Trade your atoms for bits

10/4/09 Sixteen jazz CDs, donated to Casco Public Library

I love the digital age. I get rid of stuff while still keeping it. Paradoxical Downsizing!

Today, I donated sixteen great jazz CDs to the Casco Public Library. (Click here for my previous post about the library's new John R. Bennett Memorial Music Collection.) But, before giving them away I downloaded all the music to my computer.

To paraphrase Chris Anderson, author of Free, we can trade atoms for bits. We can get rid of the physical stuff, keep a digital version, thus eliminating clutter without reducing our access to the material. Very cool.

Sure, this applies to music, but what else?

Photographs. Take a picture of the picture (or, better yet, scan it), toss the original.

Personal letters & cards. Scan 'em, recycle 'em.

DVDs. This isn't easy yet for most of us, for two reasons. 1) We don't have the proper hardware or software to burn DVDs. 2) Most commercial DVDs are copy protected. However, I see both of these as changing soon. Like CDs, I think soon we'll be able to legally copy DVDs for personal use, just as we can now download digital copies of movies directly from iTunes.

Home movies. All those old VHS tapes can be converted to digital (not that we'll ever watch them anyway). Plus, with digital camcorders and Flip cameras (very cool, those Flip cameras!), our home movies from here forward are going to be digital in the first place.

Bills, receipts, invoices, statements, etc. Everything can be done electronically, as long as we contact them in advance and tell them to e-bill us. That's getting rid of stuff before it even arrives. Talk about efficiency.

What else can we digitally downsize?

Give me ideas, Dear Readers. You suggest it, I'll try it out.