!

Day 2. This morning I was full before I finished my breakfast, so I wrapped it up and put it in the fridge.  Maybe, just maybe, I could ask myself questions in the midst of eating.

Day 3. I visited the grocery store last night, which made today feel – dare I say – exciting. Apples and bananas, peanuts and almonds, broccoli and kale!  Yahoo!

Also, I scheduled a dinner with friends, so I know that’ll be a diversion from the ideal, but not necessarily a problem for the experiment.   Instead of grabbing bear claws two at a time, I’ll try just one.

Day 4. Oh boy – Our family had pizza tonight. I passed, instead warming up leftover chicken soup…again.

Day 5. It is well-known by family and friends that my two favorite food groups are raw dough and raw batter. Today was a triumph in will power:  I made brownies and did not lick the bowl. I repeat, I made brownies and did not lick the bowl. It was the worst day so far.

For primarily social purposes I indulged in pizza, beer, and ice cream tonight.  Weekends will be tough. I definitely could have passed on some of this, but it was fun and tasty to enjoy a meal with friends.

Day 6. In preparation for my son hosting a sleepover tonight, I purchased 27 food items that I will not eat.  I anticipate a rough Experiment Week 2 if there are leftover Doritos lying around the house.

Day 7. Another batter miracle. I made pancakes and once again I did not lick the bowl.   I don”t even know who I am anymore.  Lesson Learned:  Eating with healthy rigor on the weekends is not sustainable.

Day 8.  Huh, my belt has a third hole?  Who knew?

Day 9. Last night I dreamed I was at a celebration dinner. I enjoyed a feast of all my favorite foods, and then I was horrified to realize I had forgotten to take pictures!

Subsequently, back in real life I forgot to take a picture of my breakfast, and then a few hours later I forgot to take a photograph my lunch. Dreams are weird.

Day 10. I woke up bored for my upcoming breakfast and ready to stop this stupid game. I really wanted carbs. Bad. So I made a bowl of muesli. It was great.

I made chocolate chip cookies and did not lick the bo…

That’s not true. I totally licked the bowl and spatula and ate raw cookie dough with a spoon and it was amazing and I have zero regrets.

Day 11. Belt hole number two – good to see you again. It’s been too long.

Days 12-13-14. Weekends are hard, but I stuck pretty close to the plan. I ate a couple Oreos and loved every bite.  Another lesson: Purposeful treats in small quantities increased my enjoyment of them. I can remember every single “unhealthy food” I ate the last 2 weeks, and each was an event.

Epilogue. A couple months later I’m not photographing meals or strictly limiting carbs, but I do try to make eating fun food an experience.  I pour cheap beer into a chilled glass, professionally plate chips and salsa, and garnish apple pie with a careful dollop of trans-fat-full, not-even-real-food, worth-every-bite Cool Whip.

And then I lick the spoon.

Further Reading. I used a combination of strategies from Michael Pollan, Tim Ferriss, and Darya Pino Rose, each of whom address food from a different-but-complementary angle.  If you’re looking for a single book or approach, I recommend Foodist by Dr. Rose.

Also, I’ve conducted and written about a few other experiments here:

1. Address Book Lottery
2. Experience Tranquility
3. Less, But Better
4. 12 Minute Workout: It’s easy just kidding

This year I’m conducting a wide-ranging series of 2-week self-experiments. After the first 4 weeks, I learned that adding new activities to an already-busy life can make that life even busier. I’d like to carve out some space.

Enter Experiment 3.

I consider myself a minimalist when it comes to physical items, but not so much with tasks, activities, and inputs – especially related to news and social media. So, for this experiment, I attempted to slow down a bit, reduce noise, add silence and experience a little boredom. My hope is that “addition by subtraction” will bring time and energy to spend with the people I love and the activities I most enjoy.

Day 1: Phone Cleanup
I removed all social media apps from my phone: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn. I also reduced my podcast subscriptions from 20 to 10. If I did nothing else for 2 weeks, this made a huge difference in my daily experience.

Day 2: Disable Notifications
I unsubscribed from all the email newsletters and notifications I could find.  No more pocket-buzzing for LinkedIn requests or e-mails when people react to my witty tweets.

It was early 2017 as I began this experiment, so it was difficult to avoid the news of a controversial presidential administration. I did manage to stay away from the news until after work today, which elicited internal questions: Am I being irresponsible? Do I even care about the world, the vulnerable, the marginalized? What if the President tweets something ridiculous? What if Betty White dies?

Day 3: Quiet
More unsubscribes, both at work and home. I noticed a significant difference in my Inbox after two days. I also recycled 40 magazines I had “planned to read someday.”

I finished an audiobook and did not start another. I paused all podcasts, at least for a couple days (an experiment within the experiment), to find out what silence might sound like.

Answer – Silence is scary as hell.

Day 4: Irony
After 30 minutes of early morning “pacifier-sucking” via e-mail and social media online, I set three priority To Do tasks and knocked them out before noon. My wife and I shared a late lunch out, brought to us by essentialism.

I discovered an Evernote folder called Minimalism, chock full of notes, articles, and book recommendations. This seemed incongruent with the ideas of minimalism. I deleted the folder.

Day 5: More Quiet
I subscribed from seven more e-mail newsletters, including some I really like. I told myself I could add them back after the experiment (Two months later, I haven’t missed them). On a no-headphones walk with the dogs, I accidentally discovered an elegant, previously-elusive solution to a difficult problem at work.

I ran a quick errand tonight with no audio soundtrack. Driving alone in the old Camry, I was joined only by my thoughts, feelings, and the smell of takeout Thai.

Day 6: Unplugged Saturday
I attempted no internet today. It was weird. While waiting for my turn at the hair stylist I literally did nothing. No screens, no magazines. Nothing. I sat quietly, staring at discounted shampoo while others stared at phones. I was legitimately concerned that people might think I was crazy.

In the afternoon I read a story that was printed in a book. A book, made of paper, that had been crafted from a tree. A tree!

Day 7: I skipped the Super Bowl and lived to write about it
Full disclosure: I watched 15 minutes of the Super Bowl: the 10-minute halftime show and 5 minutes of overtime. Instead, my son and I fried homemade donuts.

Day 8: Snow Day!
Miracle of miracles – a Snow Day in Seattle! I reworked priorities to take advantage of extra time with my family. While fixing dinner, instead of listening to a podcast or book via headphones, I switched to music, filling the house with sound. It attracted attention. I enjoyed impromptu dancing with my wife and the requisite head shakes and eye rolls from the kids. It was awesome.

Day 9: Oops
Rookie mistake today – I answered the phone from a number I didn’t know. It was a sales call that wasted everyone’s time. Lesson re-learned.

Day 10, 11, 12 – Taking Essentialism on the Road
I usually cram a lot of inputs into business trips. I work on the plane until the laptop battery dies, listen to podcasts, and consume the latest business or self-help book. This time I changed the focus from input to output. bringing only a poetry book and journal.

In the mornings I kept the hotel room TV off, swapping local morning news for a 30-second scan of newspaper headlines. It turns out people love to share news when they find out you don’t know what happened, so I just listened.

On Friday I avoided work e-mail all day, downloaded it to my laptop at the airport, and processed it in an hour on the plane. I spent the next 5 hours with a Steve Jobs biography, Yo-Yo Ma on cello, and my journal. I got bored on the plane for the first time I could remember. It was uncomfortable and annoying and generated tons of great ideas. Boredom played a vital role.

Day 13, 14: Less is More
Another No Internet Saturday, which freed up time to bag up giveaway items for the Goodwill, spend some quality time watching movies my family, and read my tree-paper-book.

I wrapped up the experiment by skipping the Grammy Awards. I figured if something amazing happened I could watch the performance later online.

I never did.

If you want to dig deeper on this topic, I recommend choosing any one of these, and applying what you learn while reading it: The Power of Less, Everything That Remains, The 4-Hour Workweek, Essentialism, or Deep Work. 

Photo Credit: Ingrained Builders

I’m planning a series of experiments aimed at attempting new daily practices, learning new skills, and finishing uncompleted projects.

The first experiment of the year is simple: E-mail 50 randomly-selected people from my address book and see what happens.

Choosing an address book. I’ve been a professional for 18 years, and in that time I’ve worked a number of different jobs. I’ve done a good job transitioning my address book each time. More recently, though, my contact list has become fractured among Outlook, Gmail, social media apps, and my phone. For the sake of choosing something, I went with my Outlook Contacts – a list I started in 1999 and currently includes 1,181 people.

Selecting 50 people. The next step was identifying the random 50 people to email. For this task I used this random number generator: http://andrew.hedges.name/experiments/random/. A few interesting things came out of the randomized subset:

• Three of my direct-reporting employees were part of the 50. To avoid “obligation to the boss” awkwardness, I removed them.
• One selected contact was a name with no e-mail address, so I replaced it with the next contact on the list.
• One was a deceased business contact. I remembered him fondly, and then added the next name.

The email. I chose my current business email address (instead of my personal Gmail) for this effort. First, that is how I met many of these people, and they may recognize it. Also, I think a corporate address is less likely to go straight to an automated spam folder.

At this stage I was nervous that this will come off as creepy or a sales call or both.

Hi,

I realize this email may seem a little weird.

As I begin 2017, instead of developing a year-long resolution, I’m trying a series of 2-week experiments. Some will be health-related (working out daily, eliminating sugar); others will be habits (meditating daily, reading fiction each night); and some just weird ideas (wear the same jeans for 2 weeks, learn the ukulele).

My first experiment is in the “weird idea” category: Contact a random subset of 50 people from my address book and track the results. I anticipate some emails will be undeliverable, recipients won’t remember me, and some will just choose not to respond. But I hope in some cases I’ll get to revisit old stories, revive a few connections, and maybe spark some interesting email discussion. (I also realize that, in some cases, we just talked last month or even yesterday – that’s part of the fun, too!)

Letting “the universe” or “God” or “mathematics” choose the initial recipients is part of the fun, and you have literally been randomly selected. If you’re up for it, I’d love to hear from you. Where are you living, what kind of activities are you enjoying, and – most importantly – what are you passionate about in 2017?

Thanks for considering, and I hope you have an amazing year!

Brian

At 6pm on January 3, 2017, I sent the email to the 50 randomly-selected contacts. And then I waited. Will anyone respond? Will some think I’m a moron? Was this a bad idea?

The numbers

• 15 bounced back immediately as undeliverable. 30% of my randomly-selected contact list was effectively useless? Yikes.
• 2 responded that evening.
• 6 responded the next day.
• 3 responded over the course of the next couple weeks, including the final response 15 days after receipt.

As of this writing, I received a total of 11 responses, which (after factoring in the undeliverables) is a 31% response rate of those who presumably received the email. Not bad for a random note with no real subject. Respondents included customers who I’d spoken with a few days before, a person I had met once at a conference 10 years ago, and my father – Hi, Dad. (I kept other identities confidential, and I’ll note here that I didn’t use any of my dad’s response in the content below.)

Responses. I was blown away by the information shared with me, given that in most cases our relationship could be considered past its “best by” date. Respondents, some of whom didn’t even really remember me, shared their life struggles, relationship problems, victories and defeats, and goals for the future. Many shared with me recent successes in health and business, and relayed to me their hopes and dreams for 2017 and beyond. Responses came from every region of the country. Here are a few sound bytes from the emails received:

• From what I remember about you, you were skinny and recently married and young.
• I’m going to be passionate about my family’s health and not just physical, but spiritual health.
• I’m on sabbatical this year and enjoying seeing new things and travelling around the world.
• Travel is in my weekly budget and chances are, if a friend asks me to visit, I’ll book it immediately.
• Thanks I felt like I won the lottery.
• Yes, weirdest email I have received in 2017.

In the end, it was a fun experiment that put me back in touch with people I hadn’t heard from in some time, and I’d recommend giving it a try.

Image Source: Flickr Creative Commons, flic.kr/p/4MLzSY